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about the prospects for a major infrastructure legislation. and a look at the cryptocurrency industry with peter. and later discussion on a competition between the u.s. and host: good morning. the flags over the u.s. capitol at half-staff in honor of those victims from the sap jose, california mass shooting. two major issues before the senate again today. a building pushed by democratic leader chuck schumer that would setaside $250 billion to make the u.s. more competitive with china. also a vote on that january 6 commission with democrats not so far able to gain the 10 republican votes they need. the senate gaveled out shortly before 3 a.m. this morning.

back in two hours. live coverage on c-span2. at the white house, president biden releasing his budget recommendations for the next fear. -- fiscal year. a figure estimated at $6 trillion. it is friday morning, may 28. your calls and comments on how the president is handling the economy. is the approach working? if you say yes, 202-748-8000. no, 202-748-8001. unsure, 202-748-8001. for twitter the text number is 202-748-8003. on fb at fb.com/c-span. thank you for being with us. a lot to get to. we want to begin with the tragedy in san jose, california. this courtesy of the san jose mercury news. those nine vick tifments mass shooting that took place just past 6:30 local time on wednesday. some of the reporting from the mercury news, most of the men

gunned down at the v.t.a. rail yard worked the most dangerous jobs in the business. handling high voteage wires in their bucket trucks sometimes in the rain and freezing cold as speeding trains raced by. it was that work and conditions that built a strong bond among the crew as they gather to receive their daily assignments just after sunrise in the maintenance building on bens morning. they more thick blue uniforms to protect themselves from the arc flash, a high folettage shot that would melt their skin. but nothing could protect them from the danger on wednesday morning. the #is vta family. those nine victims, all men from the san jose mercury news this morning on its website. to the u.s. senate, a former c-span producer with this tweet on what to expect today. the senate meets at 9 a.m. picks up on the science technology bill focusing on china. no vote time set to finish that bill or take the procedural vote

to end the debate on the motion to proceed on a bill to create a january 6 commission. we'll have more on all of this ahead but we want to focus on the president, the economy, his $6 trillion budget plan, and this from the "wall street journal" on why the budget matters more this year. available onine at wsj.com. some years lawmakers skip trying to pass a budget entirely and move straight to the spending bills to fund the government. this year democrats might try to pass legislation under a process tied to the budget known as reconciliation. in democrats in the house and senate can pass an identical bill, then they can pass legislation with a meaningful connection to the budget with a simple majority in the senate rather than 60 votes that most bills need. that means they could pass legislation without g.o.p. support in the senate as they did with the $1.9 trillion dough individual relief package passed back in march tied to the fiscal year 2021 budget. join in on the conversation again if you like the approach

by the biden administration on the economy and say yes, 202-748-8000. if you say no, 202-748-8001. the president traveling to cleveland, ohio, yesterday previewing the budget that will be released today officially. here's more with president biden. president biden: my republican friends in congress, not a single one of them voted for the rescue plan. i'm not going to embarrass any of them, but i have here a list of how back in their districts they are bragging about the rescue plan. they call it the restaurant revitalization fund. where we are in a situation dealing with how they have grants to community health care centers. touted -- i mean some people have no shame. but i'm happy. i'm happy they know that it's benefited their constituents.

that's ok with me. but if you're going to try to take credit for what you've done, don't get in the way of what we still need to do. the bottom line -- the bottom line is this. the biden economic plan is working. we had record job creation. we are seeing record economic growth. we are creating a new paradigm. the working people in this nation. not just those at the top. we did a study, 85% of my jobs plan, 95% of the jobs plan, you don't need a bachelor's degree. 75% you don't even need a degree that's a community college degree. it helps. but guess what? the bottom line is that people are going to be going back to work. there is a new bargain.

everyone is going to be in on the deal this time. now as the economy recovers there are going to be bumps in the road. we know that. of course there will be. you can't reboot a global economy like flipping on a light switch. there will be ups and downs and jobs in economic reports. supply chain issues. price distortions on the way back to a stable and steady growth. in the coming weeks my administration will take steps to combat these supply pressures starting with the construction materials and transportation and building off the work we are doing on computer chips. we are also announcing new initiatives to combat anti-competitive practices, small businesses and families. that can help build more dynamic innovative economy and we'll have a lot more to say about that in the days ahead. but this is already clear. we are on the right track. host: that's from the president. he traveled to cleveland, ohio yesterday. the full speech available on our

website at c-span.org. here are some of the details first reported yesterday by the paperwork times officially released today by the administration on his budget plan. the estimated price tag is $6 trillion to grow by $8.2 trillion by the year 2031, over the next decade. it includes the proposal for the american jobs plan and the american families plan. it also includes $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending. and according to "the washington post," the president's budget would project deficits above $1 trillion for the rest of this decade, growth estimated at 5% in the economy. and 4.3% growth next year. 2% for the rest of the decade. some twitter comments, first from a viewer saying, no, of course it is no. the it is utterly crippled by his devotion to liberalism. abandoning the minimum wage, refusing to talk about single payer health care, focusing on production side economics instead of consumer side economics, adding the free

market doesn't work this. from larry saying it's working it can without much help from the republican senate. that's from a text message. larry in new jersey. a senator has this, a gallup poll 78% of americans have worry about the debt. biden's budget has the highest debt g.d.p. ratio in history. congress needs to wake up. we cannot continue spending future generations into oblivion. get your comments on the president's approach to the economy. yes, no, or unsure. rob on the yes line from new york city. good morning. caller: good morning. this is your buddy rob, i think you might remember me. host: i sure do. how are you? caller: i'm good. i'm glad. you got to try to be even hand add -- evenhanded. all you guys that are moderating be even handed to both sides regardless of where you're coming from if we can be

evenhanded and hear the other side on c-span, we'll all be a lot better off. hopefully people are going to appreciate what the other side has -- i appreciate the other side. infrastructure, jobs, taxing people that earn more than $400,000 a year, i think i call the couple months ago and told you i make sometimes between $30,000 and $50,000 a year. i'm happy. i mean i keep my bills simple. my car is simple. my life is simple. but when you got people earning $400,000 or $4 million or $40 million and we have poor people like myself that -- although i'm not worried about the rich, but a lot of people who make $50,000 a year are worried about people making $4 million a year or $600,000 a year. people have throw away money when you are in the upper

echelon. i know some of them. i'm not there. those people have throw away money, the taxes used to be higher in the united states. we used to have balanced budgets. we used to do better -- not completely balanced but it got pretty close under clinton. we got it down very far. i'm not a communist. i'm not a socialist. i love working. i love capitalism. but you got to tax people. you got to put jobs out there. i also think, we got to start to pay attention to the deficit and the debt. i'm one of those guys. i never liked it. i never liked at one point in my past but i have changed about people coming across the border. those are wonderful people. they work harder than we do. they do -- they are honest. they do good jobs. they are not awful people. when trump came down that escalator and said bad things about people coming across the border. people that come across the border working hard, doing honest day's work.

wonderful people. thank you for the show. host: thank you. don't be a stranger. look forward to hearing from you again. another text message, from dave in orlando, florida. he says i think the biden plan will work. america wants it. and businesses want it. let's get going. send us a text message at 202-748-8003. this from a viewer in california, biden trying to buy his way out of a horrible economy only making it worse. taxes going up, inflation highest in many years, gas over $4, building materials, grocery prices soaring, houses selling way over listing prices. he won't be around in 10 years to see if his plan work. the national debt and china's dominance over us will prevail. this from "the new york times." again the president revealing -- detailing his plan today. the $6 trillion budget to make the u.s. more competitive is the headline from "the new york times." jim writes the following, quote, the levels of taxation and spending in president biden's plans would expand the federal fiscal footprint to levels

rarely seen in the post-war era to fund investments his administration says are crucial to keeping america competitive. he goes on to write, that under mr. biden's proposal the federal budget deficit would hit $1.8 trillion in 2022 even as the economy rebounds from the bechtt recession to grow to what the administration to predicts would be its fastest annual pace since the early 1980's. the deficit would recede slightly in the following years before growing again to nearly $1.6 trillion by 2031 in 10 years. even if interest rates stay low, says jim of the "new york times," payment on the national debt consume an increased share of the budget. net interest payments would share as a share of the economy. back to your phone calls. rob from new york. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. i see this country going down the toilet. i don't think biden's plan is going to help at all. not a bit.

he just got the record amount of money for the military. he's got all this discretionary spending and he wants $1 trillion more deficit? we can't afford that. it's time to balance the budget. balance the books. and if you can't pay for it, then you don't get it. host: thanks for the call. from tim in ohio with this text message. i think he spends too much money on some things and not enough on others. from indiana, howard, joining ounce the yes line. the biden approach to the economy. go ahead, please. caller: yes. i think biden's approach is definitely the right approach. actually i think we should invest far more in education and single payer health care system. research and technology, which i think is a thrust of biden's approach. i think we really have to include a large education component in rolling out his budget profile because there is a huge misunderstanding among the general public about how our

economy actually operates. we have a sovereign fiat currency. the federal government does not need to raise money to spend money. they need to spend money to invest in the economy. the economy will circulate that through multiple times. and generate growth. one of the things that biden has mentioned as a thrust of his strategy is to focus on productive investments. those productive investments means putting people to work. people who are working spend money. they invest money. they have a higher quality of life. so we really need to understand how our economy works. budget deficits, they don't mean anything. debt and deficits for a sovereign fiat currency don't mean what people think they mean. people look at our federal budget and think it operates like our household budget. that is incorrect. it does not. host: howard, let me jump in.

put the numbers on the screen. we have used this before from the u.s. debt clock. the nation's debt which has increased significantly under president trump and now under president biden now in excess of $28 trillion. for a taxpayer that averages out to about $225,000. why do you say these numbers don't matter? caller: because it assumes that we -- in order for the federal government, which again is the issue of the currency, has to raise money in order to spend it, and that is incorrect. the federal government doesn't need to raise money from anyone. we just need -- federal government needs to ensure that when we issue -- when we do expend money that they are for productive growth reasons and that will generate economic activity in the economy which will enable us to make the investments we need to. it is really intended to take

money out of the economy to control inflation. that's all taxes are really for. host: thanks for the gol. john has this. question, it seems to be working fine on our twitter page. he writes the market is strong. the stimulus has had a beneficial effect. and president biden's focus on infrastructure and clean energy will result in a surge in employment and in good jobs. next up joe from dayton, ohio. you say no. the approach is not working. why, joe? caller: joe biden does not have a clue how to run this economy. this man has done nothing since being in office. he has misspoken on -- he said he created 500,000 new jobs, no, sir. he has not created one single job at all. this man does not have a clue. jobs are leaving the state of ohio and northern ohio. they have gone down to mexico. the stimulus package was way overdone. i just traveled to florida by

car. they are looking for people to work. they can't get them. this economy -- donald trump had this economy roaring before the covid, and joe biden is not going to do anything for this economy but spend, spend, spend. and all this money that he's going to -- that he wants is all going to go to pork. we all know it. just like that covid plan did. there is no way -- we are -- our gas prices are going through the roof. our food prices are going through the roof. inflation is running wild right now. and it's just sad. by the way, he claims he's going to tax the rich. so all of his celebrity friends in california are all going to stand in line to pay more taxes, no way in the world that's ever going to happen. host: thanks for the call. this is from libby jane on our twitter page saying president biden's approach on everything could improve the u.s. if the g.o.p. would stop their childish

obstruction. more from your calls. bellevue, washington, good morning. caller: i'm all for what he's doing. one of your callers said something about they are trying to get jobs down in florida. well, what's the minimum wage down there? the minimum wage needs to be brought up to a decent living wage. as far as the wealthy and the corporations paying. come on, look at what trump did. that's all he gave. we need to take everything that he did back and put it toward the economy, toward -- we need roads. we need bridges. everything. and for them to think that it's ridiculous -- i wouldn't work -- live in a state that had a minimum wage of seven something an hour and it doesn't -- they

call it right to work? anybody has a right to work. why don't they believe in unions? host: carla, thanks. this is another text message, john in evansville, indiana, a lot of you sending in your mention. we appreciate that. 202-748-8003. tell us your first name and where air from. giving tax breaks to the super wealthy will take us into owe believeon. in exchange before appropriations committee house republican chris stewart and treasury secretary janet yellen the issue of inflation, one of the hearings we covered yesterday, available on our website. here's the exchange. >> you mentioned today that if inflation actually isn't just transitory, the fed has several tools. it seems to me that the tools are already very painful. fed could raise interest rates. we could cut spending. but if we have an interest rate, as you mentioned, one of the

benefits right now and one of the things, lessons people concerned about debt, we are paying such an incredibly low interest rate. we certainly anticipate that's not going tonight case forever. i wish you would talk through what the tools that the treasury has and what would be the implications. what would be the impact of those tools upon the american people. >> well, some of the recent inflation we have seen over the last couple of months has to do with supply shortages and those are things we are trying to deal with. in the federal government. but the core responsibility for controlling inflation over time rests with the federal reserve. interest rates are up near zero levels with fed's own projections indicate a more normal level that they think

will prevail in the long run is around 2.5%. most market participants anticipate as the economy recovers and we get back to prepandemic full employment conditions eventually it will become appropriate for short-term interest rates to rise. and the budget will be presented tomorrow. also over time interest rates will revert to low but still more normal levels when we have more. host: that from yesterday's hearing. the former chair of the federal reserve now the treasury secretary, janet yellen before a house committee. the question we are asking is whether or not you approve or disapprove of the approach that this white house, the president,

is taking to the u.s. economy. we are dividing our phone lines between yes, no, unsure. a headline from the associated press. sews special spending and business tax hike driving the trillion dollar budget. sue from ohio saying you're kidding, right? biden's plan or whoever is telling him what to say and do will destroy our country. 3407by thrown at everything will not work. gregory is next. silver spring, maryland. good morning. caller: yes. thank you very much. i think that compared to the last president this, my guy, that's what i call him is my guy, he's doing a heck of a lot more and a little bit of time that the last president would have taken 10 years to figure out. you know what i mean? host: thanks for the call. jim in halifax, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. thank you for taking my call. host: certainly.

caller: no, i don't approve of mr. biden's plans here. mr. biden had 40 years to do plans, make plans and look where we are at. my question, sir, these last stimuluses that we needed, but i'm concerned -- i'm curious why, why isn't all that money spent? why are they holding money back for the last stimuluses and creating more stimulus? another thing is we all know that corporations write off their taxes if their business expense. it's an expense. i have a suggestion mr. biden wants to help this country out. take the cap off of social security so everybody can pay to help everybody else. this taxing the corporations has been a smokescreen for many, many years.

it doesn't work. they write them taxes off anti-working people pay for it anyway. look at the price of things. these corporations are reaping the benefits right now. everything is sky-high. they are already making their money back. mr. biden, take that cap off social security so they cannot deduct that from their income. everybody pays to help everybody else. host: ok. jim, thanks for the call. stu this from arizona. a few months ago we were complaining that the economy was stagnant. now the complaint is the economy is too hot resulting in inflation. goldlylocks syndrome, question mark? website, 538.com, a number of charts looking at the economy including this one. democrats and republicans don't agree on the economy. the share of respondants who say they think the economy is getting worse, a comparison from june 1 of 2016 during the final months of the biden

administration before donald trump took office and may of 2021. you can see divided by party between democrats and republicans. again it's available online at 538.com. am lection next from erie, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: i say yes, yes, yes, to the new infrastructure. these people from ohio are delusional. when they said that biden is losing jobs in ohio, ohio's losing jobs because of president biden, that plan, that car plant that moved from ohio to mexico happened under trump after he told the american people that he was going to save that plant. so i say all to the infrastructure. thank you. host: thank you. john is next joining us from new jersey, good morning. caller: hi. i'm from new jersey. i do like most things in the biden plan. but i think what is the biggest

problem is people who on the no line, these are the people who supported reagan overwhelmics. it didn't work mainly for -- reagan onomics. for 40 years. that has been the one thing that has really destroying shall did-deciding all the people are homeless. i think what biden is trying to do he's trying to deal with the crisis that's been going on since 1981 and when he came in in 2009, one thing they did work very well when they were paying for clunkers. host: thanks, from florida saying if we survive the trillions of dollars republicans have given away to the rich over the last two decades, we'll be fine under biden. from inside "the washington post," the headline, biden to

propose $6 trillion budget boosting the safety net. story points out that the economy has improved since biden became president with the unemployment rate falling and growth picking up steam. but the white house has said much more needs to be done and calls for more spending to provide access to things such as housing, educational programs, and health initiatives. that this morning from inside "the washington post." and arizona republican congressman andy biggs with this point as many of you prepare to travel for the memorial day weekend, biden becomes president, gas prices hitting a seven year high. according to the triple-a 37 million americans expected to travel this holiday weekend. about 34.5 million will hit the road in their cars or r.v.'s and about 2.5 million will hit airports for flights. that's a 60% increase from last year during the height of the pandemic. back to your phone calls. james in new orleans, good morning. how's the economy from your perspective?

james? caller: yes. good morning. thanks for having me on your show. i hope you can hear me. host: we sure can. go ahead. caller: i'm 64 years old. 1965 i integrated a school system in mississippi and i remember the headlines reading that morning, to stay out of school for two weeks. can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead, james. caller: hi to stay out of school for two weeks until they made a decision as to whether they would let me go into that school. my mother and i had been attending the naacp meetings and that was the first part of our agenda. and that morning when that paper came out, i was so happy to see

that they was saying that i was the first i to integrate that school system. i went -- ran down the street to my friend's house to celebrate and thought i was going to be welcomed with that. i went up on the porch to find his mother and his aunt saying, well, it look like you white anyway. i still today, grown person, 64 years old, still feeling that effect in the economy. host: james, thanks for the call. milan one of our regular fweeters has this point . when we flew a couple weeks ago, the planes were packed. the economy is back. thank you president biden. and hakim jefferies, heart of the house democratic leadership, democrat from new york, has this tweet saying, we will pass president biden's american jobs plan with or without the obstructionists. a note on the u.s. senate, senate will be gaveling in at

9:00 eastern time this morning. the senate still to take up two key issues. one is that $250 billion to try to make the u.s. more competitive with china. a measure that's being held up right now by senator ron johnson, republican johnson, teg the hill newspaper, he is upset because a number of his amendment were not included in the package. and on the debate over the january 6 commission. the mode was scheduled for yesterday, the senate in session until just about 3:00 this morning, as lawmakers try to head out of town for the memorial daybreak. live on c-span two. robert in frostburg, maryland. is the divided approach working? guest: good morning, steve -- caller: good morning, steve. i want to say i am so glad to see you back. you among all of your commentators give your callers

the utmost respect, and that's a very good thing. john f. kennedy once said a rising tide all boats -- lifts all boats. china has had one of the worst economies in the world. in 50 years, they have gone to number two economically. i see all of the parasitic plutocratic corporations not only outsourcing all of their jobs out there, the american people have to work all of their lifetime to get an education, while they get a free education over there. i see the country with all rail systems, airports, infrastructure, everything is unbelievable, while these greedy people here outsource all of the jobs over there and they turn around and they say they stole our intellectual property, including the ex-president, mr. trump.

he and mr. jordan are doing all of this business with china and then knock them. we have had economic chaos with china each time under the republican party. i don't know why these key people keep giving all of the money to all of these rich people and the country is falling apart. until we come up with a reasonable solution to the problems we have, economically, and quit giving our money to all of these greedy people, we will fall. host: by the way, thank you for your service during the vietnam war. we appreciate that. . gregory says democrats think he is the greatest president since fdr, republicans think he is too old and doesn't have a clue what he is doing. another half-hour of your calls and comments, getting your thoughts about the economy on a day in which the president is unveiling his $6 trillion budget plan. all of this available on our

website, c-span.org. the opinion piece by monica crowley, former aide to richard nixon. biden should think twice before destroying the trump economic recovery. she says, thanks to the trump progrowth policies of tax cuts and trade deals, the economy was healthy and growing when the pandemic arrived, which allowed us to better withstand the crisis. when reopening began, those policies kicked back in, helping to deliver the roaring recovery. now biden and congressional democrats seem to be intent on reversing many of those policies as a broader effort to reengineer the economy, and ideological project grounded in high taxes, government spending, and wealth we distribution -- wealth redistribution. that is from monica crowley.

the essay can be found this morning at the hill. bernie is next from maryland. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning, how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: i'm a democrat, and my answer is no. in the last four years, i had a deferred compensation package from one of the local counties in the area. i am not a millionaire, billionaire. four years ago, i went from $124,000 up to $188,000 under mr. trump. that is a 51% return on the stock market. the last one we got under mr. obama and mr. biden was 0.3%,

which was anywhere from three dollars and $.50 to seven dollars a month. look at the gas prices. if you have a car with a 20-gallon gas tank, it cost you $20 a more week if you feel your tank up every week. that is $1040 for people that might not be able to. $1300 from your stimulus check. you are paying $1040. that leaves you with $360. you go to the grocery store, prices are up 20%. host: in the wall street journal, biden set to unveil his massive budget proposal. $6 trillion, an ambitious series of programs, pushing the debt to

record levels. the president previewing his budget yesterday, a speech that we covered in cleveland. more from thursday. president biden:, in my first three months in office the economy has added back 5000 jobs per month. in fact, we have created the help of the members of congress that are here today, 1.5 million jobs, more jobs than have ever been created in the first three months of any presidency in the history of the united states. before i took office, the average claim for unemployment insurance were over 830,000. this morning, we learned that number has fallen below 460,000, and we are at the lowest level we have seen since march 2020, when the pandemic first struck. before i took office, almost 24 million americans were going

hungry. did you ever think you would see people lined up for miles and miles going into the stadium to have someone put a box of food in their trunk? people that never ever, ever thought they would need that kind of help. well, that number of hungry americans, food-starved americans, has dropped by 30%. still too many, but there is clear progress. before i took office, independent experts were projecting our economy would go -- grow at 3% to 4% in the year 2021. they are now protecting that growth will be 6% or higher in 2021, the fastest growth in this country in 40 years. to sum it up, covid cases are down, covid debts are down,

unemployment filings are down, hunger is down, vaccinations are up, jobs are upcoming growth is up, people getting health coverage is up, small business confidence is up. put simply, america is on the move. [applause] host: so, do you agree or disagree with the president? we are asking about his approach to the economy. we are dividing up our phone lines between yes, no, and i'm sure. on twitter, dennis saying, what is with this trump good economics? that only apply to wealthy people. the rest of us got crumbs. please stop spraying air freshener on a dead fish. also taking your vote on a twitter poll. 51% of you say the approach is working. 36% say it is not. 12% are unsure.

republican congressman mike johnson has this tweet. four months on the job and his policies are already hurting the same working-class families he promised to protect. inflation is upcoming gas prices, the highest in seven years, and unemployment up to 6.1%. rick is joining us from erwin, tennessee. caller: how are you doing? i think he is doing pretty good, but one thing i'm concerned with, in the infrastructure bill, there was supposed to be something in there for public health option. if he wants to put all of these people to work, what is he doing not signing them up for health care? they will end up spending all of their money when they go to the doctors, and when they get injured, they will still be broke. host: rich and marion, ohio. you say, no, it's not working. why? caller: it seems like there is good spending and bad spending.

there are places we get money and it does really bad things. one example is giving money to research over to china. look at the damage it can do. we also know in private lives how to much money can cause trouble. we do have a problem with our debt. we took our debt from $11 trillion to $22 trillion under one president. that was as much spending as all presidents combined before. we also have the problem of someone buying a house with low interest rates on variable interest rates, and then they blow back on them and cause trouble, and then they are thrown out of the house because they cannot keep up with the new interest rate. we don't know what the future interest rates will be. it's very important we do the right thing because we have some serious competitors in the world. they learn from us, they are

doing really well what they learn from us. now it is time for us to remember what we did in the first place. host: this is from mike in orlando, florida saying on the economy, the approach is working, yes, but the country also needs the $2 trillion infrastructure project. we need to rebuild our country but republicans don't want this. republicans had no problem giving $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy. republicans are un-american and unpatriotic. a story on politico that the president willing to extend negotiations. you may remember that memorial day is the deadline for a bipartisan agreement. those talks will continue into next week. one of the lead republicans is west virginia senator shelley moore capito. >> we are trying to get to that common goal of reaching a bipartisan infrastructure agreement, that we talked about in the oval office with the president several weeks ago, and i talked with him previous to

that. we believe this counter offer delivers on what president biden told us that day, and that is, to try to reach somewhere near a trillion dollars over 88-year period of time that would includes our baseline spending. we have achieved that goal with this counter offer. i think we have also done something that has strayed true to whatever beliefs are when we first started this endeavor, and that is sticking to core physical infrastructure. what is the definition of infrastructure? we have stayed within the boundaries of our original plan. i think that is what the american people think of when they think of infrastructure, and that is certainly what we do, too. host: that is from shelley moore capito, a key republican in these negotiations. an overview of president biden's

infrastructure plan that includes over $620 billion for transportation needs, $580 billion for research and development, job training and manufacturing, 300 billion dollars for improving drinking and broadband access, another $300 billion to retrofit housing, retrofitting for climate change, and $400 billion for health care for elderly and disabled americans. rodney from kentucky, you are next. caller: thank you. i watched c-span from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. every morning. host: we are glad to hear from you. caller: if we look back to the presidency of jimmy carter, he was faced with great inflation because of the oil crisis. president reagan, who is really revered as a president, spent a

lot of money, putting us into a big deficit to get us out of that recession. george h.w. bush paid off most of the reagan deficit with a tax increase. ever since that time, all the presidents have wanted to increase spending. clinton was stopped by the contract for america. after that, if you look at a graph, it has been up and up with the deficits. i believe in a government that is for the people, and there are a lot of things that biden proposes, like health care reform, which is good. but i believe in private/public

free enterprise spending. in infrastructure, roads, bridges, water and sewer, those things can be paid for by bonds, revenue bonds, that the user pays for. my taxes don't have to be paid for a subway under san francisco that goes into silicon valley, which is the richest income area in america. host: i will leave it there. what part of kentucky is shelbyville in? caller: between louisville and frankfurt. about 30 miles from louisville, 30 miles from frankfurt. another 30 miles onto lexington, kentucky. host: what do you think of the

republican senator, leader mcconnell? caller: i think he is the most canny, intelligent chess player there ever was, but he is strictly for the republican party, and not for america. host: don't be a stranger, thank you for tuning in every morning. we welcome our listeners to c-span radio app as well. here in the d.c. area, 90.1 on the fm dial. another story breaking this morning, courtesy of nbc news and cnbc. russian hackers launch a major cyberattack through a u.s. aid agency's email system, that according to microsoft. let me share some of the details. russian hackers thought to be

behind the solar wind attack last year have launched another major cyberattack. microsoft warning three weeks before president biden is set to meet with vladimir putin. that meeting will take place in geneva, switzerland on june 16. microsoft said yesterday at the hacking group has targeted over 150 organizations worldwide in the last week, including government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and nongovernmental organizations. they sent fishing emails, tricking people to send information and downloading harmful software to over 3000 email accounts. the headline dealing with russian hackers. back to your calls on the issue of the economy and the president's approach. les in sandy, oregon. caller: good morning and how are you today? host: fine, thank you. caller: my concern is what we have seen with biden -- i don't

know, the price of fuel here is about almost four dollars a gallon. the lines going to the country for fuel -- shutting down -- what i'm saying is all that he is shutting down, the wall, it is committing no jobs for nobody. i think trump was trying to change the economy here and create more jobs here. i think biden is doing the wrong thing, but i will leave you at that. you have a nice day. host: sheila in purcell, oklahoma. you are next. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am deeply concerned about them wanting to do eight $6 trillion -- a $6 trillion remit over our

country. since he has taken office, i went to get a package of cheetos at dollar general, $.50, it's gone up to $.75. the candy bars are going up, lumber has gone up. steel has gone up. this is all under president biden. if we get the $6 trillion, i don't know how people won't even be able to afford to buy things. the inflation will deepen, and i don't know how we can afford -- gasoline? how about truckers that go across the country? i don't know what is going to happen. host: thank you paving. steve has this tweet. it is a disingenuous question. biden has been president for five months in the middle of getting americans vaccinated in a pandemic. this is a question two years

from today, but i'm guessing the naysaying trump cult members loved cashing those stimulus checks. this is from a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. it is time to be worried about inflation. he writes, president biden plan is almost guaranteed to overheat the economy. no wonder prices are going up. whatever the merits of the recent spending proposals are, the last thing the economy needs is more unfunded government spending, that is it precisely what he is proposing. beyond adding to the immediate but sherry pressure, this will complicate the task of keeping inflation in tech over the longer run by substantially increasing the size of the public debt. even before biden's budget proposals, the congressional budget office estimates that u.s. debt would rise to 110% of gdp by the year 2030, a higher level that prevailed a meeting the after world war ii.

and as the public debt rises, the fed's ability to fight inflation will become increasingly constrained. that is from thebulwark.com. kathleen is joining us from grand junction, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. i am against the economy right now. i don't think i approve of what is going on. host: reba is in gaithersburg, maryland. a reminder, when you call in, be sure to turn the volume down so we cannot hear the echo. caller: i have two things on my mind. the first is infrastructure. i really wish people would emphasize more the grid. we have known since the 1990's, the grid has to be updated. you have the thing about the russian hack this morning.

russians and the chinese, i believe, are trying to hack the grid all the time. it is a major security concern. also to implement plans with new energy, we need a grid that is out of this last century and into this century. it is time to stop dragging our feet about that. i am putting the word out there about the grid, the most boring part of infrastructure there is. the second part is how is biden's economy working? i kind of agree with the caller, it is the wrong question for now. it is for two years from now, because biden is making proposals. we don't know how those are going to work. all the other economic action that has happened has been in response to a really special event, covid, and the economic consequences of covid. host: we will leave it there,

but thank you for the call. this is from bird, built america back is breaking the back of future taxpayers. the increase in gasoline prices matters. some headlines on this friday morning. in the washington post, the situation in san jose, california. the shooter may have harbored a grudge. you can see the scene outside of that railyard. grief and hugging. the president's big goals in his budget, that line later today, $6 trillion. similar headline in usa today, the gunman appeared to target the victims at the railyard, a disgruntled employee that then took his own life. finally, these pictures from the front page of the new york times. they were just children. at least 67 people under the age

of 18 in gaza, two in israel, killed in the conflict that took place between the israeli military and hamas. their faces are front page this morning in the new york times. timothy is next in gilmore, texas. caller: good morning. i think we need to stay with joe biden. he is doing a good job. i have not heard any republicans complaining about that stimulus check yet. the tax cuts to the rich men up there, all it did was increase the deficit. and you talk about biden increasing deficits? you are dead wrong. host: gina in madison, wisconsin. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i am terribly concerned about the future of our economy with the current situation between the federal and state moneys that are being given to people, $16 and $.75 per hour, there is no incentive position for people to return to work when they are making more by staying home. the state of wisconsin relies on tourism. there is no people to work. it is terribly unfortunate. these bills, i have spoken to senator tammy baldwin's office, and have said all of these bills need to be clean bills that can be readily viewed by the public, like, a month before there is a vote on the hill.

show us all the particulars of the bill before a vote on the hill so that the constituents can speak with their representatives and legislative bodies about what they are signing, so that we can give them input into what our thoughts are. we cannot just keep printing money. our deficits will go through the roof. our economy will be obliterated. your comments, please? host: this is a chance for you to weigh in, so we appreciate hearing from you. this is scott from lafayette, louisiana. biden's plan is based on increased spending and government control, not a sustainable theory. trump's theory is the polar opposite, low taxes, fair regulation, and trade deals. when lawmakers convene in just about one hour, 9:00 eastern time, still to be voted on is that january 6 commission.

it passed in the u.s. house. democrats need 10 republican votes. the headline from politico, senate gop moderates fume as mitch mcconnell blocks the commission. senate republican susan collins made one last plea to her colleagues to advance a proposed independent commission to probe the capitol riot's with changes she fought for. mcconnell spoke after her. he opposes these plans. johnstown, pennsylvania is next. good morning. caller: good morning. when grover norquist was on your show, i tried to get through. the effective tax rate was 35% when obama was in. the effective tax rate was 21% actually. trump lowered it to 21% and now

the effective tax rate is 11%. you wonder why the economy is hurting. there were also 70,000 companies using tax savings in this country, using shell companies to hide their money. that was happening in guatemala under wilbur ross. you wonder why our economy is really suffering and the debt is so high. also, the gas prices has nothing to do with the president of the united states. that is a whole different ballgame. the infrastructure bill -- trump talked about infrastructure the whole time he was in office but didn't do a darn thing about it. don't judge someone by what they say but what they do. he didn't do anything about infrastructure.

this new bill that biden is pushing through, i hope they do it by reconciliation. biden should go to west virginia, manchin's state and talk turkey to those people so they understand what is going on. it will benefit their state tremendously. some of these states are hedging on this bill. host: i believe that there. we have one more caller and we will be focusing on infrastructure in a moment. you mentioned spending. axios with a look at the size and scope of the increase in federal spending over the last couple of months, as proposed by the biden administration. here are the numbers, as we listen to john from las vegas. you get the last word. good morning. caller: how's it going, everybody? their reasons why i don't trust anything joe biden does is because his whole career the man has proven to be a lawyer.

the one thing i want to say that i have not heard anyone say in america is the fact -- i believe joe biden and the democrats worked with the chinese to get the whole world sick, just so that they can rig the american election. i do believe joe biden is responsible for the death of half a million americans, and he is not there with mao, stalin and all of them. he killed his own people for power. host: that is a pretty significant accusation. what is your evidence? caller: the evidence is everywhere you go. how can you not see it? host: but how did he do that? caller: hillary clinton saying -- he works with the chinese, him and his son are dealing with the russians and the chinese all the time. how did joe biden become a multimillionaire? the man has never had a job in his life. host: john from las vegas. this is jason from topeka, kansas. remember in the good old days

when reagan knew the economy was sinking and spent like drunken sailors? then obama tried to spend and they insisted that most of the tax rates were for the rich. then they complained it was the slowest recovery ever. the conversation continues on our twitter page and our facebook page. we will turn to infrastructure. as democrats and republicans continue to meet, we get the latest from eugene mulero, senior congressional correspondent for transport news. and then later we turn to the issue of cryptocurrency. what is the industry and how does it work? you are watching and listening to c-span's washington journal. it is friday morning, the start of a memorial day getaway weekend. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> the tech industry is often about the future, very future

oriented. politics is a lot about the present, the valid concerns the people have in the present about what technology will mean for them. i am not keen on bashing congress. i do think that any future technology has to answer a lot of concerns, what is the impact going to be on people, the community, the environment? those are understandable questions. >> the power of the tech industry and its impact with the chamber of progress founder and ceo. saturday on the communicators, on c-span. ♪ >> sunday night on q&a, a conversation with filmmaker and author rick buyer about his document tree book about a world war army unit. >> in september 1944, patton had

raced across france with the third army toward germany. he was focused on trying to attack the city of metz. there was a gap that opened up in the front lines and we didn't have any troops to put their. -- there. the ghost army was in paris at that time and within a day they are within a mile setting up advertising to be the six armored division. >> filmmaker and author rick buyer on c-span's q&a. you can also listen to q&a as a podcast. find it where you get your podcasts. >> washington journal continues. host: this is the headline from transport topics. biden and republican senators continue negotiation on infrastructure. the reporting of eugene mulero, who joins us here in washington. we know the talks will continue post memorial day, but how far beyond that will they continue, and we are both sides?

guest: it is very likely these negotiations between the white house and senate republicans will continue about a week or two more weeks, very top level negotiations. press secretary jen psaki indicated that over the weekend and next weekend after memorial day, that the biden senior transportation team and the jobs cabinet team will continue to meet with senator cap to must virginia -- capito of west virginia, other gop leaders to reconcile the differences in their plan. the white house has a $1 trillion proposal that is very climate change-centric and policy. the senate gop is proposing something that is very surface, transportation-centric. it is likely, over the course of a week or two weeks, if those

talks don't produce a bipartisan compromise, pressure from the democratic leadership on capitol hill will lean toward the president to go for an infrastructure package that does not include a lot of the input that the senate republicans are proposing. host: do both sides truly want a bipartisan deal? guest: they say they do. president biden continues to say he wants to work with republicans and have a consensus across-the-board on capitol hill, in unity, the issues of infrastructure policy. republicans not only said it but put it in a memo to the white house, that they want to work with the white house, and that they oppose a path toward enactment of an infrastructure legislation that would be partisan in nature.

senate republicans are proposing a scenario in which the white house works with only the democrats to advance a big picture infrastructure bill through a budget process that would not necessitate senate republican input. to be fair, both sides, the white house, senate democrats and republicans, both parties are in agreement on the fact that we need to modernize and improve the country's infrastructure. the big contention is how do we pay for it. that is where they do not see ey e to eye right now. host: one of the photographs accompany your story is the scene outside of the capital, one of the many construction projects, the scene outside of our window as well. i want to go back to the issue of how to pay for this. could that be a dealbreaker for

republicans? the president says he wants to raise taxes, go back to the tax rates that were in place before the trump tax cuts for corporations. guest: exactly. sources i talk to, people on capitol hill, they tell me the republicans' position of not raising corporate taxes, they are not moving from that decision. that is exactly why president biden is calling for raising the corporate tax rate, in order to come up with the money, over 10 to 15 years, to pay for his infrastructure plan. senate republicans, in their negotiations, presented a plan that would use for infrastructure, would rely on unused covid-19 relief money. the white house says that is not a plan they will go for. it is worth noting, many

stakeholders in the trade petition community, what they have been proposing for years is for congress to propose and approve raising the federal fuel tax, but that is something the white house, democrats and republicans on capitol hill are unwilling to tackle at this point. host: that was one of the issues brought up yesterday by one of the key republicans in these negotiations. she has met with the president on a couple of locations, west virginia senator capito. >> we are looking at a not have $28 billion package, sticks to the core issues we talked about initially. it's a serious effort to reach a bipartisan agreement. the president said to me and us in february that he was really agnostic as to whether we passed a bunch of small bills, or one large bill, and we have heard him say inaction is not an option for him.

we have passed two of the smaller, and surface transportation has not gone out of the senate yet, but it is a major anchor to this piece of legislation. i think that shows there is a real hunger for bipartisanship in the u.s. senate, a real ability to achieve that, and we are hoping that this moves the ball forward. we believe the alternative, which is a partisan reconciliation process, would lead destructive to our future bipartisan attempts but also does not serve the american public, and would not get us to an infrastructure package such as the one we believe would serve the american interest but also constrains spending to the areas of core, physical infrastructure that is so important to this country. host: that is from republican shelley moore capito. i want to share a couple of tweets. i didn't vote for bipartisanship, i voted for d's and we won.

get over it. another one says, democrats cannot steamroll anyone. dems have a razor thin majority in both houses and state legislators. give us an update, where do things stand right now? guest: right now, the staffers for republicans and white house staff for biden are working on trying to come to a consensus on the funding level, as well as how to pay for an infrastructure package. to come to an agreement on this whole debate that is beside the funding debate, the debate over what is infrastructure? there's a lot of pushback from republicans on the hill, they are just questioning the white house's infrastructure plan when they propose funding for what republicans dean human infrastructure -- deem human

infrastructure. it is worth noting in this plan, the things that republicans are referring to, refers to funding for elderly care facilities, hospitals, v.a. hospitals, childcare programs, money for new technologies, electric vehicle technologies. proposals from the white house that are outside of the traditional physical infrastructure parameters that the country has been accustomed to. back to your point that negotiations are ongoing, but like i said, i am hearing it will be one or two more weeks of these high-level negotiations. but there is a sense of urgency on capitol hill. speaker pelosi says she wants to have either a scaled down or a big infrastructure package passed out of the chamber by july 4.

we have heard similar sentiments from senator schumer in the senate, that he wants to move ahead with an infrastructure package. many prominent members of the democratic caucus in the house and senate are kind of getting tired of the negotiations. they feel like the republicans are dragging their feet, questioning how we are going to pay for it, etc.. there is a big impetus to get something done. like i said, what i am hearing, there is a sense of urgency to get something done by july 4, definitely before the august recess. host: we are talking to eugene mulero, transport reporter for transport topics. he covers capitol hill. initially, republicans came up with a plan that was $600 billion, the president was at $2.2 trillion.

now the republicans are at $928 billion. the white house, at one point, $1.7 trillion. can they come closer or will republicans hold firm to their plan? guest: what i am hearing is that a final number could probably be a $1.3 trillion package, $1.5 trillion package, and that is if there is some wiggle room on the part of the white house on the corporate tax rate proposal. perhaps they don't go all the way to 28%, 25%, or something like that. that is something the white house says they are willing to negotiate. also, if the white house is able to compromise or maybe scaled down what the republicans call this human infrastructure component of their package, that will facilitate movement on the

negotiations. again, for emphasis, republicans do want to get an in fish -- infrastructure package done. this is why they move the ball on their side to a $1 trillion deal. if they can reach agreement on how to pay for it, if they address the fuel tax within the highway trust fund that pays for our surface transportation programs nationwide, some sort of agreement on climate change policies and electric vehicle policies, it is very likely that there will be a big ticket infrastructure package out of capitol hill. but that is a lot of maybes. host: our guest is eugene mulero, previously worked for the huffington post, cq wire. joining us on the phone is our guest from arizona.

good morning, you are next. caller: ok, sorry. host: i will ask you to turn the volume down, otherwise we will hear an echo. caller: good morning. i'm calling from arizona. i love to choose as a u.s. citizen. personally, i am not a u.s. citizen. host: do you have a question? we are going to have to move on to ron in munro township, new jersey. if you get through, please turn the volume down so we can hear you. caller: why isn't anyone talking about fusion? fusion would allow us to recycle all of our raw elements. it would allow us to the cell

and eyes all of the water we need and make all the electricity we need. there is a working reactor in new york, japan, and they are try to get one going, i believe, in france and sweden. host: we will get a response. guest: the white house and the biden administration are looking at many proposals, policy provisions that would enhance alternative sources of energy. this will be to address concerns with the electrical grid, especially like in texas, southern parts of the country. there is also a directive to invest in new, autonomous technologies, solar energy, like i mentioned, electric vehicles. i know the biden administration

has a very broad portfolio. we can expect to see more of their directives in the fiscal 2022 budget request out today, as well as as talks continue on the infrastructure package. host: linda in dallas. good morning, you are next. caller: good morning. my question for your guest -- i am in my 70's. i am for the senate working together to pass this bill for the next generation. i just want them to come to some kind of agreement because, as a senior citizen, i am worried about them, the infrastructure, everything. i want to see them come into the 21st century. i don't want them to be a laughingstock to china nor

russia. come to an agreement to help this young generation of americans. thank you. host: thank you. we will get a response. guest: she makes a good point, and an area of compromise already evident on capitol hill is this highway policy legislation, separate from the infrastructure package we are talking about. this highway policy bill received unanimous support out of a senate committee this week. on june 9, the house transportation committee will take up their version of this highway policy bill. the sponsors of the legislation do get to the point of transforming, modernizing the country's mobility grid. as the caller mentioned, there are concerns about the state of our roadways, highways.

37 million people traveling this memorial day weekend will experience first-hand our countries infrastructure. so there is already bipartisan support for upgrading, modernizing our passenger corridors to not only facilitate the movement of people, but greight. host: those traveling noticing higher gas prices, here in the d.c. area, just over three dollars a gallon. in many parts of the country, much higher, especially in new york or california, where it is five dollars a gallon depending on where you live. cnbc reporting that these prices could stay for the summer as millions of americans are hitting the roads. why would gas prices stay this high? guest: fuel analysts indicate

they are expecting a high demand in the summer travel season, so with a lot of people hitting the roads, the demand will stay there. the national average is expected to stay around three dollars per gallon. people that i talk to, fuel analysts are saying, you and i and the rest of the country, if they have been vaccinated, if they have safety precautions, they go to places where the mask mandate's have been relaxed, that they want to get out there. when they travel, they will need to fill their cars up with gasoline. back to the question, it's expected to stay at three dollars a gallon due to the demand rejected for the summer. host: for the radio audience, we are talking to eugene mulero, a transportation reporter.

the headline for bloomberg news pointing out the negotiations between the president, senate democrats, and republicans will continue into next week. the gop, next week, the clock ticks on infrastructure. this is from chad, congressional correspondent and producer for fox news. a couple notes about president biden releasing his notes today. budget proposals are aspirational press releases on steroids. never does congress enact a president's budget, nor are they binding. next is mack from damascus, maryland. caller: no one is talking about how the government is actively shutting down pi slimes -- pipelines. they are light, gas prices are going up. i wonder why? everyone is being tricked into committing suicide.

like now, everyone should be -- for everything it's worth. get the infrastructure bill in because in three years, we will not have the ability to loan ourselves money anymore because inflation will be through the roof. get your gas, electric cars. i suggest everyone starting a business that makes real money. get some chicken eggs. host: thanks for listening on c-span radio. just avoiding some profanity. eugene mulero. guest: my reporting suggests there is -- supply chain is operational. no reporting to suggest that there is an inability for people to access energy products, gasoline, etc. our freight and transportation

corridors have been inspected and are safe. that is another point i want to make. there is so much talk back and forth between capitol hill and the white house about repairing infrastructure, people should know that when they travel, go to the airports, drive over a bridge, that infrastructure has been inspected and is safe. the whole argument that is anchoring these negotiations is how does the federal government help modernize and rebuild infrastructure that is capable to withstand the impact of severe weather events? i'm not just talking about hurricanes, also floods, wildfires. there is bipartisan agreement on a need to reinforce infrastructure, and the supply chain, in order to deal with

cyber security, as well as infrastructure. host: laurie is next on the republican line. good morning. caller: i am visiting a friend here, i live in katy, texas. i just want to bring to the attention of the usa, we had a terrible problem -- infrastructure. in session right now, they will shortly be leaving. they had been warned 11 years ago that those lines need to be taken care of, maintained, in the event of bad weather. host: i am going to stop you there because you are breaking in and out. i think we got the essence of your question, referring to the electric lines and electric grid. did you want to respond to that? guest: again, the transportation

committees, the white house, has been very focused on investing money to expand the capabilities of the country's electrical grid as well as the energy supply chains. within the biden infrastructure proposal, $1.7 trillion, several billion dollars would be dedicated just to address the modernization of electrical grids. not every part of the country operates their electrical grid the same, but nevertheless, the white house has indicated they are willing to partner with every state agency in order to invest in these improvement projects. host: back to your calls. jesse in muskegon, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. i have not called c-span in almost three years. host: why?

don't be a stranger. caller: so many people get on c-span and are ridiculous. talking about this infrastructure bill that the president is trying to pass. the republicans do not pass anything. all they want to do is give tax breaks for billionaires. if you go to europe, they have some of the most beautiful highways, no potholes. here we are, the richest country in the world, and we have potholes. walking down this bridge that goes over mississippi over to tennessee, a big crack was in there, trucks were having to make a detour.

this is ridiculous. the democrats need to wake up because the republicans have no interest in doing nothing but giving money to billionaires. it makes you angry how they play this game. they have no interest in doing nothing for the country. we have the greatest country in the world. growing up in a country like this, all we have is politics, people that are concerned about the wealthy. the democrats need to get over this thing of bipartisan stuff. these people do not want to pass anything. host: i am going to jump in, but thank you for phoning in. promise you will not wait another three years to phone in. caller: i've been watching

c-span. thank you, steve, for letting me voice my opinion. host: thank you for the call. to his point, let me share a tweet from a viewer, the last time major infrastructure was a topic was in the 1950's with the interstate highway system. it says a lot about our nation when the railways, roads, and bridges need major overhauls. this is up or tear infrastructure, and then we have the electric grid, internet, etc. under the republican plan, here is the price tag with some of the proposals. $506 billion for roads and bridges and. major infostructure projects $98 billion for project. $56 billion for airports. 46 billion dollars for passenger and freight rail systems. and about $22 billion for ports and waterways. the transportation secretary is the former mayor of south bend, indiana, pete buttigieg. what role is he playing in these

negotiations? guest: secretary buttigieg has been very out there in the media promoting this infrastructure package. he has done basically every interview in american media under the sun to admire -- remind people of the administration's objective of modernizing the transportation network, improving the freight supply chains. as a member of what president biden called his jobs cabinet, buttigieg is out there meeting with members of congress, in order to get something get something done on infrastructure. he has been very much one of the key public figures of this debate and it is worth noting on capitol hill, to the point of a previous caller, that the negotiations are expected to take one or two more weeks.

but, the democratic leadership, like i mentioned, does want to get something done on infrastructure that is transformative. that will take us away from the eisenhower era mobility networks and takes us to a new future, modern transportation system. there is an expectation that we will see passage of legislation out of the house by july 4. the senate is expected to start legislating on freight policy, transit policies. this is expected to happen for the august recess. we can have a highway bill that is separate from that and an infrastructure package, if not before the august recess, definitely in the early part of the fall. host: david is in washington, d.c., making the point, many people are forgetting this isn't

just an infrastructure bill, it is an american jobs plan. yes, it has an infrastructure focus but that does not mean we should not pass the other stuff in it that will help the economy -- fuel the economy. nasal will get the last call. republican line, good morning. -- basil will get the last call, republican line, good morning. caller: donald trump was successful because he understood construction. he understood how to solve the problems. we have politicians who never did a lick of work. if you put a group of politicians and white collar people in an area to build and a group of tradespeople to build, which one do you think will build the city? we need people who understand construction and how to do it at how to get it done. not talk about it and pass infrastructure bills. how in the heck are you going to get it done? donald trump was a builder. we have no builders in office today. we have only people who come up with ideas and concepts but not how to do it. we have to wake up.

it is tradespeople who built this country. host: i will leave it there. 30 seconds left. to his point and a quick follow-up on what you are looking to next. guest: the road builders and the construction stakeholders have applauded negotiations and ongoing talks on capitol hill and have expressed optimism with the passage of a highway bill out of a senate committee. what i am looking for is after memorial day, how the talks at the white house with senate republicans, how they are able to produce, reconciling their differences. i will be watching the mark of a highway bill at the transportations committee. the passage of that legislator -- legislature will set the tone

for what democrats do going forward, not only on highway legislation but this big infrastructure package. host: eugene mulero is a senior congressional reporter for transport topics. we will follow your reporting in the days and weeks ahead as the story continues to unfold. thank you for being with us. this is a front-page story of the wall street journal. victims in the san jose mascara, the mayor of san jose with the faces of the nine men, men who were targeted by the shooter. their remembrances continue to take place. the president is setting to unveil a massive budget proposal, 6 trillion dollars. that will be our focus on this friday morning, going back to the question we posed earlier, is the approach working? if you say yes, (202) 748-8000. if you say it is not working, (202) 748-8001. we have a line for those of you who are not sure. we are back in a moment with

more of your calls and comments. the washington journal continues. ♪ >> isabel guzman testified this morning on the activities of a small business administration. you can watch this house appropriations subcommittee hearing live, starting at 10:00 eastern, online at c-span.org or listen free on the c-span radio app.

♪ >> washington journal continues. host: in our first hour, we asked you whether or not you thought the president approach to the economy -- president's approach to the economy was working. we will go back to that question. 202 is the area code in washington, d.c.. (202) 748-8000 if you say it is working. (202) 748-8001 if you say it is not. if you are unsure, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text message at (202) 748-8003. tell us your first name and where you're texting from. the new york times as been reporting on the president's $6 trillion budget plan that will be released later today. the levels of taxation and spending in president widens plan would -- to levels rarely seen to fund investments his administration says are crucial to keeping america competitive. under mr. biden's proposal, the

federal budget deficit would hit $1.8 trillion in 2020 two, as the economy rebounds from the pandemic recession to grow to what the administration predicts would be its fastest annual pace since the early 1980's. the deficit would reseed slightly in the following years before growing again to nearly $1.6 trillion at 2030 -- in 2031. payments would consume an increased share of the federal budget, net interest payments would double as a share of the economy from 2022 to 2031. tell us what you think a bout the president and how he is handling the economy. paul is first up in florida. good morning. caller: good morning. we need a definition of what is infrastructure for these trillions of dollars that have been spent and will be spent. we need a definition of what needs repair. the main thing that needs repair

is [indiscernible] . every time money is spent, it is recirculated. if it were simply divided into each of our bank accounts, you and i would wake up this morning with $10,000 for each trillion dollars. today, we have $4 trillion already spent but it means we are checking out our accounts and seeing a new deposit of $40,000. host: we will go to rob in south dakota. good morning to you. caller: i think his program is working. what i would say to a lot of the americans out there is give it some time. it's not going to happen overnight. and they have defined what infrastructure actually is, from what i have read. i heard one of the past callers

talk about trump being a builder . in my opinion, if you look at the numbers his -- of his businesses that went bankrupt, the number of businesses that have his name on them that he did not build, yeah. that part does not work for me. host: we will go to ron in iron dale, ohio. welcome to the conversation. caller: the only comment i want to make is it is alright to have an infrastructure bill. but to put all of these social welfare programs in with it, it is wrong. we have to do something. we really have to. but to put all this other craft in with it -- crap in with it, why? host: thanks for the call. this is a headline from the washington post, the president proposing a $6 trillion budget.

from terrel, texas, lawrence, is the approach working? caller: yes, i think it is working. because what the president is trying to do [indiscernible] host: is what, lawrence? caller: what he is trying to do is put america in the 21st century. host: thank you. the president yesterday, traveling to cleveland, ohio, outlining some of the elements of his jobs plan in his infrastructure bill. [video clip] pres. biden: in my first three months in office, the economy has added back 500,000 jobs per month. we have added 1.5 million jobs, more jobs than have ever been created in the first three months of any presidency in the united states.

claims for unemployment insurance were over 830,000 before. this morning, we have learned that number has fallen before -- below 460,000. it is at the lowest levels we have seen since march of 2020, when the pandemic first struck. before i took office, almost 24 million americans were going hungry. did you ever think you would see people lined up for miles and miles and miles, going to a stadium to get someone to put a box of food in their trunk? people never, ever, ever, ever thought they would need that kind of help. well, that number of hungry americans, food starved americans, has dropped by 30%. still too many, but there is clear progress. before i took office, independent experts rejected the

our economy would grow at 3% to 4% in the year 2021. we are now projecting that growth will be 6% or higher in 2021. the fastest growth in this country in 40 years. to sum it up, covid cases are down, covid deaths are down, unemployment filings are down. hunger is down. vaccinations are up, jobs are up and growth is up. people gaining health coverage is up. small business confidence is up. to put it simply, america is coming back. [applause] host: that was the president in cleveland, ohio, yesterday. sheila and has this on facebook, saying biden's agenda is to bankrupt this country to oblivion and the point of no return. continuing with your comments on

the social media page, vice president kamala harris in annapolis, maryland, for the class of 2021. the vice president delivered the address as part of the commencement ceremonies. congratulations to all of them. we go to eric as we watch the scene from annapolis. your view of the administration's approach of the economy? caller: i say give biden a chance. i want to thank fdr's new deal for what it did to the economy in a rough time and how much it cost to do that. trump's entire ilk failed under all of our watch. he has been proven to be corrupt

in that style of business. all of us have watched that fail repeatedly. host: this is from lynn on our twitter page. i have faith in joe biden but i think he should find a way to do it without the republicans. she says the republicans just want him to fail. marvin in new jersey, you are next. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i am truly an advocate of mr. bidens. mr. biden's. i only called on the not sure line because i truly believe in my heart that the republicans will do anything they can -- this is a very reactionary -- almost fascist like room of people you have down there, now. who are intent on holding up his agenda. and that's sad. after the last president we had, who is nothing but a cold-blooded criminal, the

republican party now is a party full of people who are very reactionary. they believe lies. they don't want to deal with facts. they have a lot of issues. particularly a lot of issues with, i hate to say it, but people of color, people who are not like them. i think they think that something in terms of their power is slipping away and it is just -- it's going to be an uphill battle for mr. biden. i truly hope he does the things for the people. which was across a very multicultural group of people. that's all i have to say. host: we will leave it there. the senate will be gaveling in in about 15 minutes. 9:00 eastern time, to pick up on

the science technology bill, the legislation being pushed by chuck schumer. no vote time set to finish that bill or take the procedural vote to end debate on the motion to proceed to bill to create the january 6 commission. vice president kamala harris is in annapolis, maryland, delivering the commencement address to the class of 2021 at the u.s. naval academy. the helicopter has landed. chris in illinois, your thoughts about this administration and how it is dealing with the economy? caller: thank you for taking my call. i called on the no line, because people are focused on this debate about what is infrastructure? everybody knows what infrastructure is. i think the problem is the name of this bill. that is one problem. they can rename it so whatever and focus on the real issues.

if we address the pandemic, force fires around the country, big electrical problem in houston, all of those are problems that we have to fix. if we don't fix them, they will get worse. you have to ask yourself what is the cost of doing nothing? let's not spend any money and see where we get. that's not a good answer, either. the other thing is, people who are worried about how much is being spent, if you look at the fed talents she, which you can't look at right now, because they stopped posting it, the amount of trillions that have already been put aside on different things, it is humongous. we need to focus on the problem and move away from arguing about what the name of the bill is. host: thanks for the call. president biden delivered the commencement address at the coast guard academy.

that speech is available on our website at c-span.org. we will be live with the commission ceremonies. it is time to be worried about inflation. he writes the following quote, president biden's budget plan is almost guaranteed to overheat the economy. no wonder prices are going up. whatever the merits of bidens proposal may be, the last thing we need is more unfunded government spending. that is precisely what he is proposing. be on adding to the immediate inflationary pressures, it will propagate the federal reserve and its task of keeping inflation in check over the longer run by substantially increasing the size of the public debt. even before bidens budget proposals, the federal reserve task --

the congressional budget office estimated that the u.s. public debt would rise almost 110% -- rise to almost 110 percent of gdp by 2030. we go to martin in tennessee. good morning. caller: ironically there was another marvin on just before me and his comments were almost exactly what i was going to say. i am not sure what's going to happen. host: the marvin's thing alike? caller: what i want to piggyback on is this conversation. when we look at this budget and we look at what is being held up with these republicans and democrats here is donald trump and the residual of the hatred and the residual of the lies and the residual that is holding the republican party in check because they have to be reelected by that constituency. because of that, all of this

spending has been exasperated and escalated, just to put redtape into the process. but the irony of this whole situation is that the proletariat, the working class, will inherit this. they are the only ones that will inherit it because it is not the trickle down effect, it is the trickle up effect of the economy. the rich always win at the top. they cannot lose. the real recipients of all of this nonsense lies on the fact that you are stay blazing -- stabilizing a poor committee. these people who are trying to get ahead because of these interest rates that are going to stop them, that will devalue their spending power. they now have to have a little more to get into basic home and shelter and things like that. that will stabilize that.

you will pull them up because they are on the strings of these multi trillion heirs -- trillion aires. they are going to leave a gap between the rich and the poor that the disenfranchised will be unable to climb out of. thank you -- host: thank you very much for the call. in his opinion piece, paul says the economy is spinning its wheels read you are driving to an appointment but your late, stuck at a red light, you will not run the light. you floored the gas pedal the second it changes. maybe because the pavement is what, your tires spin uselessly before you gained traction, and your car lurches forward. you say that has never happened to you? yeah, right.

we'll spinning is a harmless phenomenon. a few minutes after your star, you are driving normally, having mostly forgotten about the incident. which brings me to the state of the u.s. economy. raw material prices are soaring, businesses can't find work. -- workers. it is the 1970's all over again. all grouper -- paul kruger says chill out. mostly, we are experiencing a moment of legal spin -- we'll spinning. -- wheel spinning. great britain has approved the johnson & johnson vaccine. that development, a great britain allowing the johnson & johnson vaccine across the u.k. we will go to todd in new york. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on. host: of course. caller: i would just like to say that my wife and i have been

married for 35 years. we are both 55. we make around $45,000 a year between the two of us together. just the policies here recently are really starting to affect our retirement and what we make, the gas price, the food prices and pre-much anything we go to buy -- pretty much anything we go to buy. mr. biden said he would help us and not hurt the lower class or the middle class. it is starting to hit us hard in the pocketbook. i hope he realizes what's happening to the lower and middle class. host: thank you for adding your voice. this from the washington post. january 6 commission, the vote is still pending in the u.s. senate. the headline from the washington post says members of brian sicknick's family, pleading with republican senators to back the investigation.

the vote was scheduled to take place, the senate was in session until just before 3:00 a.m. today. they are back in about eight minutes. this is one of the issues, along with china, that the senate will be focusing on this friday morning. from greer, south carolina, max, your next. good morning. caller: hey. i am concerned about the level of spending we are seeing. i think not enough attention has been paid to the roles the previous president had in spending without funding it. you see, even before the pandemic, the levels of spending , along with the tax cuts put us in a bad spot going into the pandemic. i think joe biden is picking up right where he left off and taking us down a bad road in that regard. i am pretty young and i am concerned about how my generation will have to deal with this debt, going into the future. host: here are the numbers from

the u.s. debt clock. now in excess of 28 trillion dollars. from orlando, florida, aaron, you are next. caller: good morning. i am calling in this morning to chime in. i am a native citizen to the united states and also florida. i am a representative for the black families who have been enslaved. just talking on and coming up, we have a different perspective but also a live perspective. i did not have a golden or silver spoon growing up. but, we have enough intelligence. i was raised by educators who continuously have input in the economy. our family's history has input into the economy and slave

members who were never compensated. we are looking at all of this plight that has brought us to today and that when he first century. i was born in the 1980's. i am an 80's baby. i am looking at the computers and science and tech that was put in our hands. i think that the plan is swell. i think the economy is looking good. but, we have to go through these situations. you might have people who have a lot of money, versus those who don't have a lot of money. i am intelligent and you are intelligent. we all can be intelligent. what i have noticed with the infrastructure, with ai, we stepped into the 21st century with ai. artificial intelligence.

host: the former house speaker, paul ryan, urging republicans to return to reaganism and end the fixation on donald trump. that story from janet hook on yahoo! news. the story will air on c-span networks. we will have it on our website at c-span.org. becky is joining us from massachusetts. your thoughts about the president approach -- president's approach to the economy? caller: i would like to welcome you back, although i did not like what you did. host: thank you. caller: i hope you will maintain a middle-of-the-road liking of people and allowing the station to have us who may disagree with you or anybody else to have

voice. host: absolutely. and on the economy, your thoughts are what? caller: if you remember back when trump was elected and became president, everybody said no, he can't claim anything on the jobs market. he can't claim anything. that is all biden. he can't claim any things for several months down the road. now, we are saying -- seeing biden say i have done this, done that and grown jobs and that's all i have to say. host: we will go to patrick from salisbury, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling to say i support what biden is doing. i support it because i think his budget agenda and his plans are trying to pull the united states

into the honey first century -- the 21st century. for too long, we have been ruled by people who want to live in 1955. i wish him success. i think what he is trying to do will be good for the country. we have got to adapt to the future, instead of trying to live in the past. host: thank you for the call. this is the story inside the wall street journal. the who, urging more virus research. the reporting in the wall street journal points out that members of the world health organization team are leading the investigation on the origins of covid-19, urging the u.n. to demand a second phase of research. michael is next. you get the last word from wilmington, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i am happy that you took my

call. i really appreciate it. i am happy to be the last one. i want to elaborate on the caller before the last caller. she was speaking about the minority of the world or the minority of the country. people of black, hispanic or indian sin. i am -- dissent. -- descent. i am 50% on biden as far as the economy. i want to elaborate on what people have not been speaking about. i know that the hispanic and indian community has been coming into the country and having all of these benefits added to them and everything like that, that's the way i see it. when it comes to the black community, it would be nice if

we -- the majority of us are poor. let's be realistic. the majority of us are poor, as far as the black community is concerned. i feel like the economic plan could be more in touch with, not only the times that we are in now, but with what we have a lack of over 400 years. host: thank you for the call. one final point, we are getting a lot of text messages. this is from robert, saying if the economy is rebounding already, why the need for $6 trillion in spending? the conversation continues on our twitter page as well at c-span wj. we will take a deep dive into cryptocurrency, in bitcoin. we will try to explain that with peter van valkenburgh. he runs the think tank -- he is with the think tank known as

coin center. washington journal continues. it is friday, the 28th of may. part of a memorial day weekend. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> on memorial day, join our live conversation, marking the 100th anniversary of the tulsa race massacre. our guest is local author and attorney hannibal johnson, whose latest book is black wall street 100. an american city grapples with a historical racial trauma. watch at 8:30 eastern on american history tv. >> c-span shop.org is c-span's online store. your purchases will support our nonprofit operations. you still have time to order the congressional directory with

contact information for members of congress and the biden administration. go to c-span shop.org. >> washington journal continues. host: the think tank is called coin center. joining us is peter van valkenburgh. he is a research director at coin center.org. we will talk about your organization. let's begin by talking about cryptocurrency, bitcoins, what are they? guest: bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency. the first one that was ever launched in 2009. there is a bunch of them now. in general, they can be thought of as digital cash. when you want to move money around, you usually have two options. you can use cash and be in person and hand somebody a $100 bill or take it from somebody. hopefully, legally. or you can use a bank to send it electronically from person to person, over the internet.

bitcoin is cash like in that you can hold it or have it directly, you do not have to trust the bank to hold it for you it works electronically -- hold it for you. but it works electronically like a bank transfer. i will send it to a code and the bitcoin moves like cash. host: we were talking to our producer about email and how 25 years ago, that was a novel idea. now it is a standard way of life. and you envision bitcoin will be a standard way we make any transaction? guest: in the 1990's, very few people used email and it seemed like a weird thing. why not send a letter? email created the standard, the simple mail transfer protocol. it developed just for the benefit of people, anyone can

send an email or receive an email. you can send it or host your own email server or use a company like google. suddenly, those tools got easier and faster and better and we fixed the spam problem. everyone does everything with email or text messages or more modern versions of internet communications tools. very few people send letters now. with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it may not be bitcoin, it may be a stable corn -- stable coin. with bitcoin, we will see more people doing transactions they would have previously done in person or using a third-party like a bank, done peer-to-peer over the internet like email. but, we will see. host: we saw bitcoin prices surge in terms of the stock. it is now taking a slump. can you explain? guest: this is something that anybody who is thinking about

buying them should take into account. the fact of the matter is because bitcoin is the protocol, there is no company or corporation backing the currency. there is a fixed number of bitcoin that exists on the peer to peer network ledger. it is called the block chain. it is a description of all of the transactions that have ever happened. if your skeptical if someone has sent you bitcoin, you can look at that and make it -- it makes it easier and see the transaction happened. you can see the total number of bitcoin that exists. there is only so many bitcoin. there were only ever be 21 million bitcoins. it is a scarce commodity just like gold is a scarce commodity. demand shifts because suddenly a bunch of people want to buy it or a bunch of people don't want to buy it, they want to sell it. then you will see an adjustment in the price.

we can't move the supply. if demand shifts rapidly, price will shift rapidly. it will go all the way up, the high recently, around $40,000 or $50,000 a bitcoin. or it can go back down. it has gone down, recently. you should not treat this as a safe investment, you should treat it as a speculative investment. there are other cryptocurrencies. some of them have a fixed supply and the price goes up and down. there are also new technologies that maintain parity with the u.s. dollar. if you want to use the peer to peer network and you don't want to worry about price changes, you can use stable coin. host: as you point out at coin center.org, the case for electronic cash and some of the numbers you put in this piece and on your website include the following. with bitcoin being among the largest currencies, there are

more than 10,000. the first bitcoin dates back to 2009. in the u.s., 46 million use a form of cryptocurrency. that is about 17% of the population. that number is surprising. that seems like a higher number than one might support -- one might expect. guest: it surprised me as well. i think that research is from newsweek. there are people who are skeptical about traditional economic systems. they may have seen one or two resections -- recessions. if you entered the job market in 2008 and are facing the economic fallout from covid, you think maybe we can find a better way. a lot of folks, young and old, our thinking maybe there is a different way of organizing the economy and we don't have to trust the big banks to do it. maybe it can be a peer to peer online system and that could be bitcoin or a lot of these new cryptocurrencies. host: how does that differ from apple cash or when you go to a

store or a merchant and you use your credit card? guest: so, it is better and worse. there are differences. it is better, because when you use apple pay, for example, you have to have apple on your side. they have to agree to process the transaction. a lot of people don't know this but apple pay, in their terms and services, says you are not allowed to use apple pay if you are selling firearms or if you are selling anything related to sex or pornography, or if you are saying anything on your shop for your disparaging apple products. you're simply not allowed to use apple pay. merchants would be denied if they were selling any of those things. apple reserves the right to systematically shut down apple pay whenever they want and cut any customer off from that system and you will no longer be able to transact. i don't mean to pick on apple. they are a great company and make really good phones. this is true of any electronic

payment method. credit cards and banks work that way. you are at the whim of a major corporation and their choice as to whether or not you are allowed to continue making payments. for most people, that is fine. we can imagine lots of issues with totalitarian governments and lots of issues with discrimination. i would not want to rely only on a corporation for payments. that is where cryptocurrencies come in. with bitcoin or with these stable coins, you don't have to trust anyone to process your payments because there is this peer to peer network of people all over the world who work together and we don't have to trust any one of them to process the payments. if one of them decides i don't want to process the payment, that slack will get picked up by the next person or the next person. there are thousands of people who run these networks collaboratively on the internet. it is a censorship resistant and free and open payment tool that can be good for protecting your privacy and your economic autonomy because you cannot be

cut off from this system at the whim of a totalitarian state or an oppressive corporation. host: how does venmo fit into all of this? guest: as long as venmo likes you, you will be able to make all of the payments you want using venmo. if you are paying for a protest in belarus, you will be cut off from venmo over the financial system. venmo did not do this specifically, but people trying to raise money for a pro-democracy protest in belarus found they could not use credit cards. this organization, which is a nonprofit, started raising money for the protests using bitcoin. that was a viable tool. it is a more difficult tool to use because you have to think about the exchange rate. and fluctuating prices and you will have to use a phone that may have more complicated software than what you would be used to with swiping your credit card.

but maybe it is worth it. it is definitely worth it for pro-democracy advocates in belarus. host: what will happen to currency and coins? guest: you know, i think there are folks in the bitcoin community who probably make too many noises about how bitcoin is going to dominate all economic systems and nobody will use dollars anymore and nobody will use banks anymore. i think that is foolhardy. the fact of the matter is there is going to be times when a bitcoin transaction is what you want. definitely if you are in an oppressive state like nigeria or belarus, you may find it more useful to use bitcoin. in the u.s., we have a stable banking system. we have the rule of law and a well-functioning government, although some of your callers might disagree and sometimes i disagree. but generally speaking, we have a good situation here from a financial infrastructure standpoint. so, generally speaking, you will probably still use credit cards and venmo and things like that. but maybe you will want to buy

some bitcoin because it will be eight way to balance your investment portfolio against the threat of -- via way to balance your investment portfolio against the threat of inflation. as part of a balanced portfolio that includes other safer investments, you may have a bitcoin to hedge against inflation. host: peter van valkenburgh, tell us about your organization and how you're funded. guest: we have been around for six years and we are an independent nonprofit. like i said, bitcoin is not an industry. don't get me wrong. there are big corporations like coin base and tracking that run profitable -- kracken, that run profitable businesses by helping people buy and sell bitcoin when they want. going itself is not a

corporation or a group of companies. it is a group of strangers on the internet who are collaborating to build a new and freer economic system. because it is this shared public resource, like the internet itself, there are no voids for bitcoin and washington, d.c. there is no ceo who can get on a jet and testify before congress. we saw this six years ago when we were starting coin center. we said we want to be an independent voice that has good information about the technology for folks in government who have questions. people in government have a lot of questions about things like pick one. we operate on a donation based system. if people see the work we are doing, educating folks in the executive branch about how bitcoin works, they are free to support us for the coming year. we do a fundraiser every winter. we have had generations -- we have had generous donations from people who like this technology and want to see people like myself ripping it to folks in

government. we have been doing it for six years. it is the best job i could ask for as a young law graduate six years ago. host: ned is joining us from idaho. you own cryptocurrency? caller: i do not. there is nothing big to it. i am not sold on it. there is also a problem with the amount of power being consumed by bitcoin. it is more than the entire of -- entire country of argentina that is consumed by bitcoin. you guys have got to slow down when you are creating new technologies. coming up here soon, they are

already out, are the deepfake videos. host: if you do own cryptocurrency, the number is (202) 748-8002. jody says i refuse to be chained to a platform that hacks you with ease. a few will make it big and a bunch of people will lose their shirt. i like to touch my money. i will not by bitcoin. what would you like to say to jodi? guest: let's talk about the energy use first. that is a good question. the first thing i want to say is we need to know why bitcoin uses this amount of energy. to get into this, we need to have details on how bitcoin works. i promise i will keep it straightforward and avoid technical speak. if we have all of these people collaborating over the internet to keep this system working, to keep the block chain, which is that record of all transactions, we have this question. if we are not trusting a company

like paypal to keep that record, how do we incentivize people on the internet to keep that record? how do we make sure people who are keeping that record are invested in the system this self -- themselves so they will not make fake trances -- transfers to themselves to enrich themselves? we have a way of getting everyone to agree, based on certain rules and computations. the bitcoin consensus mechanism is a proof of work consensus mechanism. if you want to participate in this shared effort of maintaining the ledger of transaction and build this free and open transaction tool of the future, you need to prove to us that you have spent some amount of energy in costly computations. that you are solving a difficult problem that can only be solved by making a lot of guesses, using powerful computers to make more and more guesses. if you provide proof of that computational work, you are

welcome into the group. you don't need to get permission from anyone or by special computing software or hardware, you use something that is available off-the-shelf and prove you have spent the energy and computing power to participate. this is how we keep people who are not serious out of the system. god knows lots of people are not serious. if anyone was allowed to keep the ledger, we would have problems. your caller said bitcoin uses the amount of our -- energy argentina uses. that is pretty close. the question is how much resources would we be willing to dedicate to maintaining this much money and this many balances for individual people all over the world? the global financial system, all of the big banks, computer systems and laws, that uses a bunch more energy. we could be more efficient if we gradually transitioned to more cryptographic systems. there would still be a lot of

energy use to secure money but it is something worth spending energy on. it is worth spending energy on food production and computers, on your macbook pro. aluminum uses a whole bunch more energy than bitcoin, for example. the last thing i want to say is this is a serious problem, if minors, people on the bitcoin network who are spending energy, are using dirty energy sources like coal. one thing is, yes, there are a fair number of miners located in china. they are in china because china pays people to dig coal out of the ground and burned it for super cheap electricity. it would not be that cheap if the chinese government was not actually paying people to dig coal out of the ground and burn it for electricity. because it is so cheap, they go there. they say i will use it to buy bitcoin here.

it is a problem because of chinese energy policy, they are paying people to burden oil. -- burn coal. host: a quick follow-up in the reminder -- and a reminder to our audience, our guest is peter van valkenburgh. he is joining us from washington, d.c. one of our viewers says what if that block chain or whatever the platform is that is hosting this bitcoin, what if it gets hacked? guest: that's right. your second question was about hacking too and i forgot to answer it. sorry about that. let's talk about hacking. we all know that financial institutions get hacked all the time. probably the biggest bank robbery ever to happen was a bank transfer from an indian commercial bank -- to an

indian commercial bank from the new york federal reserve bank. it was a fraudulent transaction. the indian bank that was initiating the transfer had been hacked. the biggest bank robbery that ever happened was happening because of a cybersecurity vulnerability in the swift network. americans will know about hacking because of things like the equifax pack, where -- hack, where your name and social security number got leaked because a company failed to secure your personal data. the great thing about bitcoin and cryptocurrency is there is no corporation. there is no to hacked. there is a shared ledger across computers -- no bank to hacked. there is a shared ledger across computers.

i can only move the bitcoin that i have the cryptographic credentials to move. i can't move other people's coin. there is no way -- peoples bitcoin. there is no way to hacked the system as a whole. instead of having a gradual system where you have one corporation to change everyone's balances and screw up their financial records and them financially, you have to hack every individual financially. it is a much more robust system, then an individual system where only one party has to be hacked. host: one viewer says i invested in cryptocurrency and lost heavily, way too volatile for my blood. can people cash in -- convinced many issuers cash in immediately after public offering, fully expecting the value to fall flat.

you can see the full list on the website. davis who owns cryptocurrency is joining us from ardmore, pennsylvania. caller: it isn't completely about speculative investment, nor is it entirely about bitcoin. it is about empowering yourself and becoming your own bank and being able to facilitate those transactions without a third-party. it has far more value than being an ownership and a platform. it is control and voting power and the ability to find your assets of a block chain and its own real estate. host: we will get a response. peter van valkenburgh? guest: i agree. be cautious, don't invest more than you are willing to lose. but, the technology is exciting.

as the caller said, it allows people to have direct control over things they own digitally. in the past, if you owned anything digitally, like stocks you had three or charles schwab portfolio -- had through your charles schwab portfolio, you're trusting a banking company to do it on your behalf and represent your interests faithfully. that relationship is not available to everyone. people will not open accounts for everyone. and it is fragile. the person you are trusting could get hacked. the caller mentioned future block chain cases. can we use a shared network of free people around the world to keep track of things like real estate sales and who owns which pieces of property? that is an interesting idea. one of the most exciting ideas

is to keep our identity credentials. when you walk around with a wallet, you have your cash and drivers license. when you move around on the internet, you might have your crash. but your identity, you don't have a drivers license. maybe, instead of having a government issued digital identity, we could have a portable, i hold it and it is mine, i control it and i am the only person who can determine who i will identify myself to and who i will not identify myself to. we can do that using a shared network like bitcoin and we can have digital identity over a block chain. it is an exciting use case. it gets technical how that works. there is more to bitcoin and block chain technology than just money. money is a great first use case, maybe the most important ever because the financial system is so important.

but we can improve human flourishing using things like block chain. host: florida georgia girl with this tweet. -- an article dealing with the wild swings of cryptocurrency. they are reviewing what they call gaps in cryptocurrency rules. scott is joining us from illinois. good morning, scott. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. while i was on hold, i think you may have answered my questions to a large degree but not entirely. i will throw it out there. something i don't understand about cryptocurrency, especially bitcoin, is that ultimately it gets valued in dollars. we talked about how it is worth $6,000 today and a few weeks ago, it is worth $60,000. who knows what it will be worth tomorrow?

what is it facilitating if ultimately it is just stated in dollar value anyway? it is stated in dollars, so what does bitcoin really do? guest: that's a great question. you are right. whenever you see the price of bitcoin floated in dollars, that his convention. a bitcoin is worth one bitcoin. you can figure out that vile you -- value by how much bitcoin will buy you. there are places where you can spend bitcoin to buy things. at the end of the day, we don't want to know how may tesla's your bitcoin can buy. elon may or may not sell you one for a bitcoin. we want to know what we are comfortable with. at this point in history, maybe not in 30 or 40 or 50 years, but at this point in history, we understand dollars. it is the unit of account that we like and are comfortable with. if we want to know how much our bitcoin is worth, we will probably want to know that price in dollars.

that is not the only way that you can quote the price of bitcoin. it is something we do for convenience. the bitcoin itself has nothing to do with dollars. it is a scarce unit of digital property. as markets evolve, they could value that unit differently. you can price it in euros. you can price that in tesla's. we will see how it happens. maybe we will be quoting prices of things in bitcoin instead of dollars because that is what everyone will understand and use. it will be a little weird and i am not sure that will happen but it could. host: peter van valkenburgh, where do the names bitcoin and cryptocurrency come from? guest: our community is bad at naming things almost everything, including my organization's name either has coin orbit in the name. it can get pretty confusing. the fact of the matter is the name bitcoin was announced in

the research paper. there was a paper that was published anonymously on the internet in 2008, a few months before the network actually launched. only people who were nerdy and interested in things like digital cash read this pdf, this research paper early on. it described the system that we were going to build together, using shared computer software and a shared network to create the bitcoin network. in that research paper, the author, whoever he, she, or they were, we don't know who they were. they used a pseudonym. in the research paper, they named it bitcoin calmly -- bitcoin. calling it a peer to peer cash transaction system. i did not notice this until many years later in 2011 or 2012. i wish i thought a lot more -- i had bought a lot more at that point because it was cheap. people looked at the actual

software folks were sharing on the internet and started getting block chain and have carried on with 100% of climb -- uptime ever since. uptime is the term for how long an internet server stays active. sometimes amazon.com is down. bitcoin has never been down for almost its entire history. it is a really reliable computing network. host: what has surprised you the most in researching the trends in bitcoin? guest: error -- our day job is about specific bitcoin -- there are lots of regulations that apply to activities that people do using bitcoin. all of these exchanges where you can buy and sell bitcoin, they do anti-money laundering policies and they followed

reports to the u.s. treasury. this is how we stop people from using bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies for things like terrorism and other financial crimes. that is surprising to a lot of people. it is not it is not surprising to us because we spend six years talking to treasury and talking to congress. there are a lot of rules as general as opposed. they apply to bitcoin just like they apply to any other transaction involving something valuable. host: our guest is the research director peter van valkenburgh joining us in washington. thank you for that explanation. i hope you will come back again. guest: i would be happy to. host: the senate taking up a bill that would include $250 for the u.s. to be more -- $250 billion for the u.s. to be more competitive with china. weifeng zhong is with the mercatus center.

it is friday, the 28th of may. stay with us. "washington journal" continues. >> we are featuring american history programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on c-span3. tonight, a look at the american west. j buckley teaches about lewis and clark's expedition. also known as the core of discovery expedition, he describes the goal to map their route to the pacific coast to gather information on the people of the main territory. watch tonight at eight at 5 p.m. eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3. >> book tv on c-span2 has

nonfiction books and authors every weekend. saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern "maverick" a biography by jason riley. he is interviewed by dennis prager sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern, "the premonition." michael lewis writes about the early warning signs of the covid pandemic and the trump administration response. watch book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome back weifeng zhong of the mercatus center. thank you for being with us. we want to focus on china. the headline, "senate chaos." this is a bill being put forth

by senator chuck schumer that would provide $250 billion for the u.s. to be more competitive with china. what is in this bill? what would it do? guest: thanks for having me and good morning to you. this is a huge undertaking on the senate side because this is a bill that has many things including hundreds of amendments that may or may not be included. we still have to see how it will play out. it is important to look at the big picture. the whole proposed policy, most of it is by the competition with china. the key point we need to focus on is whether it would help the u.s. maintain an advanced prominence in technology facing chinese threats. if we are looking at that angle, there are elements in the bill that are not entirely ideal because in terms of the policy effect. some of the proposals would

inject more money to the national science foundation, not to its traditional activities, but toward a new entity inside called the directory of technology, which would be more focused on applied research, meaning to turn research findings and basic science into technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing. that is coming from an understandable place because that is where china was posing the most significant threat to u.s. technology. i don't think that is a good use of government funding on research. instead, they should focus on basic research, which is the strength of the national science foundation. i think there are elements that may not be that bad. we still have to see how it will play out. host: this comes as the backdrop of greater tension between our country in china. how would you assess relations between president biden,

president xi jinping, and our two countries? guest: that is a very important question. after two decades of engagement, very romantic engagement since china joined the wto, the united states in terms of china policy has tried two things. one is the very moment is engagement, but the other in the past four years of the trump administration the u.s. seems to be leaning more toward de-coupling. we are going in between two extremes. too much engagement and too little engagement. neither seem to work, by the way. i think the united states is at a critical juncture in terms of the china policy. we need to find a sweet spot between the two because most americans want to see a tougher stance on china. there are many ways to go tough on china. we need to find a way that goes tough on china without hurting

ourselves economically that much. that is the challenge facing the biden administration when threats on china in the national security fund is increasing. host: our guest is weifeng zhong with the mercatus center part of george mason university. that relationship with a high level of distrust. the story this morning in the "wall street journal" that is really the center of the investigation. the w.h.o. is urging more virus research saying time is of the essence. china is essentially saying this investigation is over. where do things stand? what has to happen next for the u.s. to get the answers that it is asking for? guest: that is a very important cast -- task, not only for the u.s., but also for its allies because the conventional way to go about things like this,

including the investigation on covid-19, was to go through the channel of international organizations like the who. two decades of experience have told us that china is good at not following the principles behind national organizations -- international organizations. they might be following the rules on the surface, but they might be playing the rules in a way that does not conform china to the principles of the organizations, including the democratic rules we cherish and value being open to the global community when it comes to trade, investigation of the pandemic, and matters like that. for the u.s. and its allies, it is important to figure out if those international organizations are not really working when it comes to china, what else could work? how could they build a more effective alliance through other channels? maybe through private sectors,

maybe through other ways of cooperation outside of the framework of those organizations that could lead to a better outcome. that is a tough question because we have this belief that all of these international organizations are at the core of maintaining international order. when we came up with those groups after the second world war, china was not there. the threat of china only came up in the last couple of decades. now it is time for the international community to adapt to the china reality and figure out how to change the rules so it can still survey fundamental principle. host: democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. you can send this a tweet. we will get to your calls in a moment. i want to ask you about the upcoming winter games scheduled to take place in china. a number of countries calling for a boycott. what is the reason behind the

call for the boycott and from your perspective, will it happen? guest: whether it will happen is a difficult question. going back to the collective action problem, it is not enough for one country to want to boy cap -- why can't the olympic games, it would be much easier and its allies -- it would be much easier if the u.s. and its allies wanted to do it. building a better working relationship with like-minded nations like european countries. for the underlying reason, it is well justified because what is riding these conversations is the week of genocide in china and the chinese government has been rounding up minority uighurs and putting many of them in forced labor camps, if not, killing those minority people. that is of great concern to the rest of the world because that is against any values that we

cherish in the international community. the problem is that it is hard to really change chinese behavior in that sense because that is happening in china. what could we do on the outside? boycotting the olympic games is one way that policymakers are coming up with. not whether they would happen, but whether they would work. i am skeptical about the effect because the majority of the people in china do not know what is happening in the uighur region. if they see that all of these foreign nations are boycotting the games, they will wonder why. the chinese government has active propaganda to justify to their people that this is the wrongdoing of the foreign countries. they are boycotting because they are jealous of china. it is not going to get a lot of

traction within china and for that reason, i don't think it will impose a lot of pressure on the chinese authorities to changing its behavior when it comes to the genocide. host: let's go to gary in cleveland, ohio. republican line. caller: good morning. just checking in with the situation in china. it is a shame what happened to this virus that overtook our world. not only the americans, but i think the international population is really p'd off at this point. i am not sure what is going to happen with the games in china. what i am interested in is the truth to come out where this virus came from. some say it was a lab. some say it came from an animal. my personal opinion is i think it came from a lab.

if it did happen that way, i think the relationships might get back to normal in three or four years. host: the week, thank you. weifeng zhong, your response. guest: thank you for the question. that is an important question. i am personally curious about where the virus came from. i am not a virologist. i am not in the capacity to evaluate the scientific claims either for or against it. i have done some research on how bad the situation was in 2020, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. the research project i did, last year we were trying to estimate, because when we see these official numbers about new cases in china, they look very low. the problem is is that really that low. the research that we tried to focus on exactly what the

chinese government is saying in their propaganda machine and the underlying idea basically being that sometimes it is easy to lie about numbers. but you still have to address to the general chinese public about the pandemic and what to do about it to encourage people to stay home, to follow the rules. when you use those language, you could actually see more in the numbers. it is relative to the researching interest in the origin of the virus because what we have seen this right at the beginning of the pandemic, the severity remeasured was already way more than statistics, which might suggest that it could have happened much earlier on than what the chinese authorities admitted. it does not address the issue of

the exact origins of the virus, which i think will remain a mystery given how opaque the chinese system is. that is the problem when it comes to anything else. because the system is so opaque, it is hard to find out what is going on in there. host: before joining the mercatus center center, our guest is a former research fellow at the american institute. he studied in china, earning his masters and doctorate from northwestern university and mark is joining us from baker city, oregon. good morning. caller: good morning. i will tell you where it came from. it is from the wuhan institute. the barack obama-funded institute. it was released by nancy pelosi when she ripped up donald trump's speech and then went over there to release it on the world. do not seek -- you nazi bastards

are evil as hell. guest: i'm also very curious about where it comes from and we will have to see whether any elements of truth come out of the investigation. host: thank you for waiting. good morning. caller: i want to address the comment made by the previous caller. it leads into the question that i have in terms of the origin of the virus. how is it that no research and no investigation was done about where this virus came from, but it was labeled as the wuhan virus or that it started in a market in wuhan and we do not know if it came from an animal, a lab, or anything. how could we be able to determine where that virus came from? how responsible or irresponsible

was it for our former president to continuously propagate the fact that this came from china? host: thank you. guest: that is a very good question. the hard part of working with china in the context of international community. a lot of it comes down to the sovereignty of the chinese regime. often times you have to get agreement or approval from the chinese to go in to do any investigation. an example would be that we are complaining about forced labor in china and whether or not it might be made in one of those prison camps we don't know about. u.s. authorities actually have a channel with the chinese authority. the u.s. authority could send requests on the chinese government to say we have questions about these. we want to go and see whether

your factories are operating in connection to forced labor camps. then the chinese government would have to approve for. there are examples in the past where the u.s. government sent requests like this and it would take 10 years before anyone could go in from the u.s. to china to look at those factories. and tin years is more than enough for the chinese government to clean up anything that could possibly indicate forced labor. the same about the virus as well. if you want to go in, even with the w.h.o., it would have to go through the chinese government's approval and they do not want you to see something. they would delay the request and it would take a lot of time after they clean everything up before you could see everything that is happening in wuhan. it is a tough question and it is the reality of working with another nation when that nation has sovereignty, which is hardly surprising. host: that is the story this morning.

if you want more details inside "the wall street journal," they were unable to view raw data or original records for more information on that. let's go back to the issue of trade and in particular, some of the chipmakers. this is a tweet saying, "how can the u.s. compete with china? the government subsidizes their businesses." senator bernie sanders is interposing chipmakers to give aid. part of the debate will continue in the senate. here is what he said on the senate floor. ♪ [video clip] sen. sanders: i am sympathetic to the goal of this bill but i am not so pathetic to simply laying out $52 billion of taxpayers money. that is why i have introduced an

amendment. this amendment would prevent microchip companies from receiving taxpayer assistance unless they agree to issue warrants to the federal government. it's private companies are going to benefit from over -- if private companies are going to benefit, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the american people, not just wealthy shareholders. in other words, madam president, all this amendment says is that if these companies want taxpayer assistance, we are not going to socialize all of the risks and privatize all of the profits. [end video clip] host: that is from the senate floor earlier this week. this is one of a number of amendments the senate has been

taking up all part of a $250 billion package put forth by senator schumer. on this issue, what is it all about? guest: it is mostly from earlier this year the shortage in semi conductor ships -- chips in the auto industry and it seemed to be a wake-up call to the american public that america does not have a lot of semi conductor chip manufacturing within the territory. what happened was that when those automakers, when they had the demand surge from customers after the pandemic was going off that people started coming out and wanting to buy cars again and they realized they could not get the supply because when they talked to the suppliers, that would be making chips were video games -- chips for video games.

there is a shortage and policymakers are motivated to solve the shortage. one of the solutions proposed in policy was to say let's build factories. let's manufacture those chips at home. the way to do that is to subsidize those chip manufacturers to say can you move back to the united states and make chips here and the government will subsidize you. this is an example of government to change what seems to be the best in terms of market allocation because this is not solving the problem of the shortage in the semi conductor chips because it does not really matter whether the chips are manufactured in the u.s. or outside. the shortage was driven early on in the pandemic that people are not buying cars and so the automakers did not have the demand for cars. that is why they did not have the demand for chips and that is

why those chipmakers shift their capacity to make something else. that is a regular shock that could happen whether it is with a pandemic or anything else in the market conditions. for that to motivate policymakers to pay manufacturers to move the factories back to the united states, i think it would be enhancing what i will call a comparative disadvantage of the united states economy in the global economy. you know what the factories do the best in terms of manufacturing chips? it is in taiwan. the taiwan semi conductor manufacturing company was the leader in terms of manufacturing very tiny parts of semi conductor parts and they do it better than anybody else. it makes economic sense that it happens there. u.s. chip companies, what they do best is to actually design what is in the chips and let

those taiwanese companies manufacture it and that works out for the best if you ask those u.s. manufacturers to move back to the united states, it is not profitable. that is why it needs subsidies from the government to make it a viable business and i don't think that is a good use of taxpayer money. host: just to follow-up on that point, this is a headline from reuters.com. the biden administration pointing out that the proposed $52 billion boost in u.s. government funding for semi conductors could result in 7-10 new u.s. factories. troy is joining us from pittsburgh. republican line. caller: i am just hoping for a smooth handoff of the hedge men's. if it is not a smooth handoff, it could wind up like world war i, world war ii, the many wars that britain had.

if you look at the order, america is number one. china is number two. japan is a his regular position and india is number four. the old guard is out. a lot of these countries that are going to becoming upward are in developing countries and that is where the industry is going when we are going for climate change in the west. the western countries are going -- sliding back. host: we only have a few minutes left. guest: i think that is an important question. the key point is that it is not a problem for any country to get richer or more prosperous. it is not a problem for china to get more profit. the problem is the way china rises poses a threat to other nations. that is why the old

international order that the caller was referring to was not working. the wto originated at the end of world war ii when all of those like-minded nations got together and they try to figure out a way to make nations not go to war again. the solution they come up with it say let's trade with each other freely and maybe when we trade with each other freely, we have more into atomic -- economic interest at stake and that way we would not be going to war with each other. that is the underlying root. if you use that to assess china's connection to the wto, it works out because we have not had any war with china for a long time. from the perspective of achieving peace, it may have worked out. but it does not address the issue of keeping the global economy as free as it could and the reason was because china was

manipulating those rules and the reason the rules were not working was because when the rules were made, china was not there. china was a very minor economy in the global community at the end of world war ii. the challenge is how to fix those. i think those rules are fixable. how to fix those rules to better deal with the china problem and that is what is motivating the bill that we are discussing going to the senate. the question of whether -- is whether they can achieve the goal and that is a more obligated conversation than just to discuss whether the motivation was right. i think the motivation was right. the problem is whether those policies would be effective and i have serious doubts about it. host: our guest is weifeng zhong from the mercatus center. he is a senior research fellow from george mason university. kimberly from california. good morning. caller: good morning and thank

you for sharing a lot of enlightenment for all of the viewers. my question was related to how do we dial back the nation's dependence on china? why is it that we have given up so much of our intellectual property which has been essentially taken over and china has taken it as its own, which has brought it up to a huge competitor of the united states and other countries? guest: thank you for the question -- host: thank you for the question and we have one minute left. guest: i think what we have tried, the united states has tried, was to solve it very quickly, even leaning to de-coupling between the u.s. and chinese accompanies -- economies.

it ended up hurting u.s. consumers and business too much. now the question how to dial back, it has to be more slowly and we have to figure out exactly where we want to dial back and where we don't want to dial back and there will have to be trade-offs. we may not buy as many goods from china that are made from forced labor. if you ask consumers, they would say that. how to make that happen if you just cut off trade, that would be costing too much. another way to do it is to say whether we can make companies more transparent in terms of where they source their product and american consumers know better where the products are coming from. they can assess by themselves whether they want to buy that if they know it is more likely to be coming from the uighur region. that transparency could be something that could help with the support of the american public to which i think is very powerful. host: the state of u.s.-china

relations in a word or phrase is what? guest: could you repeat the question? host: the state of u.s.-china relations in a word or phrase is what? guest: we are trying to find somewhere between romantic engagement and divorce. we have yet to get there. host: weifeng zhong is a senior research fellow at the mercatus center. thank you for being with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: i want to share this headline and any comment from lisa murkowski saying that senior -- senator mitch mcconnell is putting politics above the january 6 commission. the senate is in session right now with a debate on the january 6 commission. do they have the votes necessary to proceed? it already passed the house of representatives. also, the bill being put forth by senator chuck schumer on china. the total of $250 billion. the house of