prospect talking about his recent article on the need for industrial policy. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is saturday, august seventh, 2021. the u.s. economy saw a surge and a drop in unemployment. it was news that reinforce to the case the economic recovery is proceeding but we want to hear your view. are you seeing an economic recovery in your part of the country? unemployed can call at (202)-748-8000, employers can call at (202)-748-8001, all

others (202)-748-8002. you can also send a text message (202)-748-8003. if you do, include your name and where you are from. otherwise catch up on social media @c-spanwj and on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. you can start calling in now. an update on the schedule today in this saturday session at the senate. the senate will return today at 11:00 eastern and continue its work on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that funds roads and bridges, public transit, broadband internet, and electric vehicle charging stations. votes on amendments to the bill expected today as well as a possible vote on final passage, although that vote could bleed into tomorrow. you can watch gavel-to-gavel coverage all day long on c-span2.

this morning we are spending the first hour talking about the u.s. economic recovery and that jobs report that came out yesterday. for more on that report we are joined on the phone by eric moore, economics and policy reporter. take us first through the top line numbers from that report. guest: good morning. the report showed more than 900,000 jobs were added to the u.s. economy and that the unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level since march 2020 when the pandemic first took hold. we saw healthy growth in wages and saw some americans coming back to the labor force. still a lot of people missing but some improvement. host: regarding headlines like this one, your headline in the wall street journal, job gains the best in nearly a year.

how much does this report yesterday account for the surge we are seeing in the delta variant and the impacts that could be having on the u.s. economy right now? guest: that it's a really good point to consider. it is based on two surveys the government does in the middle of the month. it does not account for the surge we have seen the last two weeks. really shows entering that those really strong tailwinds for the u.s. economy but we are going to have to wait a few more weeks before we get data on if this latest round of cases is having an effect. host: in terms of waiting on additional data, remind us what tapering is when it comes to the fed and what impacts it could have on that decision. guest: right. tapering is the fed pulling back on the amount of stimulus they

are putting into the economy and the extrication is that the fed will start doing that as the economy begins to heal throughout this year. one of the things the fed focuses on his unemployment and with unemployment rates being 5.4% there is some thought that, in a normal world, that would be a signal that, hey, we can pull back. but with the uncertainty caused by the delta variant some say they want to see the august report before the september meeting and some want another month of data until later in the fall to make a decision. host: on unemployment, we saw a lot of states ending enhanced unemployment. what impact did that have in june and july as governors in the mostly republican led states made those decisions? guest: well, it is a little hard

to start out but we saw that, you know, almost 2 million jobs were added in june and july after those announcement were made. talked to a staffing firm in atlanta and a lot of the states there pulled back on unemployment benefits and he said he saw 17% increase in application. other economists say there are a lot of factors that play. a lot of businesses have been raising wages. cvs announced they are raising wages. that might be why they are coming back to work. they are feeling more confident, they have more childcare, a lot of factors could be getting americans back to work at the reduction in unemployment benefits is one economists are pointing to. host: as they are coming back to work what do we know about their wages and where wages are going right now? guest: wage growth looks healthy. 4% increase in average hourly

earnings. that is much better rate then we saw through the last expansion. the lowest paid workers, those that may be work in restaurants, almost 10% wage increase. the demand for workers is high, wages are rising. the caveat there, there is always a caveat, inflation is rising. it is costing more for say, a restaurant to employ a cook and then that restaurant is going to need to charge more on the menu, that affects consumers and that cook. host: on the numbers within the report good news about nearly a million jobs added. wondering how it impacted across demographic groups. here is what we know about the unemployment rate. whites in this country 4.8%,

blacks 8.2%, hispanics 6.2%, among women 5%, men 5.4%. take us through how that compares to previous months where the numbers are trending in various groups. guest: a broad trend of improvement across the various groups but certainly it stands out that the unemployment rate for black americans is well elevated. that shows that not only were black americans disproportionately hurt during the pandemic, they are not taking part in the recovery and unfortunately, that is a historical pattern. typically black americans are the last to fully recover from economic downturns. the breakdown between genders is interesting. early on in the pandemic we saw very high job loss among women. much different than the 2009

recession. here we saw job losses in restaurants and stores, offices where women hold a great number of jobs. the fact that female unemployment is below is a good sign, although we know a lot of women have dropped out of the labor force altogether and that is why we are looking ahead to september to see when schools are back in session. we know a lot of moms have had to stay out of the workforce to take care of the kids when they have been at home during the pandemic. maybe that will change this fall. again, the delta variant creates a big question mark. host: what else did you find interesting from this jobs report yesterday? guest: you know, really looking at how people are coming back to the workforce. we saw 250,000 more people enter

the workforce but i think it is important to remember we still have millions of fewer people actively seeking work than before the pandemic began. that's kind of the key in terms of we want to see sustained economic upswing. they need to get more workers back to work and part of that is keeping the virus at bay. but people made lifestyle changes and people have retired. the american economy is going to have to make up for those missing workers. host: eric morath, policy reporter with the wall street journal, always appreciate your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: taking your phone calls this morning. in the wake of these numbers yesterday this labor department report asking if you are seeing economic recovery in your part of the country.

again, (202)-748-8000 if you are unemployed, if you are an employer, it is (202)-748-8001, all others (202)-748-8002. this is nancy pelosi yesterday at her weekly news conference touting these numbers from the labor department. [video clip] >> today we have a big number -- 943,000 jobs created is decisive proof the democrats build back better economy is working. under the administration the democratic majorities in congress have seen good paying jobs with the rise of 5.4%, the lowest covid unemployment rate. unemployment in a pandemic low, the economy growing at the fastest rate in over 40 years, and the share of americans

living in poverty set to reach the lowest level on record. now we must retain this growth and we have other things to do. as you know the senate is acting on some legislation. we will continue that work when they are finished. host: that was nancy pelosi yesterday. republicans sharing their take on the numbers yesterday. several via social media. this is congressman kevin grady, republican, thanks in part to republican governors removing the biden work barrier that pays the jobless more to stay home. the july report met expectations although biden's jobs deficit still remains high and businesses are still struggling to find workers. a few more tweets from republican members. ralph norman yesterday, good news on the jobs front with that 943,000 added. we should credit the

governors who ended the state federal employment bonus. barry loudermilk quoting the numbers of the 4% average of unemployment rate in the states that ended the subsidy versus the 5.8% for the state that continued the subsidy. one more from republicans, senator roy blunt saying, americans are already getting hit in their wallets because of inflation. democrats will only make this worse for taxpayers. taking your phone calls this morning asking you if you are seeing an economic recovery in your part of the country. we will start on the flowing phone line for employers. ed is in georgia. what kind of business do you run? caller: i am not running a

business but i hire people to renovate my home. host: did you put off renovations during the pandemic? caller: i could not get anybody. what bothers me is the amount of jobs that were created last month. i don't know why biden or pelosi should take any credit. i haven't heard them one time say, go back to work. they never say that. host: ed, who do you think should get credit? caller: all the republican states are back to work or getting people to get back to work. myself, i could use to more people on the job i am having them do and i cannot get them because people are going back to work here. host: is it a matter of paying folks more or is that going to make a difference at this point in terms of finding somebody?

caller: well, i am getting by with 10. it's going to be ok it is just going to take longer. after your home is renovated it goes up in value. host: thanks for the call. dee is calling in on those who are unemployed. how long have you been unemployed? caller: hello? host: how long have you been unemployed? caller: almost a year and four months. for me in regards to the economy, i do not think there is a lot of employment for older people. i am 65 years old and unemployment is forcing us to look for jobs. i have not received any benefits over nine weeks.

it has been going on two months and i know our governor stopped unemployment for some people and it has been a challenge of even getting benefits or getting people online to help you. it has really been a struggle for those who have been unemployed and i am sure i am not the only person. there are probably many other people having the same problem of getting their benefits. i worked at my job for a very long time and was furloughed and due to covid. i look at the job market and for a person like me, i just don't see something out there that i am able to do. some of the jobs i have been looking for they are very long distance, places that would be a long drive for me to travel. host: what kind of job are you looking for and i ask because

one of the folks tweeting @ c-spanwj is saying, almost every small business or restaurant or fast food place he has seen has help-wanted signs. what kind of job are you looking for? caller: i actually have my degree and i was making a good salary -- for me to go into a restaurant business i would take a large cut in pay. i don't think it would be enough for me to survive off of and pay my bills. i am also 65 years old. for a job like that for me it wouldn't meet my standard of living because i have a mortgage to pay, i have other bills to pay, and to take a market job, i mean at a restaurant, i would probably have to work two jobs. host: at what point would you

need to do that? at what point would you have to love that standard you have? caller: well, i don't know if i would. for me at 65 years old and people who might be my age, they are going to be forcing people into retirement. host: thank you for the call and talking about your story. this is don in ohio. you are next. caller: morning. they talk about all these people that had to pay rent and stuff. unemployed, you gave me $3000 stimulus for the year. you gave me $300 on top of my unemployment so i was making more money staying at home then working 40 hours. tell me, we need to do more research and find out why the

people can't make rent payment. host: what do you think the real reason is? caller: i think they just went out and blew it. with all that money how could you not make your rent payments and then the taxpayers are doing this. yesterday when i heard about the committee talking about the college paying for everything, why not, on their loans, make them pay the principal? if we have to pay the interest, ok. but why not make them pay the principal? the country is broke. what do you think? host: don on the student loans issue from the wall street journal on that topic yesterday. the biden administration announcing it is extending the moratorium on federal student loan payments through early 2022. the education department made that yesterday following the early extension president biden

made when he took office. it will expire at the end of september it has been extended until january 31 of next year. the story noting loan repayments and interest accrual has been paused on borrowers with federal student loans since march 13, 2020. it applies to $1.4 trillion in federal student debt owed by some 42.8 million borrowers. that the topic don was talking about. donald, are you seeing an economic recovery in california? caller: definitely. i called to make a statement. you showed the republicans' tweet about the enhanced unemployment. i also have family in indiana. the governor tried to stop the enhanced payments and there was a lawsuit filed and they had to pay. they lost in court and had to pay the enhanced payment.

i am sure in other states they would have to pay enhanced payments. that is what these republicans are saying and that is what i wanted to say. thank you. host: this is steve in maryland. good morning. caller: good morning, john. happy saturday morning. host: same to you. caller: i retired last march right about when the pandemic started. what i have noticed recently is inflation. it is an issue. i have a truck, it cost me $68 the other day, $78 for a piece of plywood the other day. when you are on fixed income you notice these things. i paid my property tax, dipped into savings, and my son works in baltimore. he's married and a year or two ago i would have been able to help him for bills and this time it was like, son, i am on a

fixed income and he has a job. he injured his shoulder two weeks ago and his employer hasn't gotten back to him. he has gone to hr, gone to his union, so i don't see we are out of the woods at all. we are americans, we grow, but i am not happy. one more thing i would like to say about build back better. i get so tired of hearing speaker pelosi and president biden use this. if you google build back better and the world health organization, you will find this in reference to mental health and also to climate change. it is a borrowed expression and it is a globalist expression and it bothers me. you know, you get old and you get cranky but i get tired of hearing this. i'm an american first kind of guy.

personally i pivot away from china which is hard to do. i am tired of seeing our country supporting a communist dictatorship. i pivot toward india, the world's largest democracy. like i said, when you are retired it's good but there are things you want to do and i am finding you can't quite enjoy what you thought you would enjoy after 55 years of labor. host: thank you for the call. you started your comment talking about the issue of inflation. the national republican congressional committee, the campaign arm of house republicans, highlighting the issue of inflation in a series of web ads focused on democratic members they are targeting in the 2022 election cycle. this is one of those ads that they launched this week targeting jared golden. here is the ad. [video clip] >> from gas to groceries

consumer prices soaring. >> everything is more expensive. democrats' harmful policies are making everyday goods cost more. tell congressman jared goldman we can't afford this. host: that just one of a series targeting various democratic members. back to your phone calls asking are you seeing an economic recovery in your part of the country? cincinnati this is juanita on the line for those who are unemployed. how long have you been unemployed? caller: like the other caller when you retire you lose things too. but i am tired of republicans making economic messes. there is a great difference in this recovery in that people seem to be getting back on their

feet a little bit better and they seem to be going back to better wages. i get to hear the republicans say the b word, benefits. [indiscernible] for the first caller in ohio, he needs to do his research. in ohio people are not sitting on rent money. the money is in the custody -- we have 88 counties. a renter does not get that many. he has to go to an attorney, then you go to the clerk of courts, then you go to the action commission and then the money is dispersed.

the renter does not see the money. nobody is blowing any money. before republicans get on here and people are not working, they need to go do their research. i would say turnaround and look what is happening in your county. host: we will head to west virginia, this is bobby. are you seeing an economic recovery in west virginia? caller: yes and no. first of all let me say i am a united mine worker where the mate one massacre happened. coal has declined quite rapidly . that is the number one economy driver in west virginia or in the coalfield period. we have a lot of tourism beginning to come in.

we have what you call the hatfield and mccoy trail system. people that has got land and a little bit of revenue, expensive younger generation, are able to build cabins and everything because we get people coming from canada and australia and all over this country. they just don't have places to go. i would like to go with the economy and say this about the economy, the people that is laid off, some of them are not doubling to retrieve their jobs. the thing about that is they find out they can make it a little bit easier because actually they are getting somewhat better pay. that $15 an hour definitely needs to happen because there is a lot of people who work minimum-wage.

i used to work minimum-wage and it is not pleasant trying to survive on that. but let me say this also, years ago, and i can't recall what president it was -- i'm thinking nixon but i'm not sure -- when some of the gas embargoes were going on the president had the authority and the executive power to put a freeze on these corporations from raising a sheet of plywood to $70, $80 or food or whatever. what i am getting to, john, if i could have another minute, is that the money these people are getting, a little extra like on unemployment and the government, it is swallowed up because these corporations are gouging us to death. something needs to be done about it. host: thank you for the call.

you mentioned you are in mining. digging into yesterday's labor department report, employment in mining in july increased 7000. that employment has risen 49,000 since august of 2020 but is 103,000 below the peak of 2019. here are some other numbers. just in july the leisure and hospitality sector saw 380,000 job increase, 60,000 jobs added in professional and business services, transportation and warehousing 50,000 jobs added, health care 7000, manufacturing 27,000 jobs, 6000 decline in retail trade. here is president biden yesterday speaking about that report. [video clip] >> we learned the economy created 943,000 new jobs in

july. 943,000. the unemployment rate fell to 5.4%. while our economy is far from complete and while we will doubtless have ups and downs along the way as we battle the delta surge of covid what is indisputable now is this -- the biden plan is working. the biden plan produces results and is moving the country forward. we are now the first of administration in history to add jobs every single month in the first six months in office. the only one in history to add more than 4 million jobs during the first six months. economic growth is the fastest in 40 years. jobs are up, unemployment rate is the lowest since the pandemic hit, black unemployment is down as well why?

because we put in place the tools early in my presidency. the covid vaccine plan, the american rescue plan to fight the virus and the economic mess we inherited. as a result we have made progress on both fronts across grave challenges. we put in place the tools to prevent this delta variant wave of covid-19 from shutting down our small businesses, our schools, and our society. when we first got to office covid-19 crisis and economic crisis were unrelenting and devastating. as a nation we didn't have the tools to deal with either. nearly 4000 americans were dying every day to the virus. 4000 per day. the economy had been wiped out, we were down 10 million jobs from where we were before the pandemic, we were in a dark winter with real concerns about

what spring would bring. then we got to work. we passed the american rescue plan shortly after i was sworn in they gave us the tools to fight the pandemic and rebuild our economy and has produced results. host: president biden yesterday from the white house. taking your phone calls this morning asking are you seeing an economic recovery in your part of the country? (202)-748-8000 if you are unemployed, if you are an employer, (202)-748-8001, all others (202)-748-8002. barbara calling from clark, new jersey on the unemployed line. how long have you been unemployed? caller: i am calling for my husband who cannot hear. he has been unemployed since december and not been able to collect one check. you cannot get anybody in new jersey who works for unemployment to help you. i have called senators, i have called the governor's office.

the biggest complaint in new jersey is you cannot collect unemployment. you worked 58 years. the building closed during the pandemic and opened, he returned, and they laid him off. for people in new jersey, i wish they would call in because these people need to get back to the office and do their jobs. as far as the democratic front state, it is not being run properly. host: what kind of work did he do? caller: he did maintenance for the town. host: does he think that job is coming back anytime soon? caller: no, they laid him off. they hired a private company. host: thank you for the call and sharing your story. thomas is in humboldt, texas. you are next. caller: good morning, american. boy, everybody put the mask on,

it is still out there. the recovery is going great here. investors are buying up property all over the place, the fed is giving them $150 billion, we have evictions coming up. what are supposed to be -- what are people supposed to do now? we had a freeze in texas that killed over, i think, 2 million baby chicks and now you have no chickens. we had warehouses that kept up with supplies and now if a ship is light, your food is late. for anyone on unemployment, don't buy another tv, try to keep your car up. last of all, love your neighbors. take care. host: this is annie in albany,

new york. good morning. caller: good morning. so i am calling from new york. i consider myself a middle-class individual. i was really excited and happy to find that we were receiving payments for the children but unfortunately the prices, especially in new york state -- i cannot speak to other places -- but they are so high even the stimulus payments for the children have not really been able to make a difference in our buying power. the buying power of the dollar has decreased so much that it is hard to afford a middle-class house in new york state. the price of gas is $3.50 a gallon, the price of milk even this last year, the price of

basic groceries rose so much and it is even worse now. the price of everything. i was talking to the cashier at walmart. what used to cost me $150 now costs 300 and the lady says, you see all the time. these people receiving unemployment benefits they come in and they buy all the stuff up so the people who have been working cannot afford anything because their buying power has been reduced by the transfer of money to the most rich and the most poor. but everybody in between has been screwed. we have so many aspects of our life disrupted from this economy

and the transfer of where the money is going and it is not going to the middle class. none of it is going to the middle class. host: a few more comments from twitter. david writing, the republicans praise trump but criticized biden as usual. they are on both sides of the issue. this is libby saying, if a certain group of people would take this pandemic seriously by following mitigation protocols and getting the vaccine, our economy would have a better chance at recovery. instead the petulant are causing more harm. jane saying, he is seeing economic recovery along with rising covid infections and exploding debt. donna his next down in vero beach, florida. caller: i'm retired and i don't make $15 per hour. as far as economy, i am seeing

and hearing from people that i know that economy is flourishing. i have a friend that works for a cable company. they are getting new customers every day. it is not like, you know, they are doing without cable because they cannot afford to pay rent. they have got their fancy phones and if they are at home, they could do with a landline that costs less than a cell phone. people are saying, you know, those are not necessarily a necessity. i just don't understand. economics have not really entered in totally to this situation. it is a very severe situation and i feel for people that are

truly desperate for help. host: michael in ohio for the line of those unemployed. caller: good morning. what i would like to say is a lot of people don't know this but people's unemployment was cut due to supposed fraud in ohio anyhow. they caught 250,000 people out of unemployment not knowing whether it was fraud or not. now the legitimate people that were trying to collect unemployment were either getting half the money or no money at all. host: are you one of those folks? caller: i was. trying to get anybody on the phone, trying to file on the computer and all that, it's a mess. i know a federal court judge actually ordered the state to fix 150,000 of these cases in

six weeks or something like that. applying for jobs, i mean, you put in applications and you do not and hired. the thought that people are just sitting at home collecting unemployment, going on vacation and whatnot, it's crazy. host: what kind of job would you like to do? caller: i woodworking a warehouse. i have applied at numerous places and there's all these help-wanted signs and people are filling out applications. i don't know. i am not getting any phone calls. host: thank you for the call. good luck to you in ohio. this is peter in valley cottage, new york. caller: good morning, john. listening i understand your question but people don't really

understand how the economy really works. for nancy pelosi to give credit to joe biden at this point after six months of being in the presidency is untrue. first of all, nothing has been changed as far as taxes and policy with the federal government. basically this is still a carryover from the trump administration. the inflation we are seeing right now is because tons of money has been pumped into the economy by the federal reserve. also, all the stimulus that has been put out as far as money is concerned. because of covid, covid put a damper on the economy and people who are still working or accumulating a lot of wealth and paying off debt, now that the economy is reopening a lot of that money is being spent but

the production lines and supply chains have been disrupted. it is going to take time for them to get back where they were before. host: you say this is still a carryover from the trump administration. at what point does it become biden's economy? after 12 months? caller: usually it depends because the congress has not changed the tax structure or any -- actually, the policies president biden -- host: we have seen big spending bills passed. the march recovery bill and the american rescue plan and then now we are seeing a vote, perhaps a final vote, in the senate on the infrastructure bill. caller: right and that is all stimulus. the federal reserve has been buying $120 billion of treasuries and mortgage securities. they hold onto that and that

money is pumped right into the economy. under basic economic policy the more money that is out there and if the economy is not expanding to absorb that money, that creates inflation. but the policies president biden has put his fingers on, for instance the border where people are coming in, at least i think they said 12% affected with covid, that is having an effect on the country. the fact that president biden stopped construction on the xl pipeline and ended leasing for drilling on federal property, that is having an effect on energy prices. but as far as the basic structure on business, the congress has not changed anything. basically this is a carryover but it will take about 2 to 3

years before you can say president biden's policies and congress had an effect on the economy. host: that was peter in new york. rich is out of pennsylvania. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. you know, they are talking about job creation like this is an achievement. you tell me, john, is it or isn't it? i am looking around in my town and all i see is help-wanted signs all over. these are not new jobs that were created. these are employers who cannot get help, who cannot get people back to work. you see it in restaurants, grocery stores, everywhere you look around or you see the help-wanted signs. people are not going back to work. why? i don't know. prices are soaring, inflation is high, it is killing seniors and

yet, we hear in the news from biden and everyone else how wonderful, what an achievement they accomplished. did they create these jobs or are these jobs just there? host: some numbers from the report maybe that would detail what you're talking about. since april of last year 16.7 million jobs have been added to the u.s. economy. but we are still 5.7 million jobs less than what we had at the beginning of 2020. that is how big the jump was. still down from the jobs we were seeing at the beginning of last year. caller: all right, how many jobs did we lose because we shut down the economy? how many jobs are coming back now? where is the job creation?

host: that was rich in pennsylvania. this is kurt in orange park, florida. caller: good morning. i like to say florida has been open a year and a half. covid has put a damper on things but our economy is doing well based upon the policies of our governor. what is holding us back in florida is the supply and demand. we have hired 20 people that are skilled that are coming from california and new york and new jersey to take these jobs down here. it is job creation based upon us being open for so long. what's hurting us more than anything is the inflation due to the supply chain disruption. if we played this a little bit smarter, cap things open and

protected the most vulnerable, we would not be faced with what we have today. until we straighten out our supply chain we are going to be in bad shape, inflation is going to go up. there is plenty of work down here. i have had the vaccine and also contracted covid-19. because of the vaccine i don't think i am going to die from it but if you have got the vaccine, you are still going to get sick. until everyone gets a little taste of it we are not going to get through that part of it. host: that was kurt in florida this morning. 15 minutes left in this segment as we ask you, are you seeing the economic recovery in your part of the country? (202)-748-8000 if you are unemployed, (202)-748-8001 if you are an employer, (202)-748-8002 for all others to call in this morning. we are just a few hours away

from the senate coming in for a slightly unusual saturday session. the senate expected to come in at 11:00 eastern to continue its work on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. the senate is expected to take up additional amendments on that bill. a final passage vote could take place today or bleed into tomorrow. you can see how it plays out on c-span2 for gavel-to-gavel coverage. one story on that infrastructure bill headed to the vote in the senate from new york times, the bipartisan shrug greeted the news the senate's infrastructure bill contains 256 billion dollars worth of deficit spending as they prepare for the key test vote today. the scoring came out from the congressional budget office. in the past, the congressional budget office has loomed like

the sword of damocles over compromises but this time they call it a bipartisan shrug as this bill seems like the pass in the senate, likely to get enough votes to overcome that 60 vote threshold. at least 10 republicans would be needed if all 50 democrats stick together as is expected. back to your phone calls. ben is in mississippi on the line for employers. good morning. what kind of business do you run? caller: i am not an employer but in my area there is a lot of now hiring signs. the economy is doing pretty good in my area and i went up north toward memphis, saw a lot of now hiring signs, too. it is doing good.

but i want to make a comment on a guy that called in and said this is a carryover from trump. well, maybe so and the trump was a carryover from obama. i wanted to get that straight. host: brian is in fairfax station, virginia. good morning. caller: how are you doing? i just, you know, i want to make a comment that is a little off the subject but you are talking about the economy and i retired about a year ago. pretty much been staying home and i have been seeing some prices here and there go up and go down. i usually look around for sale items but i have noticed there are individuals out there that

are trying to make more money off services they use at one time. the reason i am calling in today is because right now i am afraid to go to the er and i don't feel all that great and need to go. i am afraid that even though i have had the vaccine that i may test positive for covid and then i will not be able to come back home and i need to be home because i am a caregiver. but the main thing i have noticed over my -- host: brian, have you tried to get one of the home covid tests? caller: pardon me? host: have you tried to get one of those do it yourself at home? caller: i haven't because i only go out when i need to get stuff. but the main reason i am calling is when i started looking over my bills i started noticing that the hospitals are charging extravagant prices for what they call ancillary items. sometimes they are multiples of

what my hospital cost would be, over $1500 a time. the insurance company is paying it not even thinking twice and then when i claim is put in for real services i am denied. host: brian, certainly a topic we have talked about in the past and will talk again in the future on hospital service pricing and insurance. want to stick to the topic of the economic recovery because we do have a lot of callers this morning. especially on the line for those unemployed. in the wake of headlines like this, job gain the best in nearly a year. josie in indiana, pennsylvania. what do the headlines say to you as you are unemployed? caller: unfortunately i called in and actually retired. i live in a small county -- well, a county of 88 thousand in western pennsylvania -- we have

been hit hard by the reduction in the energy industry because it was a fracking area. we have also been hit hard by reductions at the small university we have in our town. hiring is for service jobs in my community where we do not have broadband two miles or three miles outside county center. we have a lot of unemployed people, a lot of empty houses, i don't see the recovery here per se but if i drive a county over to west moreland county, they are thriving and the economy is booming. yes, they do want people but they are for service related jobs which carried our economy the last 30 to 40 years. host: what is different about that county to where you live? caller: higher population,

closer to pittsburgh, and closer to interstate highways that will be able to bring goods in and out faster. just a whole different vibe with westmoreland county as opposed to indiana county. i am not seeing it and also i am seeing the shortage of goods. when you go into stores that is definitely driving up prices. i would like to think the gentleman from mississippi who said the economy mr. trump gave to us was a benefit from the economy mr. obama gave us after he saved us from that disastrous and horrible recession of 2008, 2009. i think we have to be patient. i think covid will have an effect. the longer we stay on the merry-go-round of no masks and

no mandates or whatever and more people get infected the more it is going to affect the economy. host: that was josie in keystone state. garden state this is mark in westwood, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i am seeing the economy doing pretty good in my area but i live in a suburb of new york city. unfortunately people are not masking up in public and i fear that the pandemic is going to come back and decimate the economy again. i really don't understand the anti-vax or's and the anti- -- anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. i took early retirement last year. luckily i was able to do that but i still try to work. i am also a musician so i to

play at retirement homes which they don't hire live music much unless you can prove your vaccinated and you take a test. my work has been diminished but luckily i have social security and our earned benefits are really essential. host: doesn't musician get to apply for a ppe loan? has that something you tried to do? caller: no, i didn't do that. i did get unemployment though before i started collecting social security i was on unemployment. for the first time they allowed independent contractors such as myself to get unemployment which was another help. these social programs are so important and the right wingers that like to put them down and say they are responsible for the problems in the economy, that is total bs. host: we bounced down to the old

line state. kevin in maryland. good morning. caller: i have been a mechanic, 32 years old but a mechanic since i was 15, and i broke both my wrists on the job. i had to find other work and a different trade. now that i have been applying i did have unemployment for a little while so i had it for about six months. after that trying to go to a new employment i have been applying to all these now hiring signs, everywhere on indeed, i have had my resume everywhere. i have had four interviews, seven callbacks, four online interviews through zoom but have not yet had a call back for a definite answer on any jobs.

i don't understand how they always say we are sitting at home not doing anything. for all those years since i was 15 i have never been on an employment. now since i have been on it in my hands -- i am able to do work but i cannot be a mechanic and they see the experience and that is all i can be hired toward but i can no longer do that job. i have tried to apply to every delivery job, anything you can think of, and i have not yet -- it has been three weeks and over 100 applications and yet to hear anything. host: kevin, you say it has been three weeks. how long do you think the search is going to take and how long can you go without a job? caller: at this point i am down to my last $60 honestly. i had to fix my car and get a key reprogrammed and a battery so i could continue to search.

it's been a struggle day today. i do have food stamps which is $230 a month which is ok for me. luckily i do not have any children, but it is a struggle to do anything. you are always on the phone trying to extend payments and it really hurts to see people say that we are just sitting at home not trying because all these employment signs -- i definitely -- i have an associates degree in criminal knowledge and technology and a lot of experience as a mechanic but i can no longer be one. but i cannot be hired as a cashier. i have applied to all of them. i have applied to restaurants. it just doesn't seem -- they are picking and choosing. i don't know if it is because of my disability that my hands have been hurt in the past because i have to say i am no longer a

mechanic, but i am still able to work. i don't want to go on disability so i am at a loss of what to do. host: good luck to you. thank you for sharing your story this morning. time for one more call. jeanette in st. petersburg, florida. are you seeing the economic recovery? caller: yes. i want to do a rebuttal from the gentleman from florida earlier saying how great the recovery is down here. host: go ahead, we have about one minute left. caller: the recovery is not going great down here. we are on our fourth about of covid, no mask. people cannot go to work because they are scared they are going to get sick. even if they have had vaccines. we have crews lines -- cruise lines moving out of state, nurses don't want to work, we need 700 new schoolteachers just in tampa bay area alone. they are getting them from out

of the country because people will not work in this environment. our governor who has made us whoville and that is my feeling on florida. host: last caller in this segment. -- including a conversation on homeschooling in the united states. we will be joined by michael donnelly. later in our weekly spotlight on magazine segment, the american prospects robert partner discusses his recent -- putner discusses his recent article on the u.s.' need for a new industrial policy. we will be right back. >> sunday, c-span's series january 6, views from the house continues. three more members of congress share stories about what they saw, heard and experienced that day, including new york democrat

akeem jeffries. >> we did not really have the highest degree of information because strictly lean on the house floor, we did not really get to see the images and the real-time footage of the ongoing assault on the capitol. however, once we arrived in a secure location, we were able to get some understanding and could only imagine how our loved ones were feeling watching it unfold in real time. certainly, it was a great comfort to myself and every other member to be able to communicate with our family members back at home. one of the communications that i received that was disturbing was my brother reached out to me to indicate that, to check to see if we were ok. of course, i responded to him that i was ok, and being as an

aside, let me know, by the way, he and his family had received a threatening message from someone indicating that they need a that my brother -- that they knew where my brother, his wife and three kids lived, and they had people in the neighborhood, and that if me, meaning his brother, the congressman, did not stop telling lies about the election, something bad was going to happen. >> this week, you will also hear from two texas representatives. january 6, a views from the house, sunday at 10 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday, you will find

evidence and people who explore our nation's past on american history tv. on sunday, book tv rings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore, weekends on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our conversation on homeschooling in the united states now. here is a recent headline from "the associated press," "homeschool is surging across united states." we are joined by michael donnelly who serves as senior counsel and outreach director for the homeschool legal defense association. good morning. explain first what your association does and what your mission is. guest: good morning, john. it is really great to be with you and your viewers today on a fine saturday morning. the homeschool defense association has been around for almost 40 years, working with

families, working across the entire country in the whole world with homeschooling families, organizations, policymakers to make homeschooling possible for everyone and anyone who wants to do it. i have worked at the association for 15 years. i have been a homeschooling parent for over 20 years. my wife and i homeschooled seven of our children. three or so going through the process. we graduated four from high school, three from college. it is a subject i enjoy talking about, and i appreciate your interest. host: we mentioned the surge. u.s. households homeschooling in the spring of 2020, about 5.4% of u.s. households homeschooled by the following 2020. the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, it was at 11.1%. were the families that homeschool? is there such thing as a typical homeschooling family? guest: well, homeschooling cuts

across all socio-, economic, religious and cultural lines across the country. if you can think of a family who is homeschooling, there homeschooling. that report showed it is growing extra we passed within i communities, hispanic and black, showing 16.1% of black families are homeschooling, 12% of hispanic families are homeschooling. the census report you referred to is from february, and what we have been doing is watching these numbers closely, and we think that number is at about 18% of u.s. households of school-aged children that are homeschooling now. i was listening to your show before i came on, and i was listening to that last caller from florida talking about the impact that the pandemic has had on schools, and people are really concerned about the situation with education in this country, and they are turning to homeschooling in large numbers. host: in terms of where the surges have been, this chart

showing the changes again from the beginning before the pandemic to the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, when it came to black families homeschooling in this country, it went from 3.3% to 16.1%. why the largest surge there in black communities in the country? guest: that is a very good question. i think part of the reason is because homeschooling prior had not penetrated the same numbers as it had in some other communities. about 24% of homeschoolers before the pandemic were hispanic families. i think 8% of homeschooling families, you talk about 3% of all families, but a percent of homeschooling families were black. there was a lot of opportunity and growth that happened in the black community, i think, as people heard about it, as the pandemic shut down schools. these families had to find different options, and, you know, during the first couple of

months after the shutdowns, and everything back in 2020, everybody was kind of force to be at home in homeschooling. everyone had the opportunity to try out. what we have seen is people liked being home with their kids, even though it was difficult and the circumstances were not pleasant for everyone and it was challenging, but they liked being home. now they have had the chance to try it, and many families are saying, you know what? we can do this. we are going to keep doing it. it is interesting to see homeschooling continue to grow, even as schools have continued opening up. host: michael donnelly joining us with the homeschool legal defense association. here is our phone numbers if you want to join the conversation. homeschooling families can call at (202)-748-8000. all others, (202)-748-8001. michael donnelly, if a family were to decide today that they want to start the 2021-2022 school year homeschooling their

child, how they go about doing that? guest: the first thing i would recommend they do is go to a website we have set up just for people who are in that situation. we are a nonprofit organization, number supported but a public organization looking to serve everyone. they can go to youcanhomes chool.com, a great resource with tons of free information about the steps to get started, connecting with other people in the community who are homeschooling and can help them speak through the aspects and getting connected with people, curriculum, and when you homeschool, there are legal regulations. it is legal in every state in america -- it did not used to be that way 30 years ago, but it is today since 1996, legal in all 50 states in the united states, but every state has different regulations. it is important you understand what they are. at hslda, we also have state

pages where people can learn to comply with laws, and we have legal systems that help them with that. you can also go to youcanhomesc hool.com to get started, pick a curriculum and get started. there was a lot of flexibility with homeschooling, john. if you try something, you are not locked into that curriculum or that approach. so, you can make changes along the way, see how your kids are doing with it, and it is just a great way to educate children. i am sure that the callers will call him to share their experiences with that. host: what are some main regulations you find across states? guest: in most states, there are some kind of notification where you just tell the local school or the state department of education that you are homeschooling. there are 13 states will you do not have to do that at all. most states have some kind of notice. in states where there was more than a notification, there some kind of requirement -- there is

some kind of requirement for testing, and assessment or certain subjects you have to cover, but that is pretty much it. and it is really easy to get started and to keep homeschooling. there is lots of support available for people who want to homeschool their children. host: what kind of test is a homeschooling child have to pass in states? guest: in states where there are requirements to assess, typically it is a standardized achievement test, and it can be pretty much any kind of test that meets those criteria, whether the california achievement test, or the iowa test of basic skills, and there are many other national standard achievement tests, the classic learning test is also one. lots of tests people can choose from that assess a child's progress. many states also offer an option for assessments, so a parent can write a progress report

explaining how their child has performed over the year, what they have learned, how they have progressed. in some cases, states will also allow for the assessment of a child by a third-party qualified person, so a certified teacher, or a person with a masters degree in education, or someone like that. host: you mentioned you graduated some homeschoolers in your own family. how does homeschooling for k-12 impact college applications if a homeschooling family wants to eventually send their child to college? guest: that is a great question. a lot of people who are thinking of homeschooling wonder if this will affect my child's career, their ability to get a job, and there was a time 30 years ago when it was a challenge and they had to work hard, but for many years, decades now, colleges have recruited homeschoolers because they have found a really equipped to learn. the homeschooling environment is one where parents are involved

in the teaching, but learning is a natural thing. children are natural born learners, if you provide them with the right environment and the right material for them, they are going to learn, and they are going to learn how to learn. that is one of the things that homeschooling helps children learn how to do, is to learn how to learn. that is what colleges want from their students, so they look for homeschoolers. standardized tests have shown that homeschoolers do extremely well, they do as well or better, on average in the act and sat from children from other schools. homeschoolers get employment in virtually every aspect. the military accepts homeschooled graduates as just the same as roger it's from any other form of education, so, homeschooling is not going to negatively affect anyone, and in a lot of ways, it positively affects the child's or the military -- child's chances into

getting into college or the military. host: we are looking at numbers from the census bureau comparing homeschooling families in various states from before the pandemic to the start of the 2020-2021 school year. in alaska, there was a nearly 18% jump in families that decided to homeschool. in florida, 13%, vermont, 12%, massachusetts, 10%, and we are letting you ask your questions about homeschooling this morning with michael donnelly, joining us to talk about it, senior counsel with the homeschool legal defense association. deborah is up first out of wisconsin. good morning, deborah. caller: good morning. my question is, there are adults out there who have kids, and they lack critical thinking skills, so, we want those

parents to teach young kids? i am scared of the adults making a stupid decision they do now, and we want them to teach their kids at home. host: deborah, do you trust teachers more than parents in that respect? caller: oh god, yes. host: mr. donnelly? guest: wisconsin is a great state to homeschool, people who want to homeschool in wisconsin, they filed a notice and are required to teach certain subjects, but we live in the free country, and i would just give you affirmation and assurance, that what the research shows is that the people who choose to homeschool do a really good job. there may be some people who and i don't think those people choose to homeschool. what we have seen is the people who choose to homeschool, they care about their children's

education, and most people care about their children's education, but it shows that it works well for children, they are well educated, they learn how to think, they learn how to learn and the thousands of families i have encountered and in the united states and around the world and homeschooling is a great way to be educated for those accused to do it. host: how did the social interaction develop a child homeschooled? even virtual -- develop a child homeschooled? even virtual classes require a degree of socialization. guest: there is this myth, and this is one of them of homeschooling that homeschoolers are isolated. the last 18 months, everyone has been isolated. when you look at what is happening in the schools, is that the kind of social

interaction you want these days with masking and putting kids in bubbles and keeping them six feet apart? that is something parents are concerned about. they are concerned about what is happening in the schools right now, and that is not the kind of socialization they want for their children. if you choose to homeschool, they have a lot of control on how that works, and you can influence the kind of social interactions that those children have. when you look at the research with what happens in homeschooling, whether they join a robotics clubs, sports, boy scouts, you name it, they have homeschooled children in all kind of social groups. in some respects, homeschoolers, and i experienced this in my own family, we are a little too

socialized and very busy great sometimes i am like, hey, one of the reasons one it to homeschool was so we were not quite so busy, but we are always out socializing a lot. if you look at the community, find that the reality is quite socialized. host: i imagine seven kids also keeps you busy. guest: they socialize amongst themselves, too. not every homeschooling family has seven, but, you know what, it is an interesting point. if i look at the homeschooling kids i know, read the research, and i also publish and have done research, when children are around adults, that is a good, positive form of socialization because their learning how to get along in society. homeschool kids do not go to a four wall, classroom school, stuck with kids their own age for eight hours a day, and that is fine, but in the homeschool environment, those children are interacting with children of different ages, a lot with other adults, and the parent can had a lot of influence on that and empower that and encourage that.

so we can have a lot more influence in our kids' lives and their relationships within the family. i find them to be positive. lots of positive things for folks who want to homeschool, and they can learn more about that at youcanhomes chool.com. host: ned, you are next. caller: hey boys. michael, i am so glad we have people like you who are reporting the good things that we are seeing develop in this pandemic. it is where. -- it is rare. it is like here in either go -- here in idaho, we have developed generation, nuclear power. it is how we are going to solve the whole climate thing. you never hear about the good stuff going on.

host: buffalo, new york, good morning, you are next. caller: good morning, michael. i have enjoyed your remarks. my question is, would your organization lobby school boards across the country to encourage widespread parent teacher teaching children, particularly for grades 1-3? kids come in all different descriptions, size, mental capacity, and attention span and one child is better -- is bound to do a better job on picking up on those things that a teacher dealing with 25 or 30 kids. people who have less than

adequate education should be able to avail themselves of teachers to teach them how to teach their children. i am sure those people, like every other parent and they want their children to succeed, and as you pointed out quite rightly, children are natural born learners. thank you for what you are doing. i hope you are able to incorporate my idea. host: mr. donnelly? guest: bill, you touched on so many great points on homeschooling. to answer your question, hslda is very active in legislative activity. we watch the legislatures in all 50 states, and we report that on the website. people can go to hslda.org and look at our legislative website. we track legislation in all 50 states and look at thousands and thousands of bills by year, you

think, homeschooling and thousands of bills? we checked 24 areas of education all over the country, 50 states, thousands of bills, and you can check that out at our website if you are interested in new york. new york is a challenging state to homeschool in, and buffalo is a great city. i have been there. i love it. a couple of other points you raise, bill, unlocking the unique learning potential of each child, that is what homeschooling is really about. each child has a unique learning profile and homeschooling allows parents in a small group environment, talk about the low teacher-student ratio, that is an important factor to children learning and having economic gains. when you have so many children in a class, it is hard for the teacher to deal with each child and every child has questions. when you are in school, the learning is passing, but when

you are in a homeschooling environment, the learning can be more active. it is possible in a homeschooling environment to do a lot more and a lot less time. what we find is that homeschooling parents can do in two hours to four hours what it takes their children to do in six hours to eight hours in a school. great point, bill. thank you for the perceptive observations about homeschooling. you can be assured that hslda will continue to do the work that we have done the last 40 years. host: jodey on twitter with this question, does a family receive federal money to homeschool their kids? guest: no, there are no federal subsidies of any kind for homeschooling. homeschooling is a private enterprise. in fact, that is the essence of homeschooling, parents are privately choosing to educate their children. embracing the flexibility that comes with that, being able to tailor a learning experience for each child. in some states, and a handful of

states, really, there are some tax programs that allow parents to benefit and use their own money. there are other programs that give grants to lower income families who qualify for them for education, but there is no federal subsidization of homeschooling. host: on the line for homeschooling families out of southpoint, ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on with michael donnelly. caller: i just wanted to say my daughter-in-law homeschools my two grandchildren. they live in illinois. she was a homeschooled mother. her sister and brother were homeschooled. when she was preparing for her last work, she went to the school, got her education, she has her degree in education. so, she teaches them from home. those little boys are just as

well-balanced as any kids that i have seen. they get out, they meet other children, they have sunday school, they have a homeschool co-op they participate in, they get field trips and stuff like that. she takes them on field trips. it is very well-balanced that she is doing. i am so proud of her, and i am so proud of them. all the parents out there who are considering homeschool, consider it wisely because i think it is a good way to go. thank you for all of what you are doing. host: pat in ohio. this is sean in lockport, new york. good morning. you are next. caller: good morning, gentlemen. how are you both doing? host: good morning. go ahead. caller: i am a new york state certified teacher, but i have thought about starting my own homeschool business.

32 years ago i was able to teach a student and guide them, and they eventually were able to achieve their general education diploma. mr. donnelly, how would i go about maybe starting a business like that? guest: that is a great idea. there are lots of people out there looking for help. my suggestion to you would be to go to the facebook groups in new york and just say, hey, -- you know, some of the facebook groups do not want posting services, so make sure you check the rules of the social media site you are on, but you could say, hey, i am a homeschooling teacher, is anyone looking for tutoring? you can also try to find the homeschooling groups in your area. hlsda.org has a group locator function, you can search groups in your area. you can do it by zip code, and just make contact with those groups and say, hey, i have some

time, would anybody be interested in tutoring? or would you guys like to hire me to teach in classes that your co-op? i think the last caller talked about co-ops, you know, this whole idea of homeschoolers gathering together and working together, that happens a lot. and they want people like you, who have time and skills and abilities, to come in, share your wisdom, knowledge, experience with a student. i think the homeschool groups would be very interested in that. i encourage you to find them, tell them about you, and give it a shot. that sounds great. host: jesse is next out of florida. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. i have a concern about the advanced math and science classes. how does the average homeschooler have the homeschooling parent have the expertise to teach those subjects?

in the public school environment, have what they called advanced placement, and you have experts that teach those classes. most of the technically advanced parents have jobs that take all of their time, so, how do you handle really teaching the subjects that the kids are going to need him tomorrow's work environment -- in tomorrow's work environment? guest: that is a really great question. a couple of ways i think homeschoolers do that. number one, they do get together in these co-ops we talked about before, and they will bring in a teacher who might have a masters degree in science, teach physics or chemistry i cannot tell you how many times at our teaching table we have dissected sheep eyeballs or frogs. [laughter] kitchens are great labs for those kinds of things. host: where does somebody get a sheep eyeball? guest: john, google sheep

eyeball for homeschoolers. you can get any kind of science kit you want, robotics kits, but what the families do is they get together often to bring someone in to a group and teach. there is a lot of online resources that are available. hslda actually has an online academy where we offer advanced placement courses in all of these subjects, so we have teachers who teach them. once a week they will get together. you know, they do the work at home with the parent because that is what homeschooling is, at home most of the time, but we have guest: what we found is that our graduates get higher scores on average than others. that's really good. you also raised another interesting point about working parents. there are a number of families who parents both work and they

homeschool. you might be like what? how would that work? they figure it out. one person works in the evening. one person worse than the day and they balance the homeschooling requirements with their work. with people working a lot at home, you have a lot more flexibility to be able to involve both parents if you have both parents in the home to do the homeschooling. there is no such thing as a typical family thus there is no such thing as a typical homeschooling family. you can find families in all shapes and sizes. host: family out of blue springs, missouri. caller: hi, michael. thanks for what you do. i started homeschooling my son two years ago. it was mainly because of bullying and they haven't done anything to curb the gun violence and so forth.

he was getting into fights about every other day. for seventh grade, i decided we would try homeschooling. he is how hat that he is so happy. he has -- he is so happy. he has done so well. we use an online program as the main source. i supplement that. i work from home. so that makes it easy for me. i just want to say for all of those homeschooling families that come up for families that want to homeschool. if they have any doubts, he is a different kid. he is so happy and it has worked out great for us. what to say thanks for what you do and let people know that. host: you say you supplement the online program that you found. in what ways? caller: for the main courses,

there are four main course requirements. for the other subjects, there's things like pe, band, music. for the band, there is an online classes for instruments. i supplement, if he needs help, i can help him with subjects. you can do cooking, anything pretty much. that is how it works for arts -- for us. caller: this is so encouraging to hear. there is a problem with bullying in schools today. guest: that that -- this is so

encouraging to hear. there is a problem of bullying in schools today. whether they have learning disabilities. that is another large group of people who have found homeschooling and are finding it and coming to it in large numbers, especially before the pandemic. that was one of the fastest rowing -- growing groups his parents of students with learning disabilities. there's nothing like a parent working with the child with a learning disability because as a parent, you can see with the problem is right then and there and deal with it right then and there. we have a colleague who is our national educational research director. he has found that children with learning disabilities do so well in the homeschooling environment. i think it's great to discolor it took us on. it sounds like he is a dead. there are a number of homeschooling dad out there. there are widows and widowers.

any kind of family you can imagine, there are families -- there are people who are doing it successfully. host: we talked about the academics. what about the extracurriculars? can homeschool kids participate in extracurricular activities? guest: great question. the four states have laws that require that public schools allow homeschoolers to dissipate in public school sports. -- homeschoolers to participate in public school sports. even in those where there that's where that isn't the case, there are so many recreation leagues, civic leagues. any kind of extracurricular activity. any kind of sport you can think of. there are groups. it may be a little more challenging and rural areas, but

in most places these children can access those kinds of activities and do well. the ncaa scholarships are open to homeschoolers as well. one of the things that homeschoolers have had over the years is challenges. challenges with ncaa. that's one of the things we are here today. we exist to help homeschoolers succeed. we encounter occasionally homeschool will run into a little bit of a glitch, whether that is verifying a high school diploma or college application or military recruiter who is not familiar with homeschooling. people come to us with those types of questions and we help them. host: this is james, good morning. you are next. caller: this is all about killing teachers unions. it seems like the organization is out of an area that seems to push the scrap. the schools aren't that bad. -- that pushes this crab.

the schools aren't that bad. i understand some people could teach their kids, but most people can't. they are too busy, they have to much on their plate. i will leave it at that. have a wonderful day, sir. guest: i appreciate the comment, first of all. i can show you -- -- i can assure you that homeschooling is not about killing teachers unions. it is all about providing a tailored, flexible, safe, nurturing, free environment for kids to learn and explore their own natural inclinations. to learn in an averment that is free from bullying, free from distraction -- to learn in an environment that is free from bullying, free from distraction. i would do so agree with you. the average parent, perhaps even the below average parent more than capable of teaching their child and helping their child learn. the thing about homeschooling is

different kinds of model of learning. it is not like school learning. it is different. you can't really look at it in that same way. i will say this also, back in the day when we were trying to get sided with the teachers unions that were trying to kill student -- to kill homeschooling. host: what's the timeline on that? you talk about back in the day. guest: in the 80's. the history of homeschooling started in the 60's, real small. did not start growing until about 1980. that is when most states legalized homeschooling. there were a home that there were a handful that came before the 90's. your folks like the last caller that had the idea that parents could not teach their kids and that has been proven to be

false. the teachers unions were very concerned and they still are. they realize that they just can't, homeschooling is accepted. it's normal. it works. the teachers unions decided they are not trying to kill homeschooling. they don't like it. they oppose it when they can. that seems to even be changing a little bit. i hope it will. shouldn't we support all forms of learning russian mark why should there be a monopoly and just -- up learning? why should there be a monopoly? caller: good morning. i wanted to say my sister started teaching her kids at home to supplement what they were doing in school and one of the things she talked about, or one of the things that i've heard about friends is the difficulty of finding good educational materials. my sister lives in israel and she is been trying to find good

english language material to supplement her kids education. i'm just wondering if you could speak to the challenges of finding quality educational materials and why there seems to be a lack of good material that's easily found for many parents who want to either supplement or try to get through the pandemic by adding to their kids learning experience. guest: my experience is that's not the case. there is a plethora of good, quality learning materials for homeschooling. i'm not quite sure of the challenges the caller had or his sister had. if you're looking for a particular kind, you may have some challenges. but there is secular, religious curriculum. very good quality curriculum online, printed material. google homeschooling curriculum, you get thousands, probably

millions of hits. you are overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to choose. that is a challenge most homeschoolers have. there is so much out there, how do you pick one? my advice is just pick one that seems to fit your family, what you want to accomplish. you can always change it as you go. israel, homeschooling is illegal -- homeschooling is legal. it is small so you might not find hebrew-based, jewish based material. if you find that if you look, you can find it. there are tons of material. lots and lots of online and printed terrier. host: are there countries where homeschooling is not legal? guest: yes. germany, that is the most notorious country which does not

permit homeschooling. they persecute people who want to homeschool. they try to take their kids away from them and families in germany who want to homeschool have to leave. they either have to leave or a handful are able to hide or face up to the state. most places, homeschooling is allowed or legal. russia, you have amazing homeschool population. countries like brazil, south africa, the unite -- the united kingdom, ireland, japan, taiwan, africa. homeschooling is growing everywhere around the world in large part because of what happened during the pandemic. parents were sent home, schools were closed and never by the realize we got to figure this out. they tried it and these groups are growing in many countries. host: the segment was supposed to go until a 45 eastern this morning -- until 8:45 a.m. eastern this morning. can you stick around?

michael in houston, texas. caller: some of my thunder was stalled with the teachers union, but my question is the money. the parents and the public at self-paced taxes to the government for these teachers to teach. if these teachers are no longer going to be employed teaching because there is so much homeschooling, how is that money going to be back to the people because they are no longer using the public education system? especially with special needs. that's the part i don't quite understand is the bias against special-needs children. they are not went to get education through the academic system and i'm a big fan of academia, but i'm not a big fan of teachers unions. is it still legal? i believe it was rick barry

tried to ban the public education system and send the money back to the parents. that's where i'm confused. how is that money allocated if the student is no longer in the school system. i'll take your answer off the air. guest: that's a very good, complicated policy question that legislators in many states are grappling with. homeschool families do pay taxes and don't use the schools. the way school funding works in most states is that states get money in various forms and counties or localities get money directly for the schools. a portion of tax funding from the state level does go to the schools and that is based upon enrollment. the money that comes from the locality, property taxes, is not based on enrollment. everybody pays them. in terms of how did that money

go back to the families, that's a great question. there's a very vigorous debate happening about that in a number of places around the country. one organization that tracks that is ed joyce. --ed choice. lots of different ways creating scholarship organizations where physicist can get a tax credit for donated -- for -- organizations can get a tax credit -- where businesses can get a tax credit. it is my opinion, tax credits is a really good way to allow

families to keep some of the money that they would otherwise have to pay in taxes that they are not using for schools. i appreciate that observation and it is an important policy question. host: sam on twitter with this question. please talk about the tax advantages. guest: it is a christian organization. we are 501(c)(3) charity. we are member supported. with a pay a membership fee -- they pay a membership fee because we provide services. advice, consulting. we also litigate when there are issues litigate. we are, our sister organization is suing the district of columbia over allow schools to immunize children without

telling parents. the law requires to tell the parents which we think is concerning. we are involved in doing lots of different activities. we serve all people. we don't just serve christians. we have members of all faiths, of all different kinds of families. all are welcome to join and we serve everyone regardless of that. host: powder springs, georgia. this is an on the line for those who homeschool. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. i went to high school -- i was a high school teacher and my granddaughter happened to be homeschooled which i did not like at the time. the problem is that after she supposedly got her high school diploma, she began to realize that her education was really deficient. i noted it. we were discussing her education

and as an american literature teacher, i was disturbed by the fact that she never got beyond jonathan edwards which is really terrible in my estimation. she just did not know anything about american literature since the 18th century. the big thing about the homeschooling for me, there are several different issues. public education was designed to protect children. -- to protect children who were required to work the farm instead of going to school. my mother-in-law was not educated. she went through the fifth grade. she really was not avon able -- was not even able to maintain family budgets and take care of things the way she should have. public education with -- provides minimal education so that everybody will have a basic

knowledge of what they need to survive in this country. many people who are homeschooled just don't get that. my granddaughter was very upset later because she felt that she had been denied her rights to an education. i think that's one of the things that we have to be careful about . the other factor is the tax money. the tax money, tax money provide services for everybody. whatever they are complaining about with the tax, much of tax goes or school supplies. the homeschooling people want supplies provided for them free, but they don't understand that money comes out of public education. host: you bring up several points. guest: homeschoolers don't want anything for free. we just want to be left alone mostly. i would say that's incorrect. every family, every child has their own experience. the caller is sharing her

individualized experience. she's making a number of allegations. we can't assess that. all i can tell you is what the research shows. anybody can go look at the research. thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles, lots of research has been done on homeschooled children area on average, the homeschool child does extremely well, better. they go to college, get in the military, get employed. there are failures in every walk of life. i went to the public school and somehow i turned out ok. i had a pretty decent experience in school, but i'm very experienced this but i'm very excited about the experience my children have had. had i been aware of it, it allows parents and children to taylor a program --tailor a program of education.

a few cases where maybe you did not work out as well as it should have, but on average when you look at it it works really well. host: on that line for homeschooling families out of georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say thank you to c-span and the wonderful programming, history programming and opportunities that we have to have an enlightened view with c-span offering the daily and even congressional coverage. i want to expand upon the conversation that we just had with the elder, with the grandparent. to go to the tax issue, as the group is a nonprofit organization so therefore it is tax exempt. i also want to say that as

related to the gentleman who called from texas that what is going to happen to the dollars, what happened to the dollars that i have no children in the k-12 and we pay six to $10,000. many childless couples are paying very high. we are postgraduate, high earners, doctors, professors, people who pay who have no children and yet we support the system of public education because that is what carried us through. our parents sent us to private schools and they paid it. if you are receiving tax-exempt money and you are also parents who do not live in housing. they live in rentals. they pay sales tax, but 90% of the funding for public schools for education that you actually want to transfer that money that parents would have the money transferred as a credit, -- a

credit. if they are renting, they don't pay property tax. they pay sales tax. i want you to get the clarity that property taxes take care of 90% of the federal government. host: let michael take that up. guest: tax policy is complicated. i did not say that i want that money transferred or that we support tax credits as a way of recognizing the double burden on homeschooling families, but you make a point of it was decided we are going to find public education. it's an important conversation. we have to ask the question "are the public schools doing what they should be doing with the money?" public education spending has gone up astronomically in the last 30 years, but achievement

has not gone up much at all if anything. policymakers wonder about that. i'm not here to say public schools should be funded or what have you. that is a different discussion. i'm here to talk about homeschooling. homeschooling is a great way for families who want to have a different way to educate their children. it works. people who want to learn more can learn it at our website. it's a special website we set up for people who are think about homeschooling. these are important questions that you raise. they defy a three minute conversation. host: thanks for staying several minutes over. michael -- michael donnelly is from the homeschool legal

defense association. up next, about 25 minutes. we set up the phone lines for our open forum where we let you lead the discussion. what public policy, political issues are on your mind. go ahead and start giving us a call online for republicans, democrats and independents. we will be talking about the u.s. policy on industrial matters and our spotlight on magazines segment with robert kuttner. that conversation coming up about 9:15 a.m. eastern this morning. >> sunday night, helen andrews the american conservative senior editor talks about her book. >> one-liner about boomers that

did not come up with is that there is a generation that sold out but would never admit that they sold out. it is a combination of on the one hand a great deal of idealism and sense of themselves very morally noble, liberating humanity but on the other hand a great deal of selfishness and narcissism and blindness to the way that their liberation agenda knocks down a lot of institutions and left a lot of people worse off. >> sunday night at eight -- at 8:00 eastern. you can also listen to q&a as a podcast.

>> washington journal continues. host: i'm going to let you lead the discussion this morning. i want to know what public policy issues are on your mind. republicans can call in at 202-748-8001. democrats 202-748-8000. independent 202-748-8002. as you are calling income a reminder that the senate is in this saturday morning schedule to come in at 11:00 eastern. to work on the infrastructure

bill, we are expecting additional amendment votes as well as perhaps a vote on final passage. you can watch gamble to gavel coverage today on c-span two. -- you can wash -- watch gavel to gavel coverage today on c-span 2. >> create millions of good paying jobs. put america on a new path to win a race for the economy. transits and bridges and clean energy and clean water. it will enable us to build back and build back better than before the economic crisis hit. we want to thank the bipartisan group of senators for working together and the community -- and the committee chairs for

raising concerns with me and vice president harris and members of our cabinet. we will soon once again transform america and propel us into the future. this bill makes key investments to put people to work all across the country. in cities, towns, rural communities, small towns, big towns. it covers the nation. it's going to put america to work and good paying, union jobs. building and repairing our roads, bridges, ports, airports. once this bill passes the senate, i note the body will move toward establishing the framework for the remainder of my tilt back better agenda. host: biden yesterday. we can talk about that bill in this open forum or any policy or political topic that you want to discuss. we are letting you lead the

calls as we often do on the washington journal. this is tina out of eden, north carolina. a democrat. good morning. what is on your mind? caller: hi, sweetie. thank you for taking my call. i am so worried about the border situation and all of those people coming over with the covid. we know, i'm going to give them a pass and say maybe 20% of them have it. even with that, they are going everywhere in our country. they are so worried about legal americans getting our shots and wearing our masks and yet these guys are just coming with nothing. host: are you happy about this news that we found out this week? the biden administration

prepared to again offering the coronavirus vaccines to migrants in u.s. custody? caller: i don't think it should be offered. i think it should be commanded. if you come, you have to take the shot period. and i think it should be the johnson & johnson shot. we know they are not showing up for their court date so they are probably not going to show up for a second vaccine shot either. host: that's tina in north carolina. pompano beach, florida. this is june, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to talk about the border. i find it, i cannot believe what is happening. how they can allow so many people to come across the border illegally. this is not appropriate. this is not the way our country is set up.

it is being done by a duly elected president of the united states of america. his first job is to make sure that he protects the citizens of the united states. this is not what he's doing. he is allowing these people to come across not vaccinated, criminals. they don't even know who these people are. what about the ones that get away? what about the poor children? and they have the nerve to say anything. i have never been so saddened. i have never been so disgusted. i don't even recognize my country. host: that's june in florida. on the numbers of those coming across the border. this from the story yesterday. the number of detainees had -- had more than doubled as of july

22. that's above the roughly 22,000 detained last july under donald trump. is nowhere close to the record in the month of august 2019 when the number of detainees exceeded 55,000 according to ice. this is betty, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. this isn't the most important thing in the world, but i'm calling to ask these ban a question and also about the bias and the media. my question is that i think it was july 11, they had a rally in washington dc and c-span, and i love c-span and i'm not blaming you or anybody else, but to the best of my knowledge never

covered that rally. it was called solidarity -- rally and sell it there ready. i didn't hear it missed -- mentioned even once on one of the other networks. i watch mostly msnbc and c-span, but i don't know why that was not covered. you guys cover everything there is. host: i'm not sure about that rally specifically, but you're right. we do try to cover a lot of what's happening in washington dc whether it's rallies or speeches, different think tanks around d.c. our main mission is to focus on gavel to gavel coverage. we also tried to cover a lot of committee hearings. there's a lot of things that take place in d.c. all the time and we do have to pick and

choose on coverage and that's a decision that happens every day of trying to figure out what we have the ability to cover. i'm sorry i can't answer the specific event that you are talking about, but that's kind of how the process works. caller: if that was some other rally, some other group, it would have definitely been covered. i mean, you know. host: we tried to cover as much as we can. we don't cover every rally that takes place in d.c.. there are a lot of them. i can assure you of that as somebody who lives around d.c.. i appreciate the call from riverside. we will do the best we can as we try to give you this view from washington as best we can to make sure that everybody outside washington can see what's going on. jc, in washington dc, and independent. caller: i'm in d.c.. i'm not of d.c.. i want to make that clear.

to my conservative brothers and sisters out there who are not taking the vaccination, please understand that a tax. you can say that's my freedom. i'm free to be as dumb as i want to be. do you get rabies shots for your dogs? those are mandated. why are you not focused on those kind of things? your dog should be free to be as sick as society allows your dog. here you've got human beings, many of you self identify as christian like i do, but i would wear a mask before i put a crucifix around my neck because that shows i care about other people. you can have the flag and you can have your crosses and crucifixes, but you can't have all of that and still hold onto

your stupidity. host: you say you are from d.c. but not of d.c. caller: i come from a county that was probably very much in the trump camp. i am the son of a blue-collar guy who did not put the blue-collar mentality into me. for a blue-collar guy, he was very open-minded. in his own particular way, he was born in 1907. he looked around my neighborhood and made sure that i understood as somebody who came from his grandparents, came from ireland. when the white people fled these decaying neighborhoods in michigan and ohio and upstate new york, it was very clear to

me the problems aren't these people here. the people in the south that do some good jobs, dirty jobs, industrial jobs, technically stole them from the north. that's another way of looking at history. i'm not saying to rub it in your face. i'm saying because now your dirty jobs are going abroad. that is the way capitalism works. that's great. i'm capitalist. but i understand the harm it can leave in its wake if you do not have some sort of safety net. in the south, there are a lot of people working for german companies and all of this was made possible by historically liberal thinking. liberal in the old-school sense. let's not attack each other because we all have something to gain or lose by being a little more together. i guarantee you that if you all

get your vaccinations, i will vote pro-life for the rest of my life. who is willing to give up something? please don't call yourself pro-life and don't get vaccinated because of politics. host: we will head down south to rock hill, south carolina. this is kevin, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i used to be an independent and it kind of changed about 10 years ago. i wanted to speak a little bit about some of the stuff that you actually had on the show this morning. one was about the inflation. i would like to say that i'm sorry, joe biden shut down our pipelines. it's ok for people in europe to get their stuff from russia. talk about pollution. that right there has a lot to do with the price of your milk, gas, eggs, beef because all of

that cost money. second thing was the guy from the home school. i think it's completely wrong idea to have the government involved at all because once you start getting tax money or anything -- or anything from them, they are want to start regulating what you teach your children. you are not going to be able to teach your children about the battle of bunker hill, cornwallis and how this country was founded. you are going to have to teach whatever little socialism they want you to teach and that's how much -- and that's pretty much how it goes. all they have, they can even confront the teacher. it's like you assaulted a government employee by telling them they did something wrong. they have no rights in schools. they have no rights to choose what their children are taught. you got the head of the biggest teachers union telling them they are going to sue the parents. that's one of cap site. host: angela is next out of

maryland. democrat. caller: good morning. i watched your program a lot and i know it's a lot of older retired fox viewer calling in. i see what fox is doing. running it in pieces -- people's faces what's going on at the border. what is going on at the border has happened for decades. mitch mcconnell said we haven't seen this much people come across the border illegally since 2006. biden and the democrats were not present. the same thing happened with reagan. fox news and republicans can point the finger at democrats all they like, that they are part of the problem. crime is running constantly on fox news. crime was worse in the cities in the 80's. this is their little playbook to

get back in power and it's pretty pathetic when they only point the finger at one side. that's basically what i want to say. host: this is joe out of huntsville. independent. caller: my main problem, countries problem, is the open borders where they are mandating . i've been vaccinated for covid, but while they are mandating that all american citizens get vaccinated, people coming across the border are not mandated to get vaccinated. they are just dispersed throughout the country. they are spreading infection everywhere. it's completely two-faced. -- it completely two-faced approach to public health and the welfare of the country.

there are many problems like with recently, the democrats are saying all these increases for social security. what they are announcing is the normal cost-of-living adjustment that has been going on forever in the past. host: that's joe in alabama. on vaccine mandates, several stories this morning on that front. this story from the wall street journal. california said all health workers must complete their vaccine shots by september 30. massachusetts said they would mandate long-term care workers requiring full vaccination october 10. illinois and maryland cover state workers in group settings. a few other places we are seeing

vaccine mandates. the opinion pages of the wall street journal, todd is a professor at george mason university and is assuming george mason university -- and is assuming george mason university for their vaccine mandate. in his column today, about why he is suing about the vaccine mandate. he notes that he contracted and recovered from covid-19 which he says i later confirmed through antibody test. my employer is requiring covid vaccines. in my case, vaccination is unnecessary. my only other options are to teach remotely or to seek medical exemption that would require me to wear a mask, remained socially distance and submit to weekly testing. it would be impossible for me to perform my duties under such

conditions. the ministration has threatened those who don't submit -- the administration has threatened to who don't submit, including termination of employment. he says my university can live up to this promise and treat naturally acquired immunity as at least equivalent to vaccinated status. his column today on why he is suing his employer over their vaccine mandate cynthia in the lone star state, republican. good morning. caller: i've been listening. regarding the border crisis. i'm in texas and we are seeing an influx of illegal migrants and these people are not vetted.

these people have not had health and safety checks which is required by law. the immigration laws that were passed by congress. these laws are not being followed. these laws are being ignored. this is the treasonous act toward the people, the citizens of the united states of america. regardless of how i feel about immigration, i think our borders should allow people in. there's a process to do it and this process is not being followed. the congress has worked for decades to put in place safety provisions for the citizens of the united states so that they can be healthy and safe and that this is not being followed. quite frankly, i consider it an act by our elected representatives who are not against the illegal act that is going on as treason. host: in hopkinsville, kentucky.

independent, go ahead. caller: two questions. am i on? i'm curious why biden is always pushing for union jobs. i'm a disabled equipment operator. never worked for the union. never had a problem getting a job. i'm wondering why he is always pushing for union jobs. second question, why is he ignoring the wildfires out west? why hasn't he had the military go help these firefighters out there to try to put out these fires? we've got military sitting all over this country doing nothing but getting paid and god knows all of the military, but you ought to have them go help these

firefighters. we've got help the country are almost half the country on fire. it seems to me they are just ignoring it. thanks for your time. host: just one of the headlines on that dixie fire becoming the single most largest fire in history. it is ramona and the peach state. lithonia, georgia. go ahead. caller: good morning. i wanted to talk to you about c-span. i love c-span. i've been watching it for years. there's something missing. i would like to give a message to brian. i think he needs to broaden the horizon of c-span with more minority callers. i'm getting so, i don't know. it's getting redundant with these white collars all the time

targeting hispanics, -- white callers all the time targeting hispanics. i think you need to hire a black host to bring in new people other than your regular, every day majority that calls every day. i'm getting kind of tired of the same rhetoric with these people. i would like to see more minority. have all of these hispanic callers only to address the border, to address what these people are calling about every day. you need to incorporate more minorities. get a black, female host -- get a black female host. the same old majority white people, they are taking over c-span. host: i appreciate the feedback.

do your comment about having phone lines split up, we do often change the phone lines and we have done that in the past on various topics to try to bring in different perspectives including by doing phone lines for certain segments. for african-americans only if it works for the segment. we've done that in the past, but i do appreciate the feedback. if brian lamb is not watching, i can pass that along to him. caller: black female host. you know what i'm saying? he needs to also make an example of how america should be. c-span should reflect that itself. i don't see it. i see the same callers all the time. you're talking about the border. you talking about whatever they want to talk about, but it's not reflecting the real united states. host: it's an open phone

segment. right now, people can call and talk about whatever they want to talk about. that's what we want. we want to create an open form for anyone to call in. we appreciate the feedback. a few mall a few more calls waiting. ray and syracuse -- ray, syracuse. caller: what i wanted to comment on was there were at least two or three indicating they thought people that would not take the vaccine were stupid and ignorant or variations of that. i'm just one guy, but most of the people i'm aware of that i keep in touch with, and there are thousands through social media i've had contact with, so let's talk about why. this is an issue of fact. typically, you make a medical decision like a vaccine based on the risk versus reward.

on this particular vaccine, none of the three or four, they have not had -- they have not passed safety trials. if they were subjected to safety trials, none of them will be on the market because somewhere between 50 and 100 deaths take you off the market. host: what would make you trust a vaccine? if what -- if it was a full fda authorization? caller: yes because the government has been saying we are going to stand behind this. i already know the facts of it. the facts are roughly 98, 90 -- 99% recovered and retain lifetime protection from it where there are many people who have caught covid who were fully vaccinated and the deaths.

these are the deaths that are recorded by the cdc. over 50,000 today and they go up every day. personally, i do not believe that they are giving us the trees on the numbers. host: that's rate in syracuse new york. -- that's ray syracuse, new york. in robert kuttner to discuss his latest piece. stick around. we will be back. >> sunday, c-span series, january 6, fuse from the house continues. three more members of congress -- views from the house continues. three more members of congress share what they saw that day.

what happened during those early moments on the house floor. >> everything was going fine. i don't know how far we got into it. there were going back and forth from the democrats to the republicans. nancy pelosi was at the podium. she was overseeing it all. at some point, i did not really notice, but they pulled her away area to someone else came in to replace her. i did not really pick up on that. that happens every now and then anyway. that didn't catch my attention, but what did catch my attention is shortly after that these capitol police officer started coming into the chamber. the thing that was odd is that they were being very loud. it was making a lot of commotion. the doors to the chamber are typically open. all of these doors, you could start hearing them shutting the doors. you could hear them locking. click, click, click.

and then i noticed several of them were standing in front of the doors. they had their weapons out. i was like, what is going on. >> you will also hear from democrats. january 6, views from the house. on c-span, c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. >> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday, you will find events and people that are --. on sundays, but tv brings you the latest on nonfiction books and authors. it is television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekends on c-span 2.

>> washington journal continues. host: we take some time to spotlight a different recent magazine piece. this week's offering comes from the american prospect co-editor, robert kuttner. when the chips are down, we need an industrial policy. explain what kind of tipsy work talking about and why the supply is way down. -- what kind of tips we are talking about and why the supply is way down. guest: in light of your last segment of colors, this is a subject that a lot of democrats and republicans can agree on. this is a time we need bipartisanship for the good of the country. chips being semiconductors. they are used in every aspect of conduct from appliances to cars

to almost anything you buy. cell phones, computers. right now, there is a shortage of semiconductors. that was partly disruption of supply chain. it's not just semiconductors. it the little electronic ingredients that go into semiconductors. most of these are made offshore. the u.s. use to have most of the world -- half of the world reduction. we are down to about 15%. there is a report on supply chains if we can't get semiconductors, that has all kinds of effects on the rest of the economy. for instance, right now used car prices are up 50% in a year. how can that possibly be? the answer is new-car production is way down and when it new-car

production is way down, semiconductors are a vital input. when people cannot buy new cars, they go to used cars. there are only so many used cars on the market. that picks up the best that picks up the price. that becomes inflationary. you take the semiconductors story is one example of everything from pharmaceuticals to storage batteries to things that the country needs for national defense. the white house report looks at just how vulnerable the united states is in terms of its dependency on other countries, particularly china. but not just china. almost all of the worlds semiconductors are either manufactured in south korea or taiwan or china. these are not, taiwan and south

korea are allies. china is not friendly to us. the point is, we need to get control of this in order to get control of our own economy. there are national security reasons for this. there are industrial reasons for this. industrial policy. we need to look very hard at what our economy needs. we need to look at where we are vulnerable. and decide what we need to make at home. what ingredients we need to make it home. is not just pharmaceuticals that are mostly manufactured offshore. it's all of the ingredients that go into the pharmaceuticals, 90% of which come from china. the pandemic coupled with the fact that china has emerged as the principal rival to the united states globally has finally gotten this country's attention. what i find interesting is that

this is not just democrats. you've got republican senators like marco rubio. republicans. we tend to be progressive who are more friendly to democrats. chuck schumer just put in a bill on this to ask -- to pass the senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. this is for the national security. this is for the industrial security of the united states. this is for technological leadership of the united states. one guy who i think deserves a shout out, i'm not a big fan of donald trump. but i think donald trump did two things reasonably well. one was to get serious about the menace of china. the guide who was donald trump's chief trade ambassador is a real

hero because he turned around the assumptions that presidents of both parties going back 50 years have indulged in, if we just let china have its way they will become another normal country. china is becoming more and more dictatorship. everything that, -- everything is controlled by the communist party of china. biden has kept those tariffs. it's partly so that the united states can begin industrializing. -- was the vaccine. he screwed up a bunch of things like testing early on, but he threw money at the pharmaceutical companies, probably too much. they are profiteering like gangbusters. the thing i don't quite get is that since this was a real

accomplishment on the part of trump, why is he not out there saying look what i did for you? i got america to the headline on the vaccine and you should take the vaccine. he doesn't do that. he is scared of taking on some of the folks who are anti-. back to industrial policy. this is one thing that democrats and republicans can agree on, there's national security and job aspect. host: let me give the phone line for viewers to join in the conversation. for democrats (202) 748-8000. for republicans (202) 748-8001. for independents (202) 748-8002. as we talk about industrial

policy, special -- a special one for those working in industry. (202) 748-8003. who are these companies that we are talking about that build semiconductors? what are the american ones viewers might recognize? what have they set about getting the supply back up to meet the demand? when do they think that will happen? guest: intel is the biggest one. it still has a lot of the technological leadership. intel manufactures a lot of it stuff offshore. the biden package and the one sponsored by schumer proposes putting a lot of federal money into this. so we could subsidize having more plants and factories created so we don't have to go offshore for the semiconductors. that's the one thing that i think would be most familiar to viewers.

there are other american companies doing this. they are smaller and tend to not manufacture state-of-the-art semiconductors. let me be clear about this, is not just semiconductors. if we are ever going to move to renewable energy, so that we are not dependent on fossil fuels and imported oil and gas, we are going to have to get better at storage. the problem with renewable energy as you cannot storage. to store it you have to have battery technology. this is also dominated by china. this is another cripple technology where the united states need not only to get back into the game, but be the leader of the pack. solar cells is another one where we are going to get off of these fuels and get self-sufficient we need to get better at solar. but we need to manufacture it as

well as install it, so that we are once again not so reliant. host: to keep on semiconductors, wasn't the free market that gave us intel in these other semiconductor makers, and can they fix -- can the free market fix this problem of lack of light if we give it more time -- lack of supply if we give it more time? guest: no. for two reasons. there's one big reason that the united states does not get into semiconductors, and it's the pentagon. we had a closet industrial policy ever since world war ii in which we subsidize a lot of technology through the pentagon and the government became the buyer of a lot of this, so that private companies would know that they had someone to sell it

to. so many of the commercial spinoffs where the result of pentagon contracts. that's not the free market. and if you trust the free market , and i am intel or general motors and i'm looking for the cheapest possible source of some why, ongoing offshore stuff in china. that will have two effects. that will offshore a lot of american job and it will get the chinese a lot of strategic leverage over the united dates. that's why you cannot trust the free market. there's a lot of things the free market does well, manufacturing strategic goods is not necessarily one of them. the government has always been involved to some extent with the pentagon and the government needs to be involved more strategically. especially since we have never had a threat like china. when it was the soviet union,

american companies did not do business with the soviet union but china has this weird amalgam of communist and semi capitalist with all kinds of incentives to attract american companies. they have workers one step above slave labor, they subsidize american companies and have american companies share technology. yesterday, there was a letter by the chief executives of some of the top american operations saying please get rid of these tariffs, because we want to be able to source products from the cheapest source of supply, often china. you wonder what kind of patriots these guys are. did they want to fatten their own bottom line? host: you mentioned this could be a bipartisan topic all the phone lines are lit up. this is john, an independent who

works with industry. caller: i agree 100%. it's a national security issue. you spend 10 times what all the next countries do on military defense, part of this has to be manufacturing. and what china has done, i will give you an example. people who work in telecommunications made a law, 70% of telecommunications had to be manufactured in china. i agree that tariffs are not always the best thing. sometimes the country has to do the right thing and it will cost more. 70% of computer chips are made --, and the components need to be made in the u.s. as well as other things, respiratory ventilators.

the country needs to wake up. i hope this pandemic, if anything good came out of it it's that we are too dependent on other countries. guest: thank you. people in the industry, who know the subject better than i do tend to agree that we must be more strategic for national security goals and industrial goals. host: chris, on the republican line in tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i think things are going really good. we have a good sized business. how does -- is the most terrible waste of taxpayer dollars. we have the fbi chasing people down with drones for seven years over $10.

this cost half $1 million a day to run this. if the terror voice of money. host: we are talking about industrial policy. caller: is working well. things are picking up. it looks awful good to me. host: that's chris. this is anthony, in arizona, a democrat. caller: good morning. i want to say that our nation is not developing leaders who understand system engineering. if you look it up, it's the coordination between different engineering disciplines and overarching leadership through each stage of the development process.

i'm a retired systems engineer from the military. one of the articles we had to study on material acquisition management focused on speaking to an individual working on say a pedestal. he's building a pedestal. another individual is working on an arm. he goes i am helping to build a grand statue which will recognize achieve and that achievement. as we look towards industrial policy we have to understand, like the i.t. infrastructure, that's one part of systems engineering. if our nation is to move forward industry wise, we have to incorporate systems engineering into p o -- into people, education for the children. if we don't understand systems engineering, you are just building a pedestal. host: thank you for bringing it up. guest: i think that's right.

the counterparty systems engineering is one hand of the government knowing what the other hand is doing. if one hand of the government is promoting china trade and the other is observing -- i guess hans don't observe, the other part of the government is observing that china is dealing supply, these two parts of the government need to talk to each other. that's a challenge whether the administration's democratic or republican. what encourages me is that you have different branches of foreign policy parts in the industrial policy part talking to each other and trying to fashion a coherent industrial policy. trump opened the door to this. he did not do the follow-through on developing industrial policy for the rest of the country. this is where biting is really

taking cash biden's take -- biden is taking the next step. presidents of both parties, from reagan through obama got this wrong. they assumed we were nice to the chinese they would be like us. that did not happen. host: on the independent line, in houston, texas area caller: -- texas. caller: good morning. you have said most of the things i was about to say. when i was in college all those years ago, i'm 65, in portland, oregon, we had a company called seh. they were manufacturing a semi conductor. we have the capability of doing it here, but the problem is that the people who own those industries that make the decision like intel, they are the ones fleeing the country.

they are setting up industry outside of the country. so talking about policy, they should talk to those big industries that take the jobs out and get those companies incentives. listening to you, you have good things to say about this and i appreciate you bringing this to the forefront of the government. thank you, have a good day. guest: thank you. you put your finger on an important part of this. if you have a company based in the united states and its off shoring most jobs and sending a lot of its technology overseas not just in general but to countries with their own industrial policies that don't like us, like china, it seems to me that those companies should not get the same tax benefits as companies that produce at home. one of the things i did not like about trump was his tax bill in

2017 actually increased the incentives for companies to ship jobs offshore. what i like about biden is that he's trying to reverse that so that the companies that are good patriots get better tax treatment than those that are nominally american but play games to reduce the taxes that they owe so you and i have to pay higher taxes. we should not be giving them the same tax breaks as the companies that locate more of their jobs in the united states. host: about 15 minutes left with bob kuttner this morning. his latest book is the stakes: 2020 and the survival of the american democracy. you can join the conversation by calling in at for democrats (202) 748-8000. for republicans (202) 748-8001.

for independents (202) 748-8002. and the special line for those in the industrial sector is (202) 748-8003. barry, in new york, on the democrat line, you are next. caller: good morning. thank you for coming on c-span. i think you have had so many points that are just so true. the last thing you were talking about was biden's efforts, and i believe this has been in conjunction with a lot of the other westernized nations, the efforts to prevent corporations from playing games by putting their company's headquarters in the cayman islands and all that kind of crappy. i think they have tried to standardize the minimum tax on corporations at 15%.

that's great progress. hopefully that holds. and companies will be able to -- will no longer be able to shop around to find countries but they can basically screw over and screw us over on taxes. i'm wondering if the same thing could happen -- this is maybe a harebrained idea. but if the same kind of thing could be proposed for wages. i think corporations, something rubbing me the wrong way -- i saw an expose, 60 minutes segment. they spoke to the ceo of ge and he was proud that he had offshore to some really highly skilled machinist work to brazil. a few years later, after the

unions brought that same job back for a fraction of the wages. host: do you mean a global minimum wage? caller: this kind of idea where the country is now working together to establish minimum corporate tax rates, those same countries could also do something along the lines of creating tariffs based on prevailing wages. like inverse proportion. host: well, let's take it up. bob kuttner? guest: it's called social tariff. if you are a country that violates human lights -- human rights, you have to pay a tariff to compensate for the fact that you are treating your workers a lot worse than american

companies treat their workers. granted, a lot of american countries -- companies are not anything to write home about but there is a minimum. otherwise the united states reports the terrible social conditions of workers along with the products. so you say to the country, if you want to sell a product in the united states, that's ok. if you are paying workers $.50 today and are exploiting children and throwing uighur muslims into prison, you don't get to do that carefree -- tariff free. you have to pay a social tariff to compensate for the horrible treatment that you are treating her own people with. otherwise we will import that treatment along with the products. the other thing biden did was, even though they did not have the votes to get the $15 minimum wage, biden used his authority

to say that any company that bids on a u.s. government contract has to pay its workers $15 an hour. that helps create a general floor on your wages without legislating it. minimum wages are really popular. you have several red states where higher minimum wages were passed by overwhelming majorities. if you are a citizen not making much money, and it's kind of tough to give yourself a raise because the boss has not decided to give you a raise, you can at least have a ballot initiative that says there has to be a basic floor so that everybody has enough to live on. host: to jack, in florida, and independent. caller: good morning. thank you for the opportunity to voice my opinion and my solution

. americans, get your shot. everybody, get your shot. i want to plug that you'd get your shot. quit being a more on. -- moron. to the point, industrial policy. we are so limited in our thinking, we are so focused on industrial policy, there is a solution. we have resources, people stacking up on the border that need training. corporations that make millions and trillions of dollars can set up training facilities in the western hemisphere. we don't need china. we need open thinking, the solution is start building a home. south america is open. the caller mentioned brazil. you can take care of the border problem if you start educating

the resources down there. the corporations and the infrastructure bill, they may trillions, billions, millions of dollars off of us. they can ordinate. period. -- they can afford it. period. guest: well. yes, we need well-trained workers. there are these visa programs where supposedly there is a shortage of high skilled workers so corporation can get a special visa to bring in a worker from some come -- some country where the pay is a lot lower and the worker comes in on a special visa and the worker is indentured to that company. they are not free to look for other jobs. the only difference to that --

the only difference is that employees making a lot less money. if there are shortages of high skilled workers, train americans to take those jobs. don't import people from other countries. that's the kind of immigration that is unfortunately legal. i do want to say something about vaccines. i don't think people who are anxious about vaccines are morons. i think people have concerns about whether the vaccine is safe. i think on balance, these are the same people who got polio vaccines as kids, smallpox vaccines as kids, diphtheria, tetanus, typhoid as a condition of going to school. i think the vaccine has been proven to be more than safe enough compared to the risk of getting covid. but this is tricky and i'm respectful of people who have questions.

i think if you go out and look for answers, rather than going on the internet and finding the most crackpot opinion out there, you will find on balance that vaccines are more than safe. but let's get to another caller. host: western new york, robert, a democrat. caller: good morning. four points. host: i don't know if we will have time for four. give me to. caller: politically, democrats say that tariffs are a tax -- started this whole thing about shareholders, equity. i believe in tariffs strongly, but what level should we have tariffs that -- at? is anybody starting a summit? a manufacturing summit where individuals who may want to start companies to compete or to

pull that industry -- manufacturing businesses in america. i don't believe we have the infrastructure in america. is there a summit to get people to start as this is an start manufacturing and that? thank you. guest: the summit is a good idea. the commerce department has a summit if you want to start a business in x industry where there is a shortage of supply, you could get some help from the government. but tariffs, let me focus on this. you could say tariffs are attacks. on the other hand if your job is offshored and your silly making half of what you used to make, that's also a kind of tax. the thing about the 25% tariffs on a lot of chinese exports, that's a ballpark tax for the

subsidy that the chinese government puts into those products so they can under price those products made in the usa. in that context that's duties. that's legitimate. all you're doing is offsetting the predatory behavior of the other guy which is coming at the expense of american jobs, american industry, and american workers. host: kelly is in garden grove, california, an independent. caller: i just wanted to say thank you, c-span, for giving us this platform to give our opinions. a couple of things, with regard to donald trump in the vaccine and politicalization of the

pandemic. he has done serious harm to this country, and the world. deniability, it was the democratic hoax, it was the vaccine being weak, hosting super-spreader events, and you are giving him credit for getting the vaccine to us, but that's to the scientists of this world that have brought 30 years of this mrna testing and is a gift. everyone should get this vaccine that is able to get this vaccine , in every arm. please talk to the people you trust, your physicians. they know what's going on. second, with regard to the industrial policies of the united states, we are all responsible for wanting to get the cheapest product as fast as possible. when you have countries that are willing to undermine, their

people, resources, and environment, that's what you get, the cheapest product in the fastest way. guest: i will respond to both points, both well taken. i was only saying that here's donald trump, who's not shy about bragging about his accomplishments. and this was of course built on the science. all kinds of scientific prowess, some of which was subsidized by the government well before donald trump ever heard of it. but he did throw money at it, operation warp speed. i understand why -- i don't understand why, since trump is not shy about claiming credit for a lot that did not do, this is something that he is not and telling everyone to get vaccine. on the issue of americans having

costly products. of course. the markup on an iphone is crazy , given what it cost them to make it, and given with the people who assemble it in china are paid. if we had to pay a few dollars more for the iphone to have those jobs brought back 98, i think people would pay it -- brought back to the united states, i think people would pay it. this is where leadership, corporate and government leadership, comes into play. we are at war with ourselves. as consumers we want the cheapest product. as citizens we want americans to be well-paid and have those jobs be at home. host: time for one more call, steve has been waiting out of west palm beach, florida. on the independent line. can you make it quick? caller: doubtful. i don't know mr. kuttner's work well and i don't think much of it.

i want to read you a vote -- a quote from house of cards. there is a deep division in society today between those who want to work and enjoy the fruits of their labors and abide by and uphold the laws of the land and an increasing number of what has become fashionable to call the disaffected, the disadvantaged, the differently motivated. what we used to call lazy people , dishonest people, people who don't want to take responsibility for their actions or their lives. i can give you two examples. host: one. caller: through the great recession there was a deep shortage of welders. i knew companies that were paying for people to go to community colleges and take -- and pay for their education and have a job waiting for them when they came out. people did not take up those

positions. i had a buddy who did not. guest: mr. kuttner, you get the final minute. at my grandfather would say, that's total malarkey. you have people who want to work and want to be paid differently -- decently. i have's -- i have done stories on why people don't take these jobs, it's because they don't think that the jobs will be there in two years. why get a job with it will be offshored in two years? i want to end on this note. first, a big thank you to c-span. but more importantly, i watch the show, i listen and i hear a tremendous amount of arguments between democrats and republicans. what i find so encouraging, with the exception of the last

caller, everybody who called in, republicans, democrats, independents agree we have a problem with all and jobs, china, technological leadership. that gives me hope that there are areas where republicans, democrats, and independents can come together and biden is leading the way on this. god bless him. that gives me hope for this country. host: if the american prospect, when the chips are down, we need industrial policy. bob kuttner is the author and coeditor at the american prospect. we appreciate your time. guest: thank you so much, thank you for sharing yours. host: that will do it. the senate comes in in just under an hour, this is on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. we are expecting a final vote today. you can watch gavel-to-gavel coverage on c-span two. we will be back here on the

washington journal at 7:00 and in the meantime, have a great saturday. >> comcast is partnering so students can get what they need so they can be ready for anything. comcast support c-span along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy.

sunday night on q and a, helen andrews talks about her book, boomers, the men and women who promised freedom and delivered disaster. >> the one-liner about boomers that i did not come up with but would which i think is important, that they are the generation that sold out but would never admit it. it's a combination of on the one hand, idealism. and a sense of themselves as noble idealists, liberating humanity. but also a great deal of selfishness and narcissism and blindness to the ways that their liberationist agenda knocks down a lot of functioning institution . >> helen andrews and her book, boomers.

you can also listen wherever you get your podcast. >> sunday, c-span series, january 6, views from the house continues. three more members of congress share stories of what they saw, heard, and experience to that day. including ronny jackson, who recounts what happens during those early moments on the house floor. >> i don't know how far we got into it, you're going back and forth with democrats and republicans, alternating back and or, nancy pelosi was up at the podium, overseeing it all. at some point i did not notice, but they pulled her away. somebody came in to replace her. i did not pick up on that. i saw that happen a few times in the three days i was there. that did not catch my attention. but what did was shortly after