of the u.s. economy, and covid-19 relief legislation in congressional hearings. also, a discussion on the state of the affordable care act with a senior care senior strategist yvette fontenot, and cato institute's michael cannon. host: president biden today holds his first presidential news conference live at 1:15 p.m. eastern ear on c-span and c-span radio app. both the white house and the capital held events marking equal payday. president biden posted the u.s. women's soccer team, and the team captain testified before the house committee on the pay discrepancy between men and women. it is thursday, march 25, 2021. we will show you saw that

testimony, comments from the president, and ask you what are the solutions for the pay get between women and men? phone lines are simple. if you are a woman, the line is 202-748-8000. then, you can use 202-748-8001. tell us where you are taxing from. we will look for your facebook posts, too -- facebook.com/c-spanwj. from "the new york times," the pay gap has shrunk just eight cents. what can be done -- why does the gender gap still exist and what can be done to close it? they write about the significance of the pay gap and how much into the current year

american females would have to work to earn what their male counterparts earned last year -- women would have to work around 448 days to earn what men earn in 365 days. race plays a part. for black and hispanic women, the numbers are worse. for asian women, the numbers skew a little better. that is from "the new york times." the human interest institute has a chart that shows you some of the differences between pay between men and women -- the gender pay gap is how they title it. they look at a couple of industries -- registered nurses. for men, the pay is $1454. the average weekly pay. $1240 for registered nurses. financial managers 1880 for,

1222 for women. we are asking you your solutions, ideas for the pay gap between men and women. 202-748-8000 for women, 202-748-8001 four men. one of the lead witnesses yesterday was megan p know of the u.s. women's soccer team. let's take a listen. [video clip] megan: we have been told in this country if you work hard you will be rewarded and rewarded fairly. it is the promise of the american dream, but that promise has not been for everyone. the united states women's national team has won four world cup championships, four olympic gold this country. we have sold-out stadiums, jerseys, all the popular metrics

by which we are judged. despite all of this, we are paid less than male counterparts. for each trophy, which there are many, for each time we play, less. in fact, instead of working with the women's team, the u.s. fat -- soccer federation has continually lead lobbied -- continually lobbied against. if it can happen to us, it can happen to me, with the brightest light shining on us at all times, it can and it does happen to every person that is marginalized by gender, but we don't have to wait. we don't have to continue to be patient for decades on and it we can change that today. we can change that right now. we just have to want to.

so, as always, lfg. host: megan rapinoe testifying on capitol hill. this is reuters, and a picture of megan rapinoe, and in the story, they write that in may, 2020, a district court judge for the central district of california throughout the team's players claims they were underpaid in comparison with men's teams. the team in u.s. soccer reached a settlement over working conditions including hotel and travel accommodations, steering a path for equal pay. 202-748-8000 for women. 202-748-8001 for men. this is dana. carlsbad, california. caller: i like to have megan

rapinoe on there. she is perfect for this. if you look at what the women's market in -- brought in it is hundreds of millions of dollars less than what the men soccer team brought in. it all comes down to how much you are worth. you can advertise something that advertises $100 million in something that brings in $500 million. that is human reason that make more. they bring in a lot more revenue in commercials, for products and jerseys -- i can go on and on about that. that is a simple one. as far as women making less money, women right now have the most degrees in the country, the highest positions in the country if you look at the numbers. women are making great numbers. you never see the women that are

at the top of these corporations playing this card, saying that women make less. women are just as good as men. there in the right spot, that is all there is to it. host: i hear what you save about the soccer team, but how do you explain the differences, particularly in degree fields, like a registered nurse or financial manager -- how do you resolve that those averages are fairly notable? caller: well, if you look at how many women are nurses, there are a lot more women that will get a job before a man will get. not all men raise. kids the majority of women raise kids. of course they will not be in the workplace. i don't know any men -- i have four granddaughters, i am all for women. there is no way i would let any

kind of discrimination mess with my granddaughters, but i hear the debate all the time and if you looking up and get down into the nitty-gritty, you will see that women are actually making more than men. host: spring texas. brick. hello. caller: i think the first caller made the first -- made all the points i have been making succinctly. i have been a viewer of c-span since 1979. if you would allow me, i -- i would like to get to two things. iron sharpens iron. please put two viewers with dissenting views on. host: we will later today talking about the affordable care act. we do it on a regular basis. we did it yesterday with the rules committee. caller: thank you so much. i appreciate you bill, i really

do, and the entire staff there. secondly, there was a full-court press about the border situation when trump was president. it has only gotten worse has only gotten -- why don't we get it with the same enthusiasm for biden? i think a bias is being shown. look over that and see if you don't all agree. it is hypocritical to drop that issue entirely and say we're going on to new business. host: we are certainly likely to your more about the border situation. the president appointing the vice president as the point person on border issues. yesterday, part of president biden's day including hosting the women's soccer team unequal payday. here's some of what president biden had to say. we will show it to you --

we will show that to you in just a moment. will go to dale in nicholson, pennsylvania. caller: because i am on c-span. it is a known fact that women are smarter, quicker learners and all the rest when you are in high school, but by the age of 20 or 25 they quit learning, so i think the pay gap is about right. host: what you mean women quit learning between 20 and 25? is that true of men as well? caller: no, men with their life expands, they keep on learning. women slow down. host: what kind of study? where are you reading a study like that? caller: i guess that is my study. host: president biden at the

white house hosting the soccer team and others for equal pay day. until he had to say. [video clip] president biden: nearly every job, nearly 97 -- 90% of occupations, women still earn less than men. for a api women, it is $.87 per dollar. for black women, it is $.63. native american women, $.60. hispanic women, $.55. it does not matter if you are an electrician, an accountant, or part of the best dam soccer team in the world, the pay gap is real, and this team is living proof you can be the very best at what you do and still have to fight for equal pay. you know, as jill mentioned, this pandemic has only exacerbated the problem. women are on the front lines as essential workers, particularly

women of color at farms, factories, grocery store workers, but they are still earning less. more than 2 million women have dropped out of the workforce since the pandemic started. and now with the lowest rate of less labor participation in the workforce that we have been in 30 years. let me say that again -- the lowest percent of women in the workforce. and you go back to 30 years to get to where we are today. a lot of that is because so much extra weight of caregiving and responsibilities. falling on their shoulders it causes women to miss work, cut hours, leave their jobs, care for their children. that internet itself shows discrimination. how many will men are staying home and doing it? host: our topic this morning, solutions for the pay gap between men and women.

202-748-8001 for women, --202-748-8000 for women, 202-748-8001 for men. this tweak -- this is from "washington post" this morning -- house speaker pelosi about -- about to close the pay gap. they began passing the impressive bouquet agenda in a partyline vote that advanced the paycheck fairness act, and it would require among other measures that employers that pay men more than women to explain why and make it easier for women to file class-action lawsuits over wage disparities.

"the washington times" writes in this piece that republican lawmakers objected to this bill because it does not exempt religious groups. republicans also challenge the premise behind the equal pay agenda. representative pat fallon of texas question whether men are unfairly paid more than women and says the government should stay out of how much companies pay workers. we heard from pat fallon at the hearing. let's hear what he had to say. [video clip] representative fallon: we live in a market-based, free-enterprise economy, and generally speaking, the more the federal government metals with the private sector and nibbles away at their liberty, the worse off the private sector is, both owners and employees alike, men and women, as well as the country as a whole. we see this play out time and time again. we shouldn't really need to tread lightly when discussing more regulation and rules.

the market should drive wages, and that is the free market. we have heard -- not the government market, the free market. we have heard for years claims by some that american women, on average, and defend figures, $.70 on the dollar, $.82 on the dollar for what male counterparts make them about what many folks don't realize is that is not a fair comparison apple to apple and we heard about that today. it is simply comparing median earnings as all men and women classified as full-time employees. that is a misleading figure and it is unfair not to take into account other factors. for instance, the job itself -- the skill level of the employees , the skill level of the employee, the hours worked by the employee -- and that is interesting to note, according to the department of labor in 2019, the average male worker putting a .32 hours per day compared to the average female worker who logged in 7.3 hours a

day. that alone accounts for a 7% difference. as a whole, female workers tend to consider and choose flexibility, which can account for lower wages, while men, on average, gravitate to a higher degree to less desirable work hours, and occupation as long as it pays a higher wage. host: the white house as we showed hosting an event at equal pay day and earlier in the month they announced the creation of a gender equality council that would do the following -- it would work to increase economic security and opportunity by addressing the structural barriers to women's participation in the labor force. it would aim to decrease wage and health gaps, address caregiving needs of american families. it would also require all cabinet secretary's must participate and require

designating a senior official who will collaborate directly with the secretaries must submit a government-wide strategy to address issues of discrimination-based -- gender-basis, nation, a gender wage gap within $200. for . men, 202-748-8001. caller: good morning. i would like to respond to what representative fallon said about men being able to work more hours and being more flexible about location. it is very frequently because the women have to pick up the kids from daycare, six dinner, dropped the kids off at school, and therefore are frequently not available for as many hours. my biggest solution, and i have

thought about this -- thought about this many years ago, and i still believe it is true, make it illegal for employers to ask what did you make it your last job, and actually just pay what the job is worth. host: have you found that through your career, through your work life, you have been paid less than your male colleagues? caller: yes, i have, until i transferred into sales at the company i had been with for five years, i did, and one of the biggest reasons i did -- i transferred into sales was so i could earn what i was worth. it was salary plus commission. host: everybody aren't the same rate of commission, i assume. caller: right, the same base salary and the same rate of commission. host: you may not know this, but what about your state, the state of washington?

do they have lost that affect gender pay -- laws that affect gender pay? caller: i'm sorry it i couldn't tell you off the top of my head. host: that is ok. i appreciate your idea. to her for calling in. full in, pennsylvania. you're on the air. caller: good morning. the president, he just says men can play women's soccer and women can play men's soccer, so if they want to make the money let them play men's soccer. what he said about electricians, a union electrician makes the same as men. he is not telling you the truth. he is a knucklehead. host: ann, good morning to where you calling from? caller: i am calling from illinois. host: go ahead with your comment. caller: my sister was into basketball and ended up becoming

a massage therapist and there were no basketball teams or anything. i am surprised we don't have a baseball. team i think it is very bad what they do to limit. i am a lot older. i became an engineer and conductor and there is a union so i got paid equally as men can i was surprised to hear truck drivers were not getting the same pay. i thought because of the unions they got the same pay. the job i had chosen, it was equal pay for men and women. because i am not an athlete, i think equal rights for women -- i don't know why this hasn't passed. host: your point on truck drivers commit was from the human resource executives, a survey of truck drivers. it does not indicate whether

they are union or nonunion, but the average pay for a man truck driver, $916 weekly, $666 weekly for a female truck driver. the chair of the committee, carolyn maloney of new york --. let's listen to her comments. chairman lonie: when the equal pay act was signed women made $.59 for every dollar earned by men. we have gotten a raise, made some progress since then, but not nearly enough. it is unfair. today, in 2021, on average, women are still paid only $.82 for every dollar paid to a man and the gender pay gap is even worse for women of color. for every dollar paid to white men, asian american overall are paid $.87 per dollar. black women are paid $.63. native american women are paid

$.60. latino women are paid just 50 five cents. today marks all women's equal pay day, reflecting the average among ethnicities. asian-american the pacific islanders. islanders equal payday is. march 9 black women's equal pay day is not until august 3. native american women's equal payday is not until september 8. and latino-americans equal payday is not until october 21. this is a disgrace and it has long-term consequences for women and families. host: hearing from you on your idea and solutions for the women's -- the equal pay gap. 202-748-8000, women. 202-748-8001 for men.

another headline, "lawmakers spar over voting bill. lawmakers squared off with democrats proposing easing access and republicans arguing states should remain flexibility . the senate committee is holding the first hearing on the legislation since democrats won control of the senate in january. the democratic legislation dubbed "for the people act," would loosen voter identification requirements, expand mail-in voting and mandate online and same-day registration as well as early voting. the voting as a steve odland test in the 50/50 senate where it would need 50 votes to advance. the house version of the measure passed 220-210 this month. no republicans voted for it. in the house it was hr-one. it is s-1 in the senate. a tweet from deborah -- passing

agenda to detect voting rights. it is not new. host: talking about the pay gap and solution to that. dorothy in land o'lakes, florida. good morning. caller: yes, i have a comment about women getting paid less. i worked for a large cup -- corporation in michigan, general motors, and i was a supervisor over several people, and two of them were men, and both men made more money than i did, and i was at a higher level and a supervisor. my bosses were so stupid that they called the men up to give them their raises instead of me doing it, and my other boss said he doesn't want you to know that they make more money than you do.

i said i have all of their references. they are not only making more money, they are dumber than women. host: how long did this go on? how long were you in a position overseeing men? caller: i was in there for almost 10 years. 10 years. i had women working for me, too. i know what they made. i went to my big boss one time and send your giving this guy more money than this woman and i know she is a better worker, a harder worker, and he is not. in fact, the one man that worked for me had not collapse the and kept falling asleep at his station, and people would come up there and talk to him and he would be sound asleep. i would address that with him, go to a doctor and find out, and he would just deny he was doing it. he did over and over again and i did not really know what to do with it. host: you were at general

motors, and i assume these were nonunion jobs are or the union jobs? caller: i was a salaried employee. they knew i was a single mother raising two children, so this business about men, they have families, blah, blah, blah -- a just does not work. a lot of single women work and have children. i have the same problems -- babysitters, an idiot for a husband that never paid child support, i had to get babysitters, and all that money was go out and estimate less money. host: i will make an assumption that you have somewhat of a pension or something from general motors? caller: i have a penchant cat i have been retired for a long time. host: because of that, you means your pension is less than the men that you supervised?

caller:, correct i am sure it is. they made more money. they go by how much you made and how long you had been. host: i appreciate your call. let's go to george in alexandria, virginia. caller:? can you hear me? ? host: yes, we can. go ahead. caller: i want to comment on how a lot of these statistics really hide things and don't show things. you specifically brought up the issue of nurses -- one nurse job and another nurse job is not the same. the most high-paying nurse jobs from my understanding at the moment is spot er work around the country, which means you cannot be there with your family. you might be all the way across the country in san antonio one day, then a week later you are in new york city, particularly with the stuff coming up with covid right now.

that is the kind of things that these hide. the woman that spoke about her experience with gm, that is a real issue, and that is, kind of horrible, and it is gerally based upon all kinds of things where bosses, just get to set salaries and hide them away from everybody and you get various biases that come into this. host: a guess a question -- a guess -- i guess a question on that is is there a moment where some sort of federal regulation is necessary or is it a policy thing? caller: you need good policy and you need to take a lot of things into account, and if you have bad policy, it is going to make it worse and you will get other kinds of discrimination. having the woman from the

women's soccer team speaking to this is really a bad problem, because as many people have shown, there is a difference between being on the women's team in the men's team, and that is one of the few fields where it is filled to all -- ok to segregate a work field. this stuff is coming up even more with the transgender issue that is coming up because if you have people that have been entirely different genetic structure, unable to compete on a team, then it is not the same team. if the women's team in the united states wants to have the same pay considerations as the men's team in the united states, of a have to do is challenge them to a game so that people can see that there is no difference, but there is obviously a difference between the men in the women's team.

on top of that, the men's team is playing in the most popular game in the world, and the women's team is playing in a game that is, to be quite honest, not in the way that it is in the united states. host: some comments on text, 202-748-8003 this is from robert in michigan "in my working life i was always in a union, mission is a dutch michigan is a union state. women and unions get paid. "the only metric that can equalize things is time, how much of one's precious life spent is at work. using time as the primary but not the sole metric female and male, the ceo, and the fast worker on the same footing." "i remember the time when nurses pay was just above minimum wage but when nursing programs started enrolling males, the wage for nurses went up tremendously," says rose from

connecticut. dave, "i know many women who are great people who make less in the same job. they drove her out of work when it came time for a raise and then hired a man for the same dam job, please open up your eyes." "women were second-class and united states until 1920. women need to be promised that they will still have a job when they leave for maternity leave. a fix for this could be government increasing childcare spending. ring women up," says steven in kentucky. this is carol in new jersey. welcome. caller: hello. i am also -- i was also a union worker, and i realized at an early age that that was the way to go in order to make equal pay. so, i prepared myself, i went to school to get the credentials that i needed, and the education

that i needed. and i moved up. i am now retired. i received the same pension as a man. and, sometimes women do not want to accept union jobs because they feel as though they are beneath them, but there are many good union jobs. host: can you tell us what union you are in and what kind of work? caller: uaw. host: james in greensboro, north carolina. caller: good morning. i think the united states should become more like the rest of the world which president biden has made obvious. every other country, i beg your pardon, most other countries in europe and the far east, africa, and south america are nationalized, and i think we should nationalize soccer, basecoat -- baseball, and

basketball, and the nfl which happens to be tax-free corporations. they do not have to pay income taxes. of course, all employees of the nonprofit have to pay taxes. i think that would solve the problem, because our government and most of her governments -- other governments pay women the same amount as they pay men. there are many countries where soccer is exceedingly popular where the individual countries sponsor the teams, and i think that should be done in the united states for all team sports. not necessarily for individual sports like tennis, golf, etc.. but for team sports where you have competition among individual players as well as the competition with the opposing team from whatever country it might be, i think

they should be nationalized in a way that would be acceptable to everybody, and it would also bring in revenue to the federal government. particularly with the nfl, which is a very high-volume. but, people are astounded when they learned that it has been nonprofit since the 1930's. host: the legislation is the paycheck fairless -- fairness act is being worked on in the house. that hearing with the oversight committee, but here's what the proposed legislation would do and they have not taken it up on the house for yet. it would protect for -- protect from retaliation, or habit employees from screening job applicants on a salary history and require employers to prove that pay disparities exist for legitimate reasons, expand the lay -- the range of plaintiff

opportunities, and that would be under the equal pay act. it would strengthen federal enforcement to investigate wage discrimination. south carolina republican senator nancy mace was part of the republican committee and participated in the hearing. [video clip] >> people who got the same education and perform the same job should receive the same pay regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation or relevant characteristics. i think it is important when we are talking about this issue to acknowledge the numbers. it is not just the number inside of it, but there are other factors. we are going to hear the numbers from the other side of the aisle probably all day and will no doubt be used during the hearing but do they not given an entire picture. i think when it is important talking about data when we look at the entire picture. the raw mage -- wage gap is a comparison of averages. we heard about $.80 per dollar,

men and women were not compared in the same profession who work the same hours with the same qualifications or experience. while we have this very important conversation and in support of that i want to start with the data and context. once adjusted for factors such as hours worked in compensation, the gender wage gap is smaller, and in most cases when you look at the data we are talking about context. we are talking between 2% and 10%. i am not saying that there is no gender wage gap and it is unlikely, i am just saying that it is not because of widespread discrimination. [end video clip] host: that was a hearing yesterday on capital here and today we are asking about the wage gap between men and women. 202-748-8000 for women. 202-748-8001 for men. other news this morning, the lead story in the new york

times, cuomo's family is risk -- is said to have received special access to virus test. it arranged special access for coronavirus testing for members of his family and other influential people as the pandemic descended on new york. according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. the move to make testing of people tied closely to mr. cuomo a priority was carried out by high ranking state health officials. "it mostly happened in march 2020 as the seriousness was becoming clear to the broader public and testing was not widely available. among those who benefited was the governor's brother, chris cuomo and his family who were tested several times in the early phase. the governor's mother, and at least one of his sisters were also able to take advantage of the state administered tests. chris cuomo announced march 31

last year that he had tested positive for the virus." you can read more at nytimes.com. host: back to our calls. francis in alabama. good morning. caller: good morning tall. a number of years i lived in wisconsin and i was satisfied with the wages that i was earning. when i got to selma, alabama, my hometown -- host: francis? are you there? caller: you are hearing me? host: now we are. you left us in suspense. go ahead with their comments. i think you are ok now. go ahead. oh boy, the connection is lousy. try dialing back and we will look for your call and see if we can get a better connection. derek in leesburg. good morning. caller: thank you for having me on. i love the topic, i think we

have to think more about -- there obviously is a pay gap but what are the causes? if you have two different employees with the same experience at the same level, same education, and they are making two different wages and this is widespread throughout the organization and the country than there is definitely a description -- discrimination or sexism issue. but if we have two different employees at the same level that one has a lot more experience and education on the other one, granted maybe the woman had to stay at home to raise children, whatever that be the case, there is a justification. you also mentioned that men on average work more hours than women, i am not sure where that study comes from. it is a real thing. sometimes a parent needs to go and pick up a kid from legal lead -- little league, the problem is that if you are a

manager and you have an employee and you are in a high intensity meeting and one of them has to leave to go take care of personal obligations and the other one doesn't end this happens over and over again, the performance will reflect that. society in general, one of the biggest problems that we have is we undervalue the raising of kids. my wife made a lot more than i did for a long time. she has a masters degree. and, we had kids. one of them had to take care of them and quite frankly she is a heck of a lot better than i am. we had to make the decision that she had to stay home and that was a hard decision. the biggest reason it was a hard decision was because of the societal influences and the lack of respect that stay-at-home others get. host: i appreciate your comment this morning and it sounds like you are headed to work yourself. caller: i just got here. host: good to have you on.

we will hear from aubrey in richmond, virginia. go ahead. caller: i have been hearing this statement in the media about men "make more than women." well, the problem is that is misleading. when you look at the median income from the department of labor statistics it shows that generally, white females make more than men of african descent in this country and then continue on breaks down from there. so what we are talking about is discrimination. and one of the things that has allowed discrimination to continue unchecked in this country is that eoc has been ineffective. yes, from time to time you will hear the huge settlement with the eeoc and some corporation, and the problem is the process.

basically, the process puts the burden on the victims of discrimination and then what happens? then the eoc does a cursory investigation and mails the victim of discrimination a writ and then you have to spend $10,000 on a retainer for an attorney. and then the results continuously adapt, because most people that are victims of discrimination do not know how to make the luminary moves to protect themselves like taking note of things in the workplace, and being able to anticipate a problem when it is starting to build up. or, some other discriminatory act. and as long as the process from

the department of labor or the eeoc and these things are basically built and designed to protect discriminated employers. look, when you look at most of the money that is being made in the employee labor relations, most of it is being made by the corporations. here in virginia, and this went on for a long time, and i have had attorneys tell me that is. basically, some have changed, but before the circuit, it basically decapitated the victim law components of the legal system. and then, most of those, a lot of them -- i had an employee -- a conversation with a lawyer a few years back and say that you guys continue to push a square

peg through a round hole. what i mean the business of comparatives. most of case law is designed around comparatives, but you do not need them. you just have to establish that your client has been the victim of discrimination period. in other words, you had a protected person that suffered some sort of adverse employment situation, and that raises discrimination. host: i appreciate that. we will hear from velma. we hear from pay discrimination in particular. velma and north las vegas, nevada. hello there. caller: good morning, i would like to talk about my working years. i am a 76-year-old black woman, and the only way i was able to

get anything in the pay range in working, i am a little nervous, as you can see. host: that is ok. caller: it was the affirmative action. i found that to be thesole -- the sole way of me making my living and they did away with it. but when i started out on the affirmative action. i was able to make a living for my daughter and myself. and i saw nothing wrong with affirmative action. but after it started working and having the port women of my neighborhood, they did away with it and it is history at this moment and i do not know if anybody else had anything under

the affirmative action. host: ok, velma in north las vegas. last week this network so -- covered -- celebrated 42 years of covering the house. we started covering the house in 1979 in the u.s. senate in 1986. and for many years we have covered arguments. the audio of the supreme court no surprise that we would like to cover live television coverage of oral arguments of the supreme court. an opinion piece in "the washington post" argues against that. "why supreme court proceeding should not be televised. a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers led by richard jirga -- richard durbin and charles grassley introduced legislation last week that would require the supreme court to start televising its proceedings as they filed their bill. freshman senator marjorie -- roger marshall's read from a dr.

seuss book, a publicity stunt that felt like a foreboding omen. it is not like they would be reduced to antics if cameras arrive, that they would inevitably act different in ways detrimental to the pursuit of justice. while transparency is positive, no one can argue that congress is more effective today let alone more civil than when cameras arrived in the house of representatives 42 years ago followed seven years later by the senate. that change began the bizarre tradition of members delivering fiery speeches to an empty chamber, and transformed governing into reality television and made grandstanding lawmakers into minor celebrities." you can read his opponent -- opinion at washingtonpost.com. opinions from viewers on text in dutch on our topic. "replace the word women with men

and do what you would you would do with a republican man. this would be fixed. assign a value to the work and pay accordingly. make pay equal including back pay. just do it." "i like it the way it is. there is no way to legislate experience." sue saying "not saying there are not legitimate cases but i do not feel like it is my responsibility to pay for child care for someone else's children that is a liberal agenda." "i boycott small and large businesses that indulge in a wage gap and do not support legislation to close it." charles, "i am a 59-year-old single parent and a construction contractor and cannot work as much because of my parenting responsibilities. that is not the fault of society." jason, "this is terrible we need women to get paid the same as men. men around the country need to open their eyes. this is an issue."

next up, this is chris. hello. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: i am a little bit nervous. host: we will give you time. caller: do you mind if i just make a little statement? host: sure. caller: we are talking about the pay gap, is that correct? host: yes. caller: and it is a fact that women earn less than men for the same job and is that correct? host: yes, it has been a reported average across a number of industries. caller: well my statement is that is absurd. host: we are going to nick in indiana. hello. caller: how are you. i just wanted to bring up a point that seems to be left out of the conversation. as one way to resolve this to

have women more active in unions and under union contracts and negotiate different pay scales for different jobs. and when you look at and if you want to be an electrician or whatever, you get that pay rate and the employer reimburses. they have no say to how much each individual employee is being paid. which flies in the face of this different pay rates that men and women receive. host: denver, colorado. hello there. dennis, go ahead. caller: hello, i am a

74-year-old x businessman, and to what i have been seeing here is we are in a bad situation. i would never hire another woman to work in my business, ok? because 20 years later that woman could come back and say, hey, he molested me and sexually assaulted me. and, what can a man do? nothing. when a man gets successful, these women come back and say that they were sexually assaulted? what is a man to do, there is nothing he can do. i would not hire a woman to work for me. i had all kinds of cameras and every time a woman came into my office i would have cameras set up and witnesses to make sure that 20 years later that woman did not come back and say that i said something that she got offended by. host: let us hear from harriet

in florida. hello there. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine. caller: i think all of these people need to quit whining and crying, and complaining about all of this pay inequality because really, the ceo's need to make that 20 million or $30 million or $40 million per year. why would you try and take that away from them? so, quit your complaining. or just go ahead and make a ceo execution day and that might solve all of problems. thank you very much and have a good morning. host: this is the headline of a politico piece from the late yesterday. democrat sound alarm at prospect of overturning iowa race. some of the most vulnerable members are blanching at

potentially unseating marionette miller meeks who was a congresswoman from iowa. one of the authors is with us. sarah ferris, a congressional reporter. this has been growing in the last couple of days. why don't you tell us what the situation is in that second district in iowa? guest: sure, what is interesting is that we have known that this will be the case for months. we knew that the democrat will be challenging, and it is really just begun to surface over the last couple of days because this case is ramping up. what is happening is this race in the second district came down to six votes, so the republican candidate, marionette miller meeks was seated by the house, so she is the representative for that district, but the democrat, rita hart lost by six votes and is contesting that through the

house administration committee. they will have to make a decision whether to formally investigate this weather to do it is a recount or look into this. if that is the case they will make a recommendation. that is whether or not to overturn the election or to stand by the seating of the republican. there are a lot of people where this is not unusual, this thing does happen, but right now it is making some of the democrats nervous about what could happen. host: what about the iowa election officials, how did they rule about the six votes? what happened with the election officials? guest: this is back and forth for many weeks, ultimately they determined that she was the winner, but the democrat said it comes down to a separate 22 votes that the iowa election officials said were not going to count. the democrats argued that they should be counted and if they were she would be the winner.

that is what the administration committee will focus on, those 22 votes. caller: -- host: you wrote that house members are concerned about this, what have they told the speaker about their concerns? guest: it comes down to this is an uncomfortable political message and amoral cologne drum -- a moral conundrum in a large part because of what happened on january 6. we saw what happened when republicans had this message of why a federal election needed to be overturned and they of course were talking about the presidential level but there were democrats in the capital who are still really sensitive about this issue, and they say, how can we have a message where even if it comes down to six votes or a mistake in the iowa process, how can we go and overturn an election in the house of representatives? there are a lot of arguments

from senior democrats who have lived through a process that say the house is a backstop. this is a legal procedure that they are going through, unlike trump and the republicans, they did not go through the legal administrative process. they say it is a difference and it is not compared to what trump did. there are a lot of democrats who say that it is not worth this right now. we should really just let the states handle their own elections and those concerns have been bubbling up. several of them have made their concerns known to house leadership. host: i am trying to recall the most recent in the last decade or so house members that have removed. there was one from ohio and then william jefferson from louisiana. neither of those had anything to do with an election result, however. guest: no, in the case that everyone refers to in terms of a member being actually -- an

election being overturned is the indiana back in the 80's, and that was a contentious case where the democrats did overturn a seated republican. republicans were led by newt gingrich and this became a contentious issue. it is not clear that that would be the same case here because democrats were skeptical that they could have the votes to unseat even if the administration committee did make a recommendation to overturn the iowa state results. but, people have long memories and some of them have pointed to the bloody ace back in 1985, and say that this is something that they cannot imagine happening now and that they should not have to be in a position where this is the case. but, most people say that this is different, and this election is so close and it deserves scrutiny from the house

administration committee process. host: how soon will they make their decision? guest: we are expecting at least a couple of hearings over the next few weeks. the process is a little bit opaque just because it is not something -- there is a lot going on. it is recessed right now, so we will watch and have at least a couple of televised public hearings where they will be reviewing evidence. we do not have any idea of when that will come, but i have been told that the decision is not necessarily imminent. they have a lot of material to review. host: democrats have to be aware that this could potentially be a tough political issue will not -- not only in the state of iowa but republicans could make it a real issue. guest: republicans are already making this a an issue because they do not have a lot else to message on. the republicans, of course, did

not vote for this massive leaf package and that is all the democrats have been talking about. the republicans can talk about the border, what is happening with unaccompanied minors at the border, they can talk about this election, otherwise they do not want to talk about the fact that the relief package passed and it is popular. this has been an issue that they are seizing on because this could be really helpful for their politics. host: we will look for further reporting. sarah ferris for politico. thank you for the update. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up, south we are joined by -- next up we are joined by kate davidson talking about the two days of testimony from the treasury secretary janet yellen and treasury -- and chairman jerome powell. and then we will talk about the state of the affordable care act signed 11 years ago this week. our guests are yvette fontenot

and michael cannon. ♪ >> this morning, fema administrator nominee testifies at her confirmation hearing before the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. watch live coverage beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or the free radio app. >> book tv on c-span2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, george nash author of "the conservative intellectual movement in america," talks about the past and future of conservatism. at 9:00 p.m. eastern, and asian -- kathy park hong speaks about issues of race and identity. on sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on afterwords, jodi

warwick discusses his book "red line, the unraveling of syria and america's race to destroy the most dangerous arsenal in the world." watch tv this weekend on c-span2. ♪ c-span is your unfiltered view of government, created by america's cable television companies in 1979. today we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers as a public service. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: kate davidson is with us. she covers economic policy for " the wall street journal," and covered two days of testimony by

janet yellen and jay powell. guest: thank you for having me. host: the two leaders were before the senate banking committee in the house financial services committee to talk about the state of the economy, but more in particular the recovery after covid and the success or lack thereof of efforts by the fed and congress with the cares act and other covid relief measures. what did they say about how that money is working in the economy during covid? guest: i think that they certainly expect that it is going to accelerate their recovery and that we could really be seeing a strong economy soon. a lot of the money has not gone out the door yet, the treasury is working really fast. janet yellen said that they are working to get those impact payments out, the $1400 stimulus checks going to americans. they announced that they spent another -- they sent another one

to be processed. they sent half of that money out. aid for state and local governments and job benefits, we will see that going out the door over the coming months and they expect that that will lead to more job creation, and of course all of that depends on the virus and whether the pandemic continues to be brought under control. host: what do you think the message from both leaders was? guest: i think the mess good -- the message was fiscal support from the federal government has made a big difference and they are seeing signs that the recovery is strengthening, but it is not over yet. there is a long way to go and there are millions of people who are unemployed than we saw during -- millions more people who were unemployed then we saw during the great recession. they say that this money will help but this does not make everything better. host: your column is next to a

column about the rising gas prices. gas prices nearing three dollars a gallon. the title of your pace -- peace, powell unfazed by rising yields. that they address at all the issue of rising prices and inflation. guest: for sure, anytime the fed chief goes to the hill he gets asked about this. one of the earliest questions was do you think that this 1.9 trillion dollars stimulus measure will lead to unwelcome or concerning inflation and he said absolutely we will see inflation pick up, but the fed's goal they target on average 2% inflation, so they are not concerned if it rises a little bit above 2%, that is one point that they think that it might. they see this as transitory, in other words they expect to see inflation because you have big government spending, they also expect that that will not last

forever. it will not be persistent and i do not think it will be especially large, and that is why jerome powell says he has not really worried about the kind of runaway inflation that people remember from the 70's. host: the two are very familiar with the job, or at least janet yellen is familiar with powell's job. she held that position for a number of years. tell is, broadly, what is the role of the treasury secretary in particular during the covid recovery, and the role of the fed chair and the fed more broadly? guest: sure. the fed has the power to broadly set interest rates. so at the very beginning of this crisis we saw that the fed moved to cut rates to zero, and they started purchasing government bonds. and that was in an effort to try and bring down long-term rates. and, i think that they feel that

largely those efforts have worked, but they have repeatedly said and we heard the member during the last recession say that the fed can only do so much. that sort of helps to loosen financial conditions for borrowers. there was market turmoil last year so some of that was an effort to get that under control, but at some point they need help from the fiscal authorities, which is like a treasury secretary and what -- which is what the treasury's attack or really does. last year it was steven mnuchin, they play a big role in crafting economic policy and shaping how are we going to respond to this crisis, what will be do to help people? as soon as janet yellen came in a big part of her job was selling the plan and the idea. president biden on the campaign trail had come up with a lot of these proposals that we saw in this almost $2 trillion bill.

her job is to sell it and implement a lot of it into getting the money out of the door. host: we welcome your calls and comments and questions. this is for kate davidson. we are talking about the testimony yesterday of janet yellen and fed chairman jerome powell, in particular on the economic recovery and the covid spending. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. all others, 202-748-8002. if you would like to pose a question via text, that is 202-748-8003. as you mentioned, the nearly $2 trillion measure passed a couple of weeks ago, the first of the biden administration and janet yellen spoke about it broadly yesterday at the hearing and also before the senate house financial services on tuesday. let's take a listen. [video clip] >> with the passage of the

rescue plan i am confident that people will reach the other side of this pandemic. and, their beliefs will be met by a growing economy. in fact, i think we may see a return to full employment next year. of course, the speed and strength of our recovery depends in part on how we implement the legislation. the treasury is tasked with much of that work, and there is nothing that either my team take more seriously. [end video clip] host: that is from tuesday's testimony. but kate davidson, she said that we may see a return to full employment, what gives her that optimism? guest: i think that other independent economists have examined the bill and come to the same conclusion. and the idea that -- is that as long as economic activity continues to tick up as a virus

is brought under control people feel confident about going out to restaurants again, taking a vacation or a flight, where that will all drive more activity, and i think the idea is that this money will help people a little bit more, and help businesses to be prepared to reopen or expand capacity when they are allowed to do so by authorities or when there is more demand. they think that the money combined with the expectation that social distancing measures will ease and more people will be vaccinated over the summer, that that will lead to this burst of economic growth and more hiring at the end of the year and into next. host: news reports indicate that the administration is going forward with a number of spending measures that could total -- infrastructure, clean jobs and tax increases that may total around $4 trillion.

did they get asked about that at these hearings? guest: not really. i think to the extent that janet yellen was asked it was in the context of what the situation was with government debt. we have had a lot of debt over the past year, which is completely normal during a severe economic downturn like the one in the past. the government ramps up spending and sometimes spending increases because we have automatic programs like unemployment insurance. costs go up and people go out of work which means revenue goes down and that leads to deficits and there was an enormous one last year, but, i think that the response to that was that was entirely appropriate to spend all that money without paying for it and watching him speak. it was necessary to get the economy on track and we would be in a much worse situation. looking ahead, the president and

future proposals are focused on his medium and long-term economic agendas. the latest bill is dealing with the immediate crisis and now what do we want to know ideal u.s. economy and what are the policies that we want to enact to make that happen like programs investing in infrastructure. even they are talking about approving the economy, inking about childcare for women in the workplace, and we will hear more about that in the president soon. host: you writing your piece that the ranking republican of pennsylvania has questions of the fed chair about his concerns and how long the "easy money policy" would continue. how did mr. powell respond? guest: i think his message all along has been that the recovery is fragile, it is strengthening.

fragile is not the right word, it is strengthening, but it is ongoing. one thing that we have learned about the virus over the past year is maybe that there were expectations of what would happen with it and how far it would spread and how people would respond and that has not always been correct. we thought a huge surge over the holidays, and while vaccinations are accelerating i think there are some potential concerns that a risk could be if the pace of vaccinations slows down or if the variants that we are hearing about become more problematic so i think his message has been there are risks and we are not completely recovered and the bed things that policy -- fed things that policy should be more accommodative and just there to support economic growth. they are in debt he has not concerned that this policy is too easy. host: he said he was unfazed by rising yields and treasury bond.

what does that indicate? guest: i think that the view is that yields have been rising in part because of the improved economic outlook. i think that part of that is a little hard to disentangle the reasons of eight, but part of it is because of the big supply in treasury bonds because the governments are borrowing all of this money, but the fed chief essentially said he is not concerned that -- he does not that the markets are signaling some huge concern with inflation that the fed needs to respond to. host: there were two days of hearings, but in general how did members on the opposite side on the republican side react to the testimony from jay powell and janet yellen? guest: i can certainly recall hearings when she was the fed teal -- chair that got testy.

i think for the most part they viewed her this time around, and the tone was respectful and collegial. i think that there were maybe a couple of them, a couple of sharp exchanges on the senate side about programs at the imf is thinking about implementing. it is kind of technical, but it is the treasury just endorsing the idea of supporting poorer countries by allocating something called special rights. it is very technical but that is something that republicans are opposed to and they went after her on that. but, for the most part, i think the tone was the question that you brought up, asking about why we need all of this money and why are you still in this stance where we are assuming the economy is not already very strong, because the numbers suggest that it is strengthening, and i think that they have had back and forth. for the most part it was an easy

hearing for the two of them. host: the headline, yellen and powell say more is needed to limit economic damage. we are talking with kate davidson about that testimony. 202-748-8000 is the line for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 four -- for independents. this is not the quarterly preview or look at the economy, but did they talk about what the 2021 expectations? guest: not really beyond the point that you mentioned, the clip that we heard from janet yellen saying that she thinks we could be back to full employment i the middle of next year. i think that is something that the chairman has set as well or their forecasts have indicated. i think they are expecting a strong economy heading into

2021. and when they say full employment, that means as many people who are looking for work, as many people can be employed as wanting jobs without triggering runaway inflation. they think -- there is an evolving view that the unemployment rate is much lower than we would have thought maybe 10 years ago. so i think that they feel that that can generate some pretty good economic growth next year. so they think 2021 will be good, assuming again that the risks of inflation are not greater than they currently expect. host: i know we will get a report on march jobs from the labor department, but what is your observation over the last couple of months? what has the job market been trending like? guest: we saw in december a decline which ended seven months of job growth. there was a huge cliff when the

pandemic started or when it started in april, businesses shut down and there were millions, 20 plus million people who lost their jobs. many of the jobs came back over the summer, a lot of them have not. they have been slowly coming back and employers have been adding them back through the summer when a lot of businesses reopened and that it started to get smaller and smaller. by december there was a decline that coincided with the picked up in cases and the spread that we saw over the holidays during the winter. they have been coming back recently and there was a big game last month. in january numbers were revised up and that is really great. but when you look at what those numbers were in february, it would take two years at that pace to get back all of the jobs that we lost. i think the expectation for

policymakers is that we will see the number get bigger. and if we see half a million jobs, i think that an economist would say that is not something that should be concerning. this is what they expect to see as a result of the vaccinations, and activity picking up in the economy strengthening. host: a guess -- i guess a related question, do we have data on how many businesses closed permanently during covid? guest: there is some data and i am sorry to say i am not too familiar. it is a lot. i remember seeing the number and thinking is that right or a typo? it is many thousands and thousands of businesses that have permanently closed. and this is one of the main arguments that policymakers make, janet yellen in particular. they are saying the economy is improving and we could wait and allow it to an -- to organically

improve on its own, but that would take years, and in that time how many people will lose their homes? how many people -- how may businesses will be permanently lost? and creates scarring, long-term economic scarring. it could take a long time for the economy to come back from that. we saw some of that after the last recession. i think that even though there is evidence and reasons to think that maybe this package was more than what was needed, this $2 trillion. that is a point that some people made. i think the flipside that the administration has made is that we want to cover our bases. basically, we want to make sure that we have a fast recovery and it does not take a decade to get these jobs back. host: bob in atlanta, republican line. go ahead. caller: thank you for c-span.

hello. you seem to think that there is such a thing as a free lunch. do they not still have a sign at times square that tells us the debt that the nation is in? all i hear is that you want to spend your way out of it. can you really do that, and why didn't they do that in 1930 and print a bunch of money like you want to do? guest: i would certainly say this is not my personal view. but i am explaining the thinking of the administration. and, one of the questions that janet yellen answered was is that we cannot -- i cannot -- i'm trying to remember the quote. she said that we cannot do whatever we want. she says that the president has a number of proposals to pay for that. they think that the long-term plans that they have absolutely should be paid for. and in -- and they point to rising deficits that are troublesome. they said they are not worried

about spending during a crisis because the view is that if you do not respond to get the economy healthy again and that is ultimately worse for the long-term picture. if you look at debt to gdp, that is a share of the economy. when the gdp number takes years to recover, that worsens the overall fiscal picture. it is a little complicated. what they are arguing is that it is sometimes appropriate to borrow even though the debt is high. they say the debt is not a concern, part of that is because interest rates are low so it does not cost as much to service the debt. host: the fed chair's job is to get that gdp up and watch and make sure that interest rates do not go up with it. guest: right, and the treasury secretary's too. that is something that she has focused on and has said that over the long-term we need to get our fiscal house in order.

host: here is sean, fort lauderdale, florida. independent line. caller: i just believe that they are keeping a lot of things secret. they are probably keeping it secret from the masses as well as the influenza free masonic financial structures that have controlled the masses. it is all conspiracy. check it out. host: robert in st. petersburg, florida. republican line. caller: good morning. my wife and i are past the age of 70 and we live in florida. my wife and i between the two of us have five brokerage accounts that approach almost $2 million. between the two of us we receive every month five retirement checks. between the two of us we have

roughly about $50,000 in savings. this coming fall i will receive a required distribution of approximately $20,000 for my -- from my ira and my wife will receive $13,000 from hers. this government last wednesday said both about -- sent both of us a check for $1400. your comments. guest: one of the arguments that the administration has made, first i will start with what republicans have said because it seems like this is your concern that is shared by a lot of gop lawmakers that the checks went to a lot of people who do not need them. they did attempt in this current package to target more. that was one of the compromises that was made. but, i think they have acknowledge that there might be still some people who receive the checks that do not need them

, that have enough savings or have not lost their jobs, but i think what they were attempting to do when casting a wide net is to ensure that people who might not receive targeted aid like enhanced jobless benefits have the extra cushion that they can set aside so that when the economy picks up they will be able to spend it. there is evidence that a lot of people have spent the checks, which suggest that they needed it. they spent it on food, utilities , and paying back rent. so i think that the thinking was we realize that it will go to some people who do not need it, but the bulk of the money is important to serve as a backstop. host: let us go to sherry in portsmouth, virginia. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is, why is it so bad to print money if you have the capacity to do that, and there is a need for it?

we are living in a capitalistic society and it seems like we need some kind of socialism as a way to being able to get out of this conundrum we are in now. am i off the mark in terms of thinking that this is a good thing to do, and that the complaint about how much money it is, we did not hear any of that when there was a tax cut being applied to the wealthiest people in our society. but when it is about spreading the wealth to those who are not so well endowed, then there is a problem. i think that some kind of understanding about the ethics needs to be part of the conversation as well. guest: sure. you have just identified some of the main points for some of the arguments for spending this money. the federal government does have the ability to borrow. there is huge demand for treasury debt, it is sort of the gold standard and investors are happy to lend the u.s. money.

they are not concerned about how much debt we have and when states are struggling, once -- when families are struggling, that there is the job of the federal government which is to provide aid and support, because states cannot run budget deficits. most of that, -- most of them cannot borrow. it happens during a downturn where there is a shortfall they have to start cutting jobs and services, so the argument is that the government should step in and help because they have the ability to borrow this money. in the argument that the administration has been making is that interest rates are very low. and as i mentioned before the cost of borrowing the money is low. this is an argument that treasury secretary mnuchin during the trump administration made with the big bills passed last year on a bipartisan basis and people were not concerned

about the spending then. they are concerned now because they question if it is still needed because the economy is improving. but, right, i think others pointed out that republicans were generally willing to tolerate higher deficits in 2017 when they were advancing a $1.5 trillion tax cut. at the time they said the tax cut would generate enough economic activity and be beneficial for the economy to do that and it would pay for itself. we saw that that is not true, generally the economic literature says that tax cuts do not pay for themselves that it boosted the economy for a while. i think that many have observed that there is a trend when democrats are in office, republican lawmakers tend to be more concerned about the deficit. i do not know if that means that they are not concerned this time. the debt is very high, but all of the points that you have made are points that come up in the debate on capitol hill and among

policymakers. host: diane in toledo, ohio on the independent line. caller: hello, i called on this line because i did not have a line for investors. i am hoping that as an economist and a journalist can explain to me how my corporate short-term etf seems to coincide directly with the whole treasury yields. i read your paper every day and i look at the treasury yields and what is going on and then i looked to see what my etf is doing, it is corporate short-term and it is an etf and it just seems to correspond incredibly with what is going on with the 10 year yields. i'm just trying to decide how much stupider i could have gotten with my choice. but if you could explain the correlation with that, i would appreciate it. guest: this is probably a super basic question and someone on

our markets for investing team would be able to easily answer it, but i am sorry to tell you that i will avoid this one because it is not my area of expertise, even though i follow government bond yields. i know nothing about the investing side. host: we will go to virginia on a republican line. go ahead. caller: yes. we stalk about raising taxes on businesses and corporations, that is not going to benefit the middle class and the poor. there are not going to absorb the losses, they will raise the prices on goods and services. host: we kind of addressed earlier about potential tax raises. guest: i will say that this is an argument that some republican lawmakers made to the treasury secretary. congressman williams, who is from texas and owns an auto dealership said it is clear.

if you increase taxes it is not going to be good for consumers. yellin was asked about what economic needs search -- research says on the tax increases from 2017. and i think the argument is the research is unclear about the effects on consumers. anyone who focuses on businesses, congresspeople who were small business people were saying, this is not going to be good for us and concerned of the administration would do this too soon. it would be something phased in over a long time after the pandemic is over. undoubtedly, there are concerns for the economy and what it would do to small businesses and consumers but it is not eminent. host: kate davidson covered the

hearings with janet yellen this week and jerome powell, the senate banking committee and the house financial services committee. welcome your calls and comments. (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. in his testimony on tuesday before the financial services committee, jerome powell said his view "the recovery is far from complete." [video clip] >> today the situation is improved. the economic fallout has been real and widespread but the worst was avoided by swift action from the congress and the fed, across government, in cities and towns and from individuals and the private sector. more people held onto their jobs, more businesses kept their doors open and more incomes were saved but the recovery is far from complete. at the fed, we will continue to

provide the economy the support it needs for as long as it takes. as we have emphasized through the pandemic, the path of the economy depends on the course of the virus. host: back to your calls. silver spring, maryland, alex, democrat. caller: good morning. i would ask the most basic of questions. who owns america's debt? who is the u.s. in debt to, when you are talking about borrowing and the deficit and stuff like that and you are saying, if it is a good time to borrow for the u.s. because interest rates are low, while the interest rates are set by the fed. the interest rate we are borrowing against is being set by ourselves.

i know that is sort of one of the talking points some people make. well, china owns our debt. that might be conflating the trade deficit with the national debt. where is this money? who owns our debt? guest: it is a really good question. a lot of people don't understand. i wish i had the most up-to-date figures. it is by domestic investors, foreign investors, including foreign governments. at one point, china owned a lot more of our debt. we have seen that number, that share decline. there was a time when people made the argument -- they point to china a lot -- we have no fiscal control, the argument

that they will stop lending to us and everything will be a disaster. there lending has shrunk -- their lending has shrunk. yields, interest rates have been falling for a couple decades. this is directly related to your question. it is worth mentioning. 2007, before the financial crisis, our debt to gdp was 35%. now we are around 100% after this tax year and the borrowing we have done. the cost of borrowing, net interest cost because of low rates as a share of gdp is exactly the same. it has tripled our debt to gdp but borrowing cost is still low. it is a fair point people make about the fed setting interest rates but there is evidence there is strong demand from investors looking for state

assets. a lot of that has to do with over the past decade, the strength of the u.s. economy was stronger than other places around the world and again, rising yields have to do with the economic outlook here. important to note, back to the original question, mostly domestic investors hold u.s. debt. the big banks purchase it from the treasury. they are called primary dealers. there is a share of foreign governments. host: on that borrowing you write that janet yellen believes the u.s. has more capacity to borrow than once thought in part to a trend in falling interest rates but that does not mean "anything goes, but longer run we have to raise revenue to support spending we have to do." hinting there at the planned tax hikes by the biden administration. guest: she said it explicitly

this next big package we talked about earlier and they are contemplating would include revenue raisers. tax increases. one of the big things they want to target is the corporate tax rate which was lower during the trump administration, with their big tax cut package, and they want to turn it back to 28%. she talked about enforcement. that came up this week. there was a big study, monday, that showed an enormous tax gap and the top 1% of individuals, basically missing out on tax revenue from them because they are underpaying or evading or avoiding -- depends on what terms you use -- they basically said, provide more money to the irs for enforcement.

their budget has been emaciated in the past decade. they will be able to collect more revenue. it is owed to the government, that people are not paying. that could be another way they go without having to raise rates even higher. host: republican line, fred, ohio. caller: morning. i am 84 years old. i have been around this world a few years. i have lived through depressions. the thing that irritates me, they say this, they say that. the country is going into debt deeper and deeper. it is not going to help people. take 10 years from now, your kids will have to pay for that. not the people living today. we are so deep in debt. why don't we make people go to work out there if they want to give $600 per week to them, unemployment and set to do nothing?

host: a similar view expressed by alfred on twitter. how can the fed expect the recovery to recover when we had an 800 billiard trade deficit and a trillion dollar budget deficit before the pandemic? guest: part of the increase in the budget deficit, we talked about the tax cuts, which weighed on tax revenue to share of gdp. there were big spending bills. before the crisis, congress has a big appetite for spending. that is one of the reasons why the biden administration is saying they have big spending plans because despite the funding we have been doing, their argument is we have been under investing in the things that really helped to foster long-term economic growth like infrastructure and manufacturing and r&d and that those of the

kinds of things that will boost the long-term growth potential to the economy. they have emphasized, yes, long-term -- they have not said what the goal is. it could be to stabilize debt to gdp so it does not get higher because it is on rising trajectory now. another thing we have not talked about that contributes to deficits is social security and medicare. that is a political third rail. it is really difficult to reform or revamp them. it is something folks who are concerned about the budget who may call themselves in the middle, people of both sides that push these issues, they argue you need to tackle that, those issues, entitlement programs, if we want to truly get to the heart of what is driving debt up and deficits over the longer-term. host: kate davidson for the wall

street journal on economic policy, you can read her reporting at wsj.com. thank you. guest: thanks, bill. host: president biden holds his first news conference today at 1:15 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span radio, www.c-span.org. what would you ask president biden? the lines of the same. -- the lines are the same. (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. ♪ announcer: c-spanshop.org is our new online store. order a copy of the congressional directory with contact info for every member of congress and info for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. order your copy.

every c-span shop purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. announcer: today, the president holds his first official news conference since taking office. 1:15 p.m. eastern on c-span, online on www.c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. announcer: washington journal continues. host: we will have the president's news conference today, 1:15 p.m. eastern. what would u.s. the president? -- what would you ask the president? (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. big questions await biden. that is how the washington times is reporting. slated for his first full press conference since taking office,

more than two months into his four-year term. he fights to promote his coronavirus really package and suffers mounting outcry over the immigration crisis at the southern border. he will be scrutinized not for just his answers but also how he angles the white-hot spotlight of the press. louisville, kentucky, richard. caller: good morning. i was hoping to ask the young lady because she is up-to-date on policies with money but that is ok -- my question to biden would be -- it is easy to say we are going to print money. the gentleman called earlier from florida and went on about he and his wife had worked all

their lives and had done well and they still get a $1400 check. my question is -- is the president, the only way he can pay for these tax cuts and infrastructure and coronavirus giveaway, isn't it a fact that they are going to go after 401(k)s and pension plans? which i understand, there is something like $67 trillion invested where old people and young people have put their money into these plans? that is the only thing that is solvent right now. social security is burnt. the economy in the tank. he has to have some place where he can go and know that the money is there. mr. president, are you going to go after people's pension plans? host: brian, hamilton, virginia, independent. caller: similar to what the

previous gentleman said, in a way. seems the democrats tend to tax-and-spend. it goes to your previous guest too. they want to raise taxes on corporations, on the wealthy. they could tax both of them at 95% and they would still to find -- they would find a way to spend every nickel of it and still go into deficit. i wish they could get off of that. the last time we had a balanced budget was under clinton. i am not a big democrat. you cannot just print money. it has gotta stop somewhere. this top 1% already pay 60% of personal income taxes. should they pay more? sure. corporations will raise prices.

that is the way it is is. if you have owned a business, you know that. if you get taxed, you cannot print money. only the government can. host: the president's news conference today at 1:15 p.m. eastern. caller: my topic is on the postmaster general. i cannot believe how complicated this is. talk about voter suppression. i'm not sure if president trump appointed this fellow but in order to get rid of him, a group of governors have to vote him out. president biden can appoint these governors. when you look at voter suppression, this fellow and president trump, it is like absentee voting versus not in person boating or whatever his comparisons were, they are both

the same -- in person voting or whatever his comparisons were. when you are slowing down the mail, taking away mailboxes, laying off postal workers -- we are in a pandemic. being able to do absentee voting is absolutely essential when you're talking about voters rights. host: thanks for that. postmaster general louis dejoy, promoted by president trump, a major campaign contributor to the president. he released a 10 year plan for the postal service. we will talk about that more in depth on monday on this program from 8:00 to 8:45 a.m. eastern. this morning, what you would ask president biden at his news conference today. rich, marion, ohio. caller: great discussions going on. why we are giving money through the imf to china and russia?

is there some way they can get through the back door while we help developing countries, they split the stack of money up and everyone gets the same except china and russia get more of the developing countries. i don't think china is a developing country anymore. the other problem on payments -- we got into the housing problem where people get a balloon payment, pay really cheap and all of a sudden interest rates went up and they would lose the house. that was bad personally but almost blew up the financial system. i am afraid we got low interest rates and we really have to watch out we are not in a balloon payment. host: one of the issue certainly to come up is the situation at the u.s. mexico border. the headline from cnbc. the vice president will oversee the effort to resolve problems at the u.s. mexico border. president biden making the announcement yesterday at the white house. [video clip] >> i can think of nobody who is

better qualified to do this than the woman who ran the second largest attorney general's office in america in the state of california and has done a great deal of work on human rights and fighting organized crime in the process. it is not her full responsibility but she is leading the effort. the best thing to do is to put someone, who when he or she speaks, they don't have to wonder about is that where the president is? when she speaks, she speaks for me. doesn't have to check with me. she knows what she is doing. madam vice president, thank you. i gave you a tough job. your smiling. no one more capable of trying to organize this. >> thank you mr. president, for the confidence in me and there is no question this is a challenging situation. as the president has said, there

are many factors. while we are clear people should not come to the border now, we also understand we will enforce the law and that we can chew gum and walk at the same time. let's address the root problems that cause people to make the trek. host: asking you what you would ask the president during the news conference today? 1015 a.m. this morning, we will take you live to the senate committee, hearing testimony from deanne criswell, before the homeland security committee, live coverage here on c-span. the president's news conference today at 1:15 p.m. eastern, live on c-span, c-span radio app and on www.c-span.org. one more to tell you about in the afternoon.

mark zuckerberg, the google ceo and the twitter ceo testify on combating online misinformation and disinformation, a joint subcommittee virtual hearing at noon eastern today, over on c-span3. we are also carrying that on www.c-span.org. on their testimony today, a story ahead of that from usa today. ag's callout vaccine misinformation. a dozen state attorneys general called on twitter to take more aggressive action against lies that undermine public confidence in covid vaccines. their testimony today live on c-span3. text from rick in montclair, california, on the question he would ask the president. why he opened the border? caleb, memphis, tennessee,

democrat. caller: hi. i would like to ask the president if he would be willing to commit to be more aggressive with his economic policies? the pandemic has worsened things. these are not new problems. these are not new deficits. they are just bigger. his plan to raise taxes on people with incomes over $400,000 sounds great and might get him money he will need to fund bills he wants but it is not going to be a long-term solution. i would love to see him commit to something like elizabeth warren's wealth tax, for example. host: clarence, nashville, tennessee. caller: thank you. i would ask the president what thought he gave to his resolution to stop the programs

the trump administration had put in place on immigration? it turned into a total disaster. thank you. host: sergio, pompano beach, florida, independent. caller: good morning. i would ask president biden, -- [indiscernible] -- what they have done to us. also, any more new nominations for positions. host: glad you pointed that out. there is a story about the administration being behind on a number of positions. from the wall street journal this morning, many key security posts still unfilled. president biden has yet to name hundreds of administration officials requiring senate confirmations to military, diplomatic and intelligence posts, making it unlikely his security agencies will be fully

staffed until fall, officials say. thelma, california, putnam bill, excuse me, indiana. thelma in indiana, go ahead and join us on the republican line. caller: i would like to ask mr. biden, acting president biden, why did he let all of those illegal immigrants come into the u.s. unchecked with the virus and putting all these kids in different places, like obama did ? not only that, he let the illegals come in and now they are trying to take the guns. that is their agenda i think. somebody needs to stop what is going on in washington dc. host: california, doris, democrat. caller: good morning.

i would ask president biden, if in fact you are a humanitarian, what have you done as of this moment and plan to do about the situation in yemen and america's relationship to saudi arabia and the support of the starvation of the children? what has he already done to resolve that? host: from politico. biden discovers there is no way to script the presidency. when the white house announced joe biden would hold his first news conference, the president have embarked on a victory tour across the u.s. touting a legislative package he had hoped would control the pandemic and revive the economy. nine days later, as he prepares to take questions at the white house, his administration is

facing criticism and his failure to release a plan to curb gun violence and the lack of sufficient asian american representation in the cabinet. aaron, baltimore, democrat. caller: i would ask if he has considered having a program of encouraging people to buy bonds to support this debt. the pandemic is just as serious of a crisis is when we go to war. the solution in the past has been to encourage bonds. i would be willing to. a lot of people would be willing to kick in to help support the $1.9 trillion. host: comments on social media. send us a text at (202)-748- 8003. send us a tweet, @cspanwj.

question from carlene for the president. will you please get rid of the filibuster? mark says, should washington dc become a state? should they pack the supreme court? why do you continue to wear a mask when no one is near you? mark on facebook says, you carefully studied the keystone shutdown. why is it so important? kirk asks, how are we responding to the cyber war being waged on us by russia and china? why doesn't he close the borders until the pandemic is under control? illinois. caller: good morning. great segment. question for the president. and the vice president. why can't the embassies in the central american countries play a larger role in processing the

aliens who want or need to emigrate to the u.s.? host: quick question, jane, great question. thank you for calling. a world report from the u.n. on the guardian this morning on starvation. 30 million people, one step away from starvation. acute hunger is likely to soar in more than 20 countries in the next few months, according to the u.n. families in yemen and south sudan are already in the grip of starvation, according to a report on hunger hotspots published by the food and agriculture organization and the world food program. estimated 34 million people struggling with emergency levels of acute hunger known as ipc, meaning they are one step away from starvation. brian, rockville, maryland, independent. caller: i would ask the president to work with the

senate and the house to stop putting bills together -- too much pork. have specific independent bills for each issue instead of adding other things. host: ok. on twitter. how can the federal government stop the barrage of voter suppression laws by republicans across the nation? more of a regional story. notable from the washington times this morning. governor northam, virginia, signs law banning death penalty. virginia, first state in the south to abolish the practice. the commonwealth, virginia, has the highest rate of executions, nearly 1400 during its colonial days, 113 executions since capital punishment was reestablished by the supreme court in 1976. shirley, ohio.

caller: three things. thank you for c-span. first. please, let the reporters, news media, whoever, go into the camps and see what is going on with those children? he owes the children and the people of the u.s. that. please get rid of the filibuster . if he does not, the likes of mitch mcconnell and joe mentioned has turned into a junior mitch mcconnell and i believe he will get rid of the filibuster if the democrats were not in. host: quick one from paul, oklahoma city, republican. mute your volume. caller: good morning. congratulations, mr. president.

i respect that. what do y'all think about gun control? i respect guns. it has gotten out of hand. ar-15, for instance. how about you only get to buy one instead of five? you know what i mean? just one. host: news conference, 1:15 p.m. eastern, live coverage on c-span. ahead, we talked to a couple guests about the anniversary of the aca happening this week. we are joined by yvette fontenot and michael cannon, next. we look forward to your calls and comments as well. ♪ announcer: coming up today on c-span, the senate homeland security committee holds a confirmation hearing at 10:15 a.m. eastern for fema administrator nominee dn because

well. 1:15 p.m., president biden holds his first official news conference since taking office. -- deeann criswell. at noon, on c-span3, the ceos of facebook, twitter and google testify about the spread of online misinformation at a house energy and commerce subcommittee hearing. there is more streaming live on our website including an infrastructure hearing with transportation secretary pete buttigieg at 11 a.m. eastern. later, veterans affairs secretary dennis mcdonough testifies at an oversight hearing on v.a. operations, underway at 2 p.m. eastern. ♪ announcer: american history tv on c-span3. exploring the people and events

that tell the american story, every weekend. coming up this weekend, saturday at 10 p.m. eastern, with the recent announcement of this year's academy award nominees, we feature three films nominated for or won academy awards. library of congress, 1945, with these hands, 1950, why man creates, 1968. sunday, 2 p.m. eastern, a civil rights activist recounts when south carolina state troopers fired on students protesting segregation. we also visit the national museum of the u.s. army and for valve or, virginia. -- fort belvoir, virginia. ken burns discusses the challenge of telling america's story. watch american history tv, this weekend on c-span3.

announcer: washington journal continues. host: the affordable care act was signed into law 11 years ago this week. we thought we would spend the final hour of the program talking about it on the 11th anniversary. we are joined by yvette fontenot , senior strategist for protect our care and from the cato institute, policy study director michael cannon. good morning and thank you for coming on washington journal. guest: thank you for having us. guest: thank you, bill. host: with this headline from the washington post, 200,000 americans signed up for aca health plans during special enrollment. 11 years since the signing of that law, where do you think things stand in terms of coverage for americans? guest: what is important for viewers to understand and for all of those who need health

insurance in this difficult time -- the debate over the aca and how the american people feel about it, whether it works as designed, etc., is over. we should talk about how to improve it, as democrats did in the american rescue plan, just signed by president biden. the american people have spoken. millions continue to sign up in the open enrollment, even after the trump administration sabotaged and tried to reduce enrollment. ballot measures to expand medicaid past in every state in which they have been taken to the people directly on the ballots. after a failed attempt at repeal in 2017, democrats ran and won on health care in four consecutive elections, including in 2020 where they won the white

house and senate. that debate is over. time to move on. what is important to know for viewers is that in terms of coverage, at this point in time, if they are losing their employment, which many are, losing their health insurance, with that employment, they have an opportunity right now, just been extended until august 15 by the administration to go on healthcare.gov and get health insurance at a much reduced premium thanks to the american rescue plan just enacted. host: michael cannon, if the debate is over, what is to be done to prove the aca or health care in general, health care coverage in general in the united states? guest: i have been hearing that the debate is over for 11 years. every time there is bad news

about it or someone criticizes, it is not working the way congress promised. premiums have skyrocketed under the aca. they are so high that in some places people are getting quoted benchmark premiums of almost $50,000. that is three quarters of median household income. obamacare is so expensive, congress has just passed legislation that would throw thousands of dollars that individuals making over $100,000 per year. a 60-year-old couple earning $210,000 per year could get a subsidy of $11,000 under the bill the democrats passed. if we are having to subsidize people making over $200,000 a year so they can afford obamacare coverage, this is not

appropriately called the aca. this is not affordable at all. obamacare's approach to affordability violates the first rule. it throws more and more money at health insurance, which encourages providers to jack up rates which makes health insurance more expensive. you, if you throw more money at health insurance that way, it will become more expensive. that is not the worst part. the worst part is it provides millions of people with worse coverage than before and shuts off any other option people may have to buy better coverage. not far from where i'm sitting in washington dc, there is a seven-year-old girl named look colette briggs. she has leukemia. if obamacare left her family alone, she would have more secure coverage and access to cancer treatment than she has now but obamacare through her family -- threw her out of there

plan, jacked up the premiums and ever since, the family has been struggling to get obamacare plans to cover her treatment because the obamacare pre-existing condition reward plans discriminates against patients like colette. we see this throughout the country. we see this with various diseases. multiple sclerosis is one. the narrow provider networks are an example of the pre-existing conditions encouraging people -- insurance companies to discriminate against the sick. it prevents people from buying more secure coverage, the kind of coverage that colette's family had before obamacare so people don't end up in a situation where colette is. even though they have obamacare coverage, they have to put together a gofundme page to pay for her care. host: lots of people covered but

is the coverage as good as it should have been? guest: i did not hear in that segment the solution that michael and the republican side is proposing because they don't have a health care plan at this point in time. what is important to understand is that what was just passed in the american rescue plan, will address some of the shortfalls in the aca, which we can work to improve. no one who worked on the law ever claimed it was perfect. in the bill just passed, that makes generous subsidies available to 14.9 million uninsured people, so michael is right -- if you are one of those folk struggling with insurance issues right now and you just lost insurance, you can go on health care.com and get more assistance to buy your insurance. -- healthcare.gov. 4-5 enrollees will find a plan

for $10 or less per month after tax credits. host: i want to explore those credits in the covid really feel in particular. i want to open up phone lines to viewers. (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8002 for independents. --(202)-748-8000 if you are currently receiving insurance through the aca. if you get private insurance, (202)-748-8001, including employee provided insurance. (202)-748-8002 for all others. npr piece on subsidies in the american recovery act. the headline says the covid relief bill expands the aca. doesn't come cheap. by next year, taxpayers will shell out more than $8,500 for every american who gets a

subsidized health plan through the insurance market plan created by the aca. up 40% from the cost of marketplace subsidies, 2020, due to the augmented data from the nonpartisan congressional budget office. your thoughts? guest: i also heard that opponents do not have an alternative. if you look over my shoulder, you will see four books the cato institute has published since the aca passed that explain alternatives. they make access to health care better, improve the quality of health insurance and care and bring health care within the reach of people who cannot afford it today and make our health care sector more universal. it is not the case there are no alternatives to obamacare. there are. obamacare supporters don't want to debate them.

as far as subsidies for obamacare, as i mentioned, obamacare has become so expensive, democrats in congress, in their judgment have decided even people making, in some cases $500,000 per year, need subsidies in order to help them afford these expensive plans. taxpayers are picking up the bulk of the expensive premiums, that obamacare has done nothing to constrain. subsidies don't bring down prices or make things more affordable. they increase prices. host: yvette fontenot, your thoughts on those subsidies. guest: that is an issue of working together to improve the law and reduce health care prices. a lot of republican alternatives, the problem with a

lot of them is after 11 years of screaming for repeal, you are unable to include any of those in a replace plan and get it passed through congress. those are by the wayside. the solution pursued by the trump administration for a long time was to give people junk insurance. insurance you could not get if you had a pre-existing condition, wouldn't even be offered, that in most cases, did not provide coverage for essential benefits like maternity care, prescription drug coverage, inpatient hospital coverage, all benefits that the aca guarantees to you and insurers, if you are one of the 135 million people in america that has a pre-existing condition, you cannot be denied coverage or charged more than the average person for that coverage. you get what you pay for. premiums and cost-sharing on the

exchanges in the aca have been declining steadily as plans get more experience with this population and will continue to decline as you bring more people into the risk pool. that is an issue we are addressing and will continue to work to improve on. to fundamentally say because there are problems with the law, it needs to be thrown out even though it is currently covering 20 million people in providing insurance to those people, just makes no sense at this point. host: we have phone calls waiting. yvette fontenot, please tell us about your organization and stand on the aca. protect our care. what is your role? guest: protect our care was created initially to fight against the repeal of the aca and has now become an organization that supports the aca and the need to improve it and extend it into the future and ensure all the benefits it

provides, including protections for people with pre-existing conditions, preventative services, coverage of essential health benefits package, allowing those under age 26 to stay on their parents' plan, ending the annual and lifetime limits that existed before that, ensuring that women can no longer be charged double for insurance, improving access and financial security are all things that remain in place into the future. host: michael cannon, the health policy studies at the libertarian leaning cato institute think tank. you mentioned the books you have published on health care. generally, does that mean you as policy director are working with republicans on the hill to develop alternatives to present? guest: the cato institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank.

we don't take positions on legislation, we don't align with any political party. as yvette fontenot said, i wish democrats would do the same. democrats end up agreeing with us sometimes and republicans other times. we just published a study a few months ago advocating among other things that the fda should make birth control available over-the-counter. it is available over-the-counter in more than 100 countries. the american institute of gynecologists says it is ridiculous. democrats tend to like the idea. we take a consistent stand at the institute in favor of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. in health care, we want to

protect your most fundamental health care right, which is the right to make your own decision. not only because it is right but because when government does that, we get better health care, more affordable, more secure and brings the reach of an ever-increasing number of people. host: irene, first up in aurora, colorado. caller: my complaint on the aca, they are leaving out the most important part, which is they cover pre-existing conditions. there are a lot of people not covered with pre-existing conditions before the aca. now there are a lot more people whose lives are being taken care of in a responsible way. guest: can i make a comment? host: yeah. guest: exactly right.

if you buy insurance on your own, this is the law that ensures you can have access to that coverage and it is affordable if you have a pre-existing condition. 135 million americans have a pre-existing condition. that number is going up steadily. if you have ever been diagnosed, tested for covid, during this pandemic. it is a critical piece of the law. if efforts to repeal the law had succeeded, you would no longer have those protections and be assured access to health insurance. host: michael cannon, will that be part of its legacy? the protection of pre-existing conditions. guest: if you are concerned about pre-existing conditions, government is not your friend. they are the problem. those 135 million americans are in employer plans because the government penalizes them unless

they buy employer-sponsored insurance which is the kind of coverage that disappears when your connection to an employer disappears. that often happens after a person gets sick. when that happens, with what should be the insured condition, becomes not insured. private insurance, with insurance companies does a better job of protecting people with conditions from ending up uninsured like that and yet the government has penalized americans unless they enroll in the type of coverage that drops you for no good reason after you get sick. that has been fueling the problem of pre-existing conditions for 70 years in this country. obamacare did not fix it. to put in place rules that say, insurance companies discriminate against patients with conditions when it comes to enrollment. what the same rules to his

encourage insurance companies to discriminate against those patients, like colette briggs, when it comes to coverage and access to care. that is why the networks in obamacare are narrower than in junk plans or short-term plans. they don't operate under those rules obamacare put in place. when it comes to drug coverage, economic research shows those provisions, i would not call them protections, because they are not, those provisions are forcing drug companies, rather, insurance companies to make their drug coverage for expensive conditions like multiple sclerosis worse. these are not protections. if you want to know who is protecting you, think about who is denying you the choice of coverage you want. there are those of us who support a free-market health care that want you to have the choice of choosing a plan that

does not operate under obamacare rules, that colette briggs had before obamacare that would have made access to care more secure through broader networks and other mechanisms. obamacare supporters don't want you to have that choice. they are offering junk insurance and labeling it a plan you may choose junk because they know better what type of health insurance you should buy. host: lawrence, newport news, virginia. caller: thank you. unfortunately, from my perspective, obamacare was, the aca, was presented with the opportunity for additional legislation to clear out or make corrections. unfortunately, after six years, individuals in congress have not seen fit to make the adjustments to legislation. we are constantly talking about

how bad the aca is, yet we are not considering conditions we found ourselves in where major pharmaceutical firms were gouging customers with higher, inflated costs. if we would just get on the bandwagon of addressing deficiencies in the aca, i think all will be better. host: yvette fontenot, how do you do that with the political dynamic pretty much the same on capitol hill? guest: frankly, we just did it. congress, under the leadership of the president and vice president and the support of all democrats in congress just did

improve the aca. they created additional tax credits, subsidies for those who have lost insurance, additional incentives for the 14 states that have not yet put the medicaid expansion in to take it up and they will continue to work to improve the aca. the point is we need to continue to work to improve the law, not throw the baby out with the bathwater and undermine the 160 million people who currently get insurance through their employer and leave that markets table while we improve the aca. -- that market stable while we improve the aca. it is an issue trump spoke about and did not affect at all. it is an issue president biden has spoken about and is serious about addressing drug pricing moving forward. it was part of his campaign.

part of what he has put forward in his presidency and will work with congress as we move forward to begin to do something about those prices. host: michael cannon, do you want to talk about pricing? guest: democrats agree with libertarians in this area. we think the government pays too much for prescription drugs and applaud efforts by democrats or republicans to try to bring down those prices. the problem is government is a terrible price negotiator. every time you hear complaints from democrats that medicare should be negotiating with drug companies and similar complaints -- the situation they are describing is one where congress has already negotiated with companies and congress lost. when you give these decisions over health care purchasing to government and government bureaucracies, those positions

and prices at which transactions execute, become captured by special interests who have an interest in those prices. that is the drunk companies -- the drug companies. that is not going to stop happening as long as we put government in control of defining what kind of insurance people have to buy, how much insurance they have to buy, putting government in the position where it is the largest purchaser of medical goods and services in the world. we have to take the money out of government hands, put it into the hands of consumers, let them choose their plan, how much coverage to buy, we will get must more -- much more cost conscious behavior, they can keep the savings and that will spark price competition that will break down the cost of prices for prescription drugs, all drugs and all medical goods and services across the board.

it is not going to happen as long as we leave those decisions in the hands of government and to the extent government, if it does ever reduce health care spending, it comes at the expense of access to central care. host: on subsidies, in the 1.9 trillion dollar covid really feel passed and the congress a couple weeks ago, this was the headline in the washington post in their health analysis. the stimulus plan, 29% spending hike in obamacare subsidies. jesse, florida, on the air. caller: i agree with michael. the affordable care act is not affordable. the aca -- we had a problem in the individual market. we did not have a problem in the group market. when aca did what it did, no one

foresaw you were going -- [indiscernible] -- our rates and coverage had gone way up. we are talking about $800 per month for single coverage. we are talking about deductions of $7,000 before you do anything. you have killed 90% of the health care market with the aca. not stabilizing the market. you un-stabilized the market. host: michael cannon on the group market. guest: i disagree with the color. -- caller. employer-sponsored insurance has

pluses and minuses. for 70 or more years congress has been tilting the playing field in favor of that type of insurance, which appears after you get sick for no good reason by penalizing workers unless they let employers control a huge chunk of their earnings and use that to choose and purchase a health plan for workers. this is a type of insurance that disappears when your job disappears, even if you have developed an expensive condition, instead of having insurance that goes with you. instead of letting people choose insurance that stays with them if they move from job to job. congress said, we are going to penalize you unless you buy a less secure type of insurance. 90% of americans with private insurance get it through an employer. it is not because employer-sponsored insurance is stable or serving the needs of american consumers.

it is because of government. that weird quirk of the tax code. people like me have been advocating getting rid of the preferential tax treatment for employer-sponsored insurance for decades. people say we cannot destabilize the employer market and as a result, the problem gets worse and worse. more and more people develop expensive conditions and get thrown out of the plan the government forced them to buy. host: yvette fontenot, your thoughts on the impact of the aca on the employer marketplace? guest: 160 million people in this country get their health insurance through the employer-sponsored system. talking about upending that system at this moment in time makes absolutely no sense for people. the aca, what it tried to do was to address the segment of the market not working while trying to keep the rest of the market in place so people could

continue to get what they were doing with, what they were comfortable with and familiar with and employers that wanted to provide health insurance to attract the best employees could continue to do that. best employees, could continue to do that. the affordable care act addressed the part of the market that was not working, in particular, for people with pre-existing conditions. in terms of the concern about the rise in prices, that is a separate issue that the affordable care act attempted to address by further aligning some incentives between providers and payers. that is an area we can work to improve. michael has mentioned the drug pricing issue and other areas where we could work to drive down health care prices together and improve in that area. the idea that the affordable care act should be thrown out

and the employer-based system should be appended, at this point in time, particularly with people who are economically struggling, losing health insurance instead of improving it, building on it and providing more assistance to people at this moment makes no sense at all to me. host: our line for those of you who get your insurance through the aca. mike is in kissimmee, florida. good morning. caller: i am calling because i have aca. aca has hurt my job and with the employer mandate, they had to cut my hours. i work for the state of florida. because of that, the state of florida cut my job. i had to pick up a job in a separate state. i work in two separate states, both part-time.

aca is outrageously priced. they don't cover anything. i have got a $6,000 deductible. my premium every month is almost $1000. i don't have to pay that much out of, but i'm still paying almost $100 a month and i still have to pay totally for my appointments. they are not covered. my insurance covers my prescriptions a little bit, but not enough. the employer mandate was bad. i'm glad they repealed the individual mandate. i think that was a great help. looking at this, i feel this plan was a step in the right direction, but a poor step in the right direction. at the same time, i have to say

we are going to talk about insurance, should we be talking about people's health, accidents should be for sale prefer profit on the open market. host: a similar story tweeted to us by mark. he says he had a $6,000 deductible and his premiums were $2200 a month. do you care to comment about this? guest: different people value different things when it comes to health insurance. some people like low deductibles, some like high. rather than let people choose what is more important to them, obama care tries to fit everyone into a one-size-fits-all plan that produces junk insurance because a lot of people don't want the high deductible or the narrow networks.

it is a result of obamacare's suppose it protections for pre-existing conditions. my questions for obama here -- obamacare supporters, we don't have republicans or opponents controlling either congress or the white house, why not let people -- it does not appear to be going anywhere, why not let people choose? if they want to enroll in obamacare, they can, if they want to enroll in a plan that allows insurance companies to price according to risk so that healthy people can get lower cost plans, they can pay lower premiums to get more secure access to care when they get sick as short-term plans do right now, why not give them that choice? guest: i would encourage your

caller to go to healthcar.gov after april 1. they will not deny you care because you have a pre-existing condition and will not charge you more if you happen to be a women or because you are sick. there are multiple options there and the premiums will be much more affordable thanks to the packets that was just supported by president biden and passed in the american rescue plan. because they were calling from florida and rightly points out that florida is one of the 14 states that have not implemented the medicaid expansion yet, states that have implemented the medicaid expansion have been better positioned to respond to this pandemic emergency and to prevent the economic downturn that has worsened access for people to health care and has created health disparities. the american rescue plan did

include additional incentives, more money than has been on the table for florida to take up the medicaid expansion. if all of the states that have not taken up that expansion yet were to expand, an estimated 4 million uninsured adults including 640,000 front-line workers, 500,000 people with disabilities and close to one million older adults from age 50 to 54, could gain coverage. more portly, people of color would make up more than 60% of this group. it is a racial equity issue and it is an incentive that was included in the covid relief package in the hope that state like florida would take up that expansion to actually make access or increase access and make health coverage more affordable for the entire population. host: the headline on politico,

biden is extending the enrollment season. biden marked the health care law's anniversary on another in columbus ohio. 20 million covered under what is called obamacare. 38 states and d.c. expanded medicaid. about 30 million people lack health insurance coverage in the u.s. in the year 2019, the most recent year, according to bloomberg. back to calls. caller: i was private pay insurance for many years. eventually, my insurance company dropped my policy and i had to go on the american health care plan. when i did, i realized i could keep my income under so much a year, and i was given a policy where they were subsidizing 800 to $900 a month and i was only

paying $100 a month. before, i was paying more with a $10,000 deductible. i now had this great insurance for three years before i went on medicare. my flaw with all of this is i am sitting on almost $1 million of assets. my assets were not considered at all for whether i qualify for credits or not. i don't understand how that is possible. can anybody explain that? host: do you have an answer for her? guest: i think that is something we should look at in the state of texas. normally, under the law, your assets should have been considered as part of your income when given the amount of tax credits he received. i'm glad you were able to find such affordable health insurance for the few years before you went on to medicare, which is

the host: any specific guidance you can give our caller? guest: obamacare supporters in congress don't care. they're giving away subsidies to people earning $500,000 a year. to their mind, there is nothing that more government spending cannot fix. the problem is that this strategy and everything mentioned earlier about florida and the benefits that might come from obamacare are not benefits of fixing the health care sector, they are just the benefits that come with spending more government money and throwing more money at the problem. the problem here is that you are violating the first rule which is that we have the most expensive health care sector in the world and we are in this whole and we got there by throwing more government money at it.

we keep digging yourself deeper and deeper into this whole. it is worth mentioning that this is really a fiscal hole. this money we're spending, we are not paying for with current taxes. we are keeping more and more debt onto future generations. when that bill comes due, all of the people that had enrolled in the medicaid expansion part of obamacare, their access to care is going to be in serious jeopardy because it is the first program government cuts when it faces a budget restrain. it is a very irresponsible thing to do because it puts a lot of low income people in a vulnerable situation. host: this is elise in california. caller: good morning. this is a very interesting conversation and i'm not as well versed as the two callers before me, but what i do know is that

we americans pay taxes on everything we see, we hear, we eat or we drink. we take taxes on everything. paying for our health care through obamacare is probably the best thing that ever happened to america. it seems as though these right wing and heritage foundation want to eliminate the government make the government smaller. that does not help america. it does not help the american citizen. people need to look into the cato institute, the heritage foundation and understand who these people are to privatize everything, our prisons, post offices. they just don't want government. host: michael, i will give you a chance to respond. guest: first of all, we don't pay taxes to cover all of the government spending.

obamacare originated at the heritage foundation. this is an idea the heritage foundation has endorsed since 1989. the cato institute has consistently opposed obamacare precisely because it does not fix the problems of our health care sector. it makes health care more expensive and makes access to care ultimately worse especially for people like a seven-year-old girl with leukemia struggling to get her obamacare plan to pay for her cancer care. yes, there are benefits when you spend tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. not even the government can spend that much without helping some people. on balance, what is happening here as we are making health care more expensive and reducing access in part by blocking or continuing to block innovations that would make health care more

affordable and more secure. host: let's go to jason in falls church, virginia. caller: i guess my first comment is on michael's comment about government being influenced -- pharmaceutical companies, i think that is largely due to citizen united. the other problem is -- host: are you still there? caller: i'm sorry, just gathering my thoughts. the pricing on drugs, a lot of these pharmaceutical companies have no competition. i don't know how a free market is supposed to work when there is none. a lot of them that do have competition end up buying out their competitors and jacking up the prices.

i think in the congressional hearings were bernie sanders was actually pointing out that there are places where government can step in and make changes like when they set price controls in canada, i don't know if that has ever been a consideration, but i think it is worth discussing, can we implement price controls to lower drug prices? host: how do both of you a chance to respond. guest: i think he raises a great point which is back to our discussion about drug pricing. over the past couple of years under the leadership of speaker pelosi, the house has passed a bill to allow medicare to negotiate drug pricing. the senate and committee has considered a couple of bills and president biden has talked in the campaign and as president about the need to control drug prices. it has been a priority for democrats. president trump talked about a

lot, but did not affect a single drug price for anyone when he was in office. that is a debate moving forward that i think democrats in congress as well as president biden want to have and need to have in terms of the kitchen table impact on people's pocketbooks. that is certainly a debate that needs to be had. host: the caller mentioned that hearing the other day. your thoughts? guest: government pays for half of the health care we consume in the united states. in the private sector, government encourages excessive insurance to the point where between government and private insurance companies, we have third-party payers purchasing far more than our health care then we would if we just let consumers control the trillions of dollars we spend on health care every year. because they are terribly price

negotiators, that is why we get these excessive prices. medicare is not a good price negotiator. medicare pays for lots of wasteful care, lots of low-quality care and it pays a lot of excessive prices for that care. every time medicare tries to reduce high cost or low-quality care, what happens? the day the government tries to do that, who winds up outside the door except lobbyist for all of those high cost, low quality providers. they lobby the government to stop those efforts because those efforts represent a threat to their incomes. when you get government control over two or three doubt -- $2 trillion or the $3 trillion that we spend every year, it is like putting a hot -- pot of honey out in the middle of your yard and you cannot be surprised about the bees start swarming.

the only way to get rid of special interest influence over our health care sector is to get rid of government influence. as long as government controls the money, there will be special interests that are going to lobby the government and twist our health care sector in their favor at the expense of patients . as for citizens united, that was a case about the government banning books. caller: i get a little nervous when i call in. host: do us a favor and make sure you mute your volume so we don't hear the tv. caller: what i was going to say in the last speech i just heard, part of what i was going to say exactly to the tv. i would just bring in something a little bit off. when obama started this health care, he took billions of dollars out of social security and medicare to feed the funding

of it so that insurance companies got super rich taking on this affordable care act. that was the payback for lobbying obama and the rest of the democrats to make this bill. the democrats are telling us we are running out of money for social security. in a few years, it is going to be broke. what are we going to do? we have to raise taxes. host: you were in the obama administration, influential in implement and part of obamacare. what about her criticisms? guest: obamacare did not touch -- there were no social security dollars used to pay for obamacare. there were medicare papers included to offset the cost of the law that addressed some issues with fragile and overspending in medicare as michael has been talking about.

we tackled some of those to reduce some of that spending in order to pay for a huge coverage expansion and increased affordability for 20 million people in the affordable care act. the law was fully paid for over the 10 year window and the 20 year window. it did not increase about -- budget deficit. what is going on with the medicare trust firm right now is almost exclusively related to the pandemic. and the loss of economic revenues due to the pandemic, not the passage of the affordable care act. i think it is important to mention that while michael continues to point out that the government does pay for half of the health care spending in this country and medicare and medicaid combined cover 150 million lives and the affordable care act covers 20 million lives, the idea i think that highlights the fact that moving forward, what we need to do it

his figure out how to improve the effectiveness of these programs and not continue to propose the government get out of health care because it is completely unreasonable to talk about upending the entire system. president obama went to great lengths to protect social security and to ensure all of these folks who rely on the government for their health insurance can continue to do that into the future as opposed to an unclear proposal for how to replace all of that coverage in the entire system and completely a bend where everyone is getting their health insurance. host: what do you both think we have learned about our health care system because of the pandemic? guest: one thing we learned is government blocks access to care

innumerable ways. the first thing states did was they suspended a lot of regulations on clinicians that block access to care for people every day. they just realized there is a crisis. we really have to get rid of these restrictions. we have to let out-of-state doctors practice in our state and let out-of-state doctors treat patients in our state by telemedicine. the supervision requirements that are really just rent seeking, we learned the fda -- those restrictions block access to care all the time. we have learned the sba early because lives when a limited access to diagnostic tests. the vaccine was developed within

days of sequencing the genome of january 2020, but because the fda blocked access, americans did not get access to the vaccines until november or december and some people still can't get access to them. the number one thing we have learned is that government gets in the way of making health care better and more affordable and more secure. guest: i think the largest thing the pandemic has highlighted in our health care system is that there are significant racial equity issues which existed before the pandemic, but the pandemic has highlighted them in terms of access to health care. i agree with michael that the extension of telehealth and the

ability of people to access care remotely without leaving their house has been a really important production. moving forward, i think we need to figure out where these racial inequities were highlighted due to the pandemic because of race issues or because you live in a rural area and don't have immediate access to health care. you are in a tribal area where your access is limited. all of those fractures in our health care system where people don't have the access they need immediately that have really been highlighted by this pandemic, this is a case study moving forward.

host: back to some calls. caller: good morning, enjoying the show. i would like to ask -- he seems to think that if you just let the private sector go, prosperity is just around the corner. we had the financial meltdown. if he would drive a couple of hours west from the washington area to go to appalachia, he will find there is tremendous poverty there and people have very little health care for their pre-existing conditions. what happened after obamacare? what happened after it was implemented? millions of people in appalachia

lined up for health care. they lined up for heart conditions, diabetes, asthma, all sorts of pre-existing conditions that they had never treated before. millions of people in appalachia did that and it was all because of government regulations. host: do you want to respond? guest: if you give away free health insurance to people or what appears to be free health insurance, people will sign up for it. the problem is that it always does. it just throws money at this problem and takes away your freedom to choose another approach that might provide a better solution.

it might bring health care within the reach of more and more people so they don't have to depend on government for their access to health care. their access to care may not be affected if they had a budget restraint because they cannot borrow as much money as they have been. we have talked about some of them, but unfortunately, congress is not talking about getting rid of those measures. states are talking about these problems to some extent because they have suspended a lot of the regulations that are making health care less accessible for low income americans. it remains to be seen whether states will take the step of

making those regulatory suspensions permanent and even expanding on them in order to bring health care within the region of more people. caller: i want to comment that the access to care is being too much controlled by not allowing the doctors to recommend the treatments that control it. i see that with medicaid and the private insurance that there is a 90 -- on unequal treatment of patients. i have a child that was not diagnosed with cancer as an infant because i really feel that under the medicaid, the doctor did not have the control for testing. it was too much red tape as opposed to the private side where they're able to make a decision without all of the red tape. it is too much bureaucracy and the doctors are not able to make the treatment. that is where i think we fall short. guest: i think what laws like

the affordable care act do is cover some of the uncompensated care so that providers can deal with patients and have more time to deal with patients across the board whether you have insurance or you don't. the provider is able to actually take the time because of the funding that comes in through laws like the affordable care act to find people that are uninsured. the regulations that the caller is talking about are certainly issues that i know folks work every day to try and reduce and ensure the access to care is easy to come by and is of high quality for patients who go into cds providers, but i think the underlying issue is that if you

are one of the uninsured individuals in this country and continue to struggle with the issue of not being in short, you have zero access to care. programs like the affordable care act that has covered 20 million people in this country can sure you have access to care and can get to provider if your child is sick. what that access to care looks like and how convenient it is is something we as a country need to continue to work on and improve. host: as we wrap up, michael, any thoughts? guest: many of the millions of people obamacare covers are people that came out of their premium plans. as for the concern, health care is a very complex set of goods and services. it is unclear when an insurance

company or governor -- government is looking over your shoulder, when the insurance company is saying no, sometimes they are right and the doctor is wrong. what is happening in our health care sector right now is the government is denying you your right to choose the type of health insurance plan and type of approach that you prefer. consumers don't get a free choice between plans that give the doctor a lot of free range. there are either thrown into a government program where the government decides what they going to get, or the government pent -- penalizes them or they get an eca plan where the rules the government puts in place dictate that insurance companies are going to have to discriminate and one of those

ways is going to be looking over the shoulders of doctors saying no to care that a lot of high cost insurance patients need. host: thanks to both of you for being on the program this morning. we are done for today on "washington journal." a reminder, president biden's newts conference this afternoon. thank you for joining us. we are back tomorrow morning, friday morning and every morning at 7:00 eastern. we hope you are. ♪ >> coming up live, fema administrator nominee deanne

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