studies senior fellow john schaus about the security alliance between the u.s., u.k., and australia to counter china's military strength, and brandeis university's michael willrich discusses the history of vaccine mandates. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: it is the washington journal for september 19, and recent remarks about the economy. president biden wants again made the case for tax increases and the corporations, as well as individuals who make over $400,000 a year. the biden administration plans to use the revenue to pay for infrastructure and social programs. you are welcome to share your opinion on this proposal. here is how you can let us know what you think. if you support it, you can call us and tell us why at (202)

748-8000. if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001 the number to call. happy you are not sure. you can call us at (202) 748-8002. text us at (202) 748-8003. you can also post at facebook. part of this proposal from the white house includes various categories, as far as who would be affected. according to politico, that would raise the corporate tax to 26.5% on businesses with incomes over $5 million. 39.6 tax rate for individuals making over $400,000. it would also include a 3% tax on individuals making above $5 million, and would also increase top capital gains rate to 28.8%. these are some of the proposals being debated on capitol hill.

subject to a vote with those -- if the proposals went forward, revenue going to the president's plan for infrastructure and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. when it goes to who makes this kind of money, cnb -- cnbc posted something. it says that by national measures those making that figure belong to a rare fight group. they represent the top one point 8% of taxpayers, earning about 25% of the nation's income. the 400,000 dollars cut off is also higher than the 200 $50,000 threshold proposed by barack obama in 2008 and he saw to raise taxes on the wealthy. also saying that president biden's plan is largely a marginal tax increase. those making slightly more than 400,000 dollars will see small increases, while the bulk of the

$4 trillion from mr. biden's plan would come from super-earners making more than $1 million. or there in that story if you want to read who makes that kind of money. it was thursday that the president was making remarks about the economy, again talked about his plans for tax increases. he was a portion of that from thursday. [video clip] pres. biden: they play by a different set of rules, and they are often not employees themselves, so the irs cannot see what they make. and cannot tell if they are cheating. that is how the top 1% it away with paying virtually nothing. it is estimated that that number is about 160 billion dollars, collectively owed each year that does not get paid. my plan would help solve that. for example, it would give the

irs the resources it needs to keep up with lawyers and accountants of the super wealthy. it would ask for two pieces of information from these folks. the amounts that come into their bank accounts, and what amounts go out of their bank accounts. so that the wealthy can no longer hide what they are making , and they can finally begin to pay their fair share of what they owe. that is not about raising their taxes, it is about the wealthy finally getting to pay with ao. what the existing tax code calls for. just like hard-working americans do all over this country, every tax day. like i said a few minutes ago, the 55 most profitable corporations in america paid zero in federal income taxes. on what amounted to $40 billion

in profit. not a penny. that is not right. my economic plan would change that. not punish anybody, just make them pay their fair share. host: catherine wrote in a recent piece for the paper about the efforts of democrats to make these proposals happen. she writes that, president biden opposed raising the capital gains rate so wealth is treated the same as income from work. the house bill is considerably weaker. instead of raising the rate a few percentage points, mr. biden proposed closing one of the most valuable tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, a provision called "stepped up basis." through a death loophole a person can bequeath that stock to his heirs without ever paying taxes on how much that stock rose during the owner's life. this is a boon to anyone with a

dynastic wealth, since it means their wealth is going to escape capital gains taxes. if you want to more -- if you want to read more, catherine brunel has that. the tax foundation talking about corporations and what they pay. the white house -- has perpetuated a narrative that big corporations or avoiding taxes by shifting profits overseas. a recent analysis by marty sullivan found that large tech firms moved 40 billion dollars of worldwide profits to the united states in 2020, delaying the rhetoric. the publicly traded multinationals overall have steadily increased domestic share of their worldwide profits from 48% in 2017 to 56% in 2020. also adding that tax fairness is this -- is defined differently by almost every economist. he goes on saying there are easy

steps that congress could take, if you want to read about those. you can do so at the website. with that in mind, these proposals to raise taxes, if you support that idea, (202) 748-8000. maybe you oppose that idea. follow us at (202) 748-8001. perhaps you fall in the not sure category. it was a call at (202) 748-8003. use that number to text us and you can post on facebook and twitter too. one of the people watching a speech on thursday was trump's former economic advisor, larry kudlow. he was on fox news and had this response to the president's remarks. [video clip] >> it is a terrible factual misstatement. it just goes beyond cognitive dissonance, right? respect the office of the

presidency, so i'm not going to tell you the label i would like depend on this, i would just say cognitive dissonance. first of all, the top 1% pay 40% of the income taxes. the bottom 50% or more don't pay income taxes, ok? he doesn't talk about that. >> it was even bigger in 2020. >> the spending is going to be, if you do the numbers right, the spending will be roughly 5.5 trillion dollars, plus $1 trillion for the so-called infrastructure bill. nobody in their right mind believes that a strong economy with excessive inflation requires about $6 trillion of new federal spending. republican, democrat, supply-side or keynesian, nobody believes that. host: larry kudlow was on fox news last night. david is from ohio. supports this proposal. go ahead. caller: absolutely.

we are talking about less than 2% of the american people that make the money biden is talking about taxing. when you look at it from a practical standpoint, ok, you can use that money to create jobs for much-needed projects. our infrastructure. we can create good paying jobs. when the working class has money, what happens? the economy thrives. you get people buying cars, remodeling their homes, it is definitely -- the money has velocity. these people that are hoarding wealth, some gets invested, but a lot of it gets held in the money does not have the same velocity. when the working class as jobs it is better for everybody. host: do you think these tax increases will cover with the president is proposing? caller: i haven't looked at -- yes. i have heard that it will, but i

can't say that i scrutinized all of the numbers but whatever the taxes will bring in, that is what we will have available to spend. also if you have been paying attention to what is happening with the environment, people have to get their heads out of the sand. the former president denied global warming even existed. host: we will leave it there, only to keep the context of the conversation. this is ed. go ahead. caller: i think garman is a shared enterprise. we all should contribute to it. i think last year 35% or so of people paid income tax. it is kind of a minority. for the 98% to gang up on the 2%, i think it is a shared responsibility. host: you were calling in on the oppose line.

is that the case? caller: yes. he is raising taxes against just 2% of the people. i think there is working initiatives. the whole country should pay for it. everybody who owns income. host: do you think those in the higher tax brackets have done that? caller: how do you define fair? i think the 1%, i believe they pay 40% of the income tax as it is. is it fair that one third of the people pay any taxes, where 100% of the people benefit from that? it is just an issue of fairness in terms of how you look at fairness. host: ok. it's go to tina. tina is in pittsburgh, pennsylvania on our support line. host: yes -- caller: yes, good morning.

i believe everybody should pay taxes. with the rich, they make trillions over this pandemic and i find that they always say, well, if you cut our taxes we will give higher wages, it turns out they never do give higher wages. they put it in their stocks, they are buying up houses, they buy up everything. do you find it fair when you think about it? the people that are poor and middle class that are trying to turn around and they are paying their taxes and they don't have to? i really hope that goes through. i think the corporations and wealthy should definitely pay their share. host: do you generally believe the wealthy do not pay their share of taxes? caller: absolutely not. because think about it. when they cut the taxes that cost us a big deficit. that was passed on the trump era, when he was president. also think about all of the

money they made over the pandemic. they're the ones who got quite wealthy. it was the middle class and poor was not doing good. the middle class was losing their businesses and everything. now look at the housing market. they are buying up all of the houses, a lot of them. then they turn around and flip them. this is not right. everyday families cannot even afford at -- afford a house. if we get them to pay their share, that money can be used. host: that is tina in pittsburgh. if you go to the website, the conversation has a look at some of the historical concepts of those who pay taxes. the headline there has that dress with alexandria ocasio-cortez, the piece goes on to say in 1950 when looking at federal state and local taxes, the top 1% of earners paid almost 70% of income in taxes,

in post-war decades the main source of income for the rich were subject to an effective corporate tax rate of 50%. the rich were subject to high tax rates on wages, dividends, and income from partnerships. that is the top .1%, i should stay -- i should say. the upshot is that for most income levels the u.s. tax system and ours ambles a flat tax becomes regressive at the very top end. meaning the superrich pay proportionately less. today virtually all income groups pay roughly 28% of their income in taxes, except for the 400 richest americans. each own more than $2 billion in wealth today and pay around 25% in taxes. again, the conversation website if you want to see more analysis about that dress.

it was representative of casio cortez wearing that dress that said "tax the rich," sending out a tweet with her in that dress. that garnered a response right and far, but a republican on capitol hill saying, he where a tax the rich dress to a $30,000 per ticket gala, you are probably one of them. again, that dress driving the conversation when it comes to taxation. we are asking you what you think about supporting or opposing the raising of those taxes. from lawrenceville, georgia, this is kathy. go ahead. caller: i do oppose it, because i think it is unfair. congress and the president were that concerned with how much tax money corporations and millionaires and billionaires are paying, then change the tax code and cut out the loophole and everything that they don't want to do, because a lot of that is in their best interest.

host: when you say it is unfair, aside from changing the tax code, what do you think about the arguments that some have made this morning about those wealthy who do not pay taxes -- at least the perception they do not pay their taxes? caller: the reason they don't pay is because they can afford good accountants. if i can afford a good accountant -- i'm lower middle class -- i would have an accountant that saved me every penny that is legal. if congress is that concerned in the president is, then reassess the tax laws. host: this is barbara in farmington, connecticut on our support line. hello. caller: hello. i have one quick comment. i do not know why they do not tax the catholic churches. they have a lot of money, they are the richest organization, they are always begging for money from their parishioners, the parishioners are paying

taxes. why did they not pay tax? host: corporations and the wealthy, do you think they should be taxed more? caller: corporate and wealthy? host: do you think they should be taxed more? caller: definitely. in addition to them, i'm saying. host: why do you think that is a case? why do you think that is needed? caller: because it has so much money and we need money, so why did they not get taxed? host: that is barbara in connecticut, making her thoughts known this money. some of you posted on facebook for the show started this morning. this is beth saying, when it comes to that taxation, of course the middle class will pitch a hissy fit, and it does not even impact them. they will get better everything -- infrastructure, childcare, climate protection. mike from facebook -- i'm

probably saying your name wrong, i apologize. yeah, 50% tax across the board. from david in orlando saying, any do not pay because they use loopholes and hide their wealth. cassie says, pay the fair share, please. also from our twitter feed, if you are saying rich people do not want to pay any taxes. the wealthy will fight paying taxes to the death. again, twitter is available @ cspanwj. let's hear from mike in california. go ahead. caller: good morning. i have been a cpa for a little over 40 years, and there is something i always say to people. this is more applicable than i have ever seen, and that is and they say that oh, were only going after people that make only $400,000 a year that is not

true. a lot of times they leave out people, and i believe that eventually millions of people fall in the category, regular people, middle-class people that may be owned one thing. perhaps an apartment complex that they held for many years, even decades. it is the equivalent of their nest egg. they do not have a multimillion dollar pension, as do many government workers. and i have seen people in their 80's wiped out financially from selling the one thing. nobody finds that amusing when i say to them, you are a fat cat for a day. you are the 1%. they never, ever carve out something for these regular people.

many years ago we used to have something called income averaging. i think they threw that out in 1984 or 1985. it was prior to the 1986 tax act. that did allow for people that had a flukey year. i have heard people that understand what i'm talking about say, need to bring that back, but it is just horrible what happens to these people and there is never an exception for that. host: as a cpa, if these proposals go through, typically are there ways to work around them? caller: not for middle-class people. host: i mean for those who are wealthier? caller: the answer to that is yes and no. you can mitigate that, but not

work around. at least not in my world, not in my league. i do not know about these multinational tax lawyers and accountants, but there is some mitigation, but no, there is no workaround. the issue is the usually draft things like this so tightly because they are so driven to punish the perceived injustices. they are shooting for social justice and never commonsense and never what is good for the country as a whole. host: we will leave it there, mike. mike, former cpa giving his perspective from georgia. we set up a line for those who may not be sure about these proposals. gar, go ahead. caller: it is not rocket

science. that last caller made it rocket science. k street. we are talking about lobbyists. 400 lobbyists per congressperson. do you think is paying the congressman? what is that old word in d.c.? show me the money? host: tell us why you are not sure about these proposals. caller: because they are not going to do it. neither party is going to raise the taxes on the rich, because they are getting paid. a lot of times it is not rocket science. until we get the lobbyists out of there, the rich and going to pay no taxes. host: there was a poll taken among those who are wealthy about these proposals from the. just to read a little bit, saying, if the biden administration gets their way, millions there -- millionaires

appear to be ok with that. nearly half of individuals worth $1 million or more support a wealth tax on people worth $10 million or more. almost half, 40 8%, support increasing the capital gains tax. the survey was conducted in april and may, saying while the president has not proposed a wealth tax per se, his requested budget includes tax hikes on well-heeled individuals that are intended to help fund the american families planned. -- families plan. providing federal paid family leave and expanding the tax credits, amongst other initiatives. again, your thoughts on this idea of raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. a line for use that support, oppose it, and perhaps are not sure. lawrenceville, new jersey. you are next up. caller: good morning, pedro.

i definitely support. hello. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i support raising taxes on corporations and wealthy americans. more on corporations. their track record here for paying their fair share is just abysmal. you know, i think that common sense people, particularly people who are not superrich and are not part of a corporation -- i mean, corporations have a right to make money, that they are just oblivious when it comes to paying taxes. and they are very, very, very good and adept at hiding their money. it actually goes against -- it is so un-american, you know? that is just my expression i am using. that you can have a business, a thriving, lucrative business and you just think you are not supposed to pay your taxes.

corporations are all hooked up. there was a guy before me who said, you know, they have a truckload of attorneys which they pay very well, they are all hooked up with lobbyists, all to protect their interests. well, poor people and lower middle-class people and middle-class people need somebody to protect their interest. the idea that somebody who is a truck driver pays more money than a man who makes millions and millions of dollars, that is criminal. host: that is marvin in lawrenceville, new jersey. if you go to the website of pro-public -- of pro-public, they look at what the wealthy pay in taxes, what they do to mitigate that. you can find jesse eisenberg's interview with us, but when it comes to warren buffett, his

wealth growth was 23.4 billion dollars. his reported income was $23.5 million. he paid tax -- 125 million dollars. he paid taxes of $23.7 million. jeff bezos, 4 billion-plus in total income. taxes paid, 970 $3 million. taking the tax rate .9%. michael bloomberg, 22.5 billion dollars in wealth growth, $10 billion reported. 29 point $2 million paid. taking that into account, his tax rate 1.3 percent. elon musk, 13.9 billion dollars of growth. $1.5 billion of reported income, $45 million of taxes paid. then 3.27% of tax rate. you can find that at the pro

publica site. if you want to go to our website, c-span.org, you can do that. let's hear from keith in florida. hi. caller: hello, pedro. my opinion is, what is going to happen is he is going to hit us out here that depend on the stock market towards our retirements. and he is going to tax that even more. so that affects us down on the bottom rung of the ladder, and our fireman's, and we are not wealthy. and that is not right. we are retired. he saved all of our lives and we are invested in the stock market. as far as the higher echelon, yeah, tax them, ok, but then there go the jobs.

trump was trying to be -- to bring the jobs back here, now biden is going to push them back overseas. that is my opinion. host: this is alvin on our oppose line. hello. caller: good morning, sir. i would like to say it is a too -- two part situation. the first is the false narrative of, make the rich their fair share. if you ever ask a rich person what their fair share is, they will tell you the tax code them it is zero. so it is a really easy problem to fix. you take all of the loopholes out of the tax code, you eliminate all charitable deductions and not for profits until the debt is paid. problem solved. host: that is alvin giving his opinion. you can do the same. if you oppose it, you can call (202) 748-8001. if you support these rates of

increase, (202) 748-8000 in number to call. then maybe you are not sure. (202) 748-8002. taking a look at these proposals, they say with the proliferation of dynamic restaurants -- of dynamic estimates, the tax-writing committees have not put enough -- have not put out enough details. the budget serves as a proxy for where they are likely to go. they found those taxes would reduce the size of the economy by 1.3% over time, reduce wages by 1%, and eliminate 233,000 jobs. the estimate of the entire 2022 budget found similar results as the tax foundation. they estimate the economy would be 1.1 percent smaller in 2051,

largely because higher taxes would discourage savings and investment. moody's analytics taking a more favorable view. they find the economy will be 2% larger in 2030 one because of the reconciliation, though that largely comes from the extra spending. there is more there, a lot more detail at the u.s. chamber site. the next half hour we book continue on and you can call us. you can post on facebook, twitter. text us if you wish. michael from facebook saying, without a doubt we should go back to the corporate tax structures of the 1950's and 1960's. we need to put an end to all of this trickle-down economics. also from facebook saying, raising taxes are a politician's way of making themselves look good without actually effectively increasing in national sales tax. it sounds good to say they are not raising taxes on individuals, demanding corporations pay their fair share.

the reality is these businesses only increase the prices of the goods consumers buy. the only difference is the retailer is not the one collecting the tax, the producer is. bill is up next in huntersville, north carolina. he is saying he is not sure. good morning. caller: good morning, good morning. host: tell us why you are not sure. caller: i'm not sure because government is not sure. the real problem is, give them more money they are going to waste more money. that is what they do. our national debt is $28 trillion and our children or somebody's going to have to pay for it down the line. the way i look at it, the real problem is the government, they waste more money, they spend too much, and that is the way i look at it. host: and if that was the opposite then? if the government handled money well you would be for this proposal? caller: about what?

host: if the government spent the money wisely would you be more live of the proposals from caller: caller: the biden administration? -- caller: not biden's. if they did things right they would not have to raise taxes. there is enough money there, but they waste it. host: lloyd is next, sacramento, california. caller: how are you, sir? host: fine, thank you. caller: i do support taxing the wealthy. maybe just to get rid of the loopholes, then they might start paying what they owe. host: why do you think loopholes are the problem? caller: because i pay taxes and i do not have loopholes i can claim. the rich have all of the good accountants and they know the taxes better than normal people

do, so they say get rid of the loopholes. host: lloyd in sacramento calling us early in the morning. this is ray from delaware. he says he is not sure. hello. caller: good morning. i look at it this way, ok? you want to raise the tax on the rich because they are using loopholes. now where did loopholes come from? they came from congress. the only way you're going to straighten out this mess is, you've got to put term limits in. because they are making the rules for the rich and sane, you know what? were going to raise the taxes on the rich. the rich are going to raise their prices, so who is going to be paying the money? it is going to be the middle class and the poor, because all they are going to do is pass the buck. it ends up, the middle class and poor are the ones paying the taxes. host: that is ray. next is oklahoma city, oklahoma

on our support line. otis, hello. caller: how are you doing? i definitely support the rich paying their fair amount of taxes. in addition to that, what is so crazy about it is how they squandered trillions of dollars for 20 years on a war over there in afghanistan, but they have issues with helping the average person now. they have no credibility. they are playing games with people's lives, with all of this guessing whether the rich pay more -- absolutely the rich should pay more. they even understand that. in order to do that we have to raise taxes on them. like i say, i agree we are going back to the -- i think it is 1948, i believe. taxes on the rich was about 90%,

wasn't it? if i'm correct? host: i'm not sure. what makes you think it would work this time around? what makes you think there is a benefit to raising taxes? caller: here is what it do. it would take the pressure off of people, the average working poor that need a opportunity to at least make a decent, respectable living. no one said we want to live like we have 10 different rooms and 50 cars, but i know if a person is working 40 hours a week he should at least have a respectable car, a modest home, and paying his bills. the thing about the working poor that people do not understand is that we do not have a opportunity to do anything. if we have a car, fortunate

enough to have a car, and something happens to it you cannot afford to fix it. then when you are working, most jobs now are through temp agencies. host: that is otis in oklahoma city, giving some perspective on why he supports the raising of taxes on corporations, those who are wealthy. you can do the same on the line -- same online. you can text us too. when it comes to specific corporate tax proposals from the democrats, his nieces with revenue above $5 million, they would pay 26.5%. revenues between 400,000 dollars and $5 million would stay -- would see that rate stay at 21%. businesses with revenue less than $400,000 would see a rate cut to 18%. the ways and means committee taking a look at the budget,

working on a text for that. it was richard neal of the ways and means committee, saying it was time for corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share, as he called her. he was part of his argument from a recent hearing. [video clip] >> we celebrate success in this great nation we all love, but we can also ask the biggest companies and the ultra-wealthy to contribute more. that is why our proposal asks those in this nation who are doing extremely well to pay a bit more to support the services and infrastructure on which our society, and often their business and investments, or lie. while the increases we propose today will go a long way in responsibly playing -- responsibly paying for our investments, the rates will still remain lower than they were in the 2017 tax law. despite the rhetoric, we have carefully made sure to protect middle-class americans and small businesses from experiencing any

tax increases. we can argue and discuss the issues of greater wealth concentration in america, as to how it happened, what we cannot deny is it did happen. the arguments over worker skills , the arguments over globalization, the arguments over the decline of unionism in america and the advances of technology have all contributed to that greater concentration of wealth. we take steps today to help provide broader opportunity for the american family. the proposals we consider in these days are about expanding those opportunities, increasing equity, and demonstrating our commitment to fairness. host: some other comments about these proposals off of twitter. you heard from the press and talking about it. it was senator sanders, one of the drivers of the legislation when it comes to taxation

saying, we can no longer tolerate a rigged tax system that allows the top 1% to avoid $163 billion in taxes they owe. we demand the 1% pay its fair share and we will use that revenue to invest in working families. from senator elizabeth warren, adding, i agree with ron wyden. we need to pass a bill that ensures that billionaires and corporations are paying their fair share. a wealth tax and my real corporate profits tax are to bang ways to get that done. representative cossey or cortez saying, after a year -- it goes on from there as far as her statements, as far as what she said about taxation. those are democrats primarily on this. we will hear from republicans in a little bit. here in pennsylvania.

the head. -- harry in pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: about the tax rate people pay, if you look at that again, if you have an increase in the value of your stock, you don't pay anything on that because you the stock go down. your tax rate on that presentation was showing that the tax rate to gain on the stock, if you look at their actual income your numbers are wrong. host: again, the analysis is other people's analysis, but go ahead. caller: they are counting gains on stocks and holdings that are

unrealized. you have to sell the stock to get that money. those rates are inflammatory lay low -- inflammatory low. the second thing is that i believe raising corporate taxes in america, and if you look in ireland who deliberately lowered their tax rate, that drove jobs into ireland. caused the celtic tiger. i think we ought to move jobs in, so i would pose raising taxes. -- i would oppose raising taxes. host: let's hear from lester in california. caller: i oppose raising any more taxes, because what this country has is a spending problem, and that needs to get under control. this ridiculous 3.5 trillion

dollars budget is just off the charts. host: why is it not a taxation problem? caller: excuse me? host: why is it not a taxation problem? caller: because we have had revenues from taxes for the last -- i don't know -- so many years. the government needs to spend that money in a way that they don't require any more taxes from anybody. host: do you think that those who are wealthy pay what they should be caller: caller: paying in taxes? -- caller: i don't know for sure about that myself. i think that needs to be dealt in, because it is only right. i can agree with that, but in general taxing is just ridiculous now and they should, you know, learn how to spend that money. make whatever rules need to be made or enforced should be -- you know, should be done to

prevent any huge amounts of tax increases, because we are already at record revenues from taxes. host: let's hear from jim in fort lauderdale, florida. hello. caller: hello. i am not sure, because there is pretty good arguments for both sides of this thing. i agree with the statistics you showed about the billionaires. it is pretty ugly. i think it is pretty ugly. some of them actually say themselves it is ugly. so, i think these billionaires, as ugly as it may look, they are a byproduct of our capitalist system. they are not the system. they are a byproduct. we have the greatest system in the world for creating wealth, and here's how it works. we have this thing called equity

, and companies can be created out of nothing in this country. unlike any other country in the world. let me give you a few examples of those companies. microsoft was created out of having -- out of nothing. cisco was created out of nothing. intel was created out of nothing, because investors risk their money and gave it to people who did not have to pay that money back. they took that money and made the greatest companies the world has ever known. host: ok, that is jim in florida. let's hear from joseph, kalamazoo, michigan, who supports this proposal. let me push the button first, i apologize. hello. caller: yes. i agree we should raise taxes on the rich. people don't understand out there.

they keep talking about raising the prices on the products. the price has already been raised. every year they raise prices on poor people and the middle class, on the products, everything they sell might as well go ahead and raise the taxes, because if you don't they are going to raise prices anyway. talking about they will leave the state? if they leave the country, everything you sell here in the united states you pay more for. therefore if they go out of the country, cut their products off. it will pay. i guarantee. companies will stay here, because you make more money in the united states. and for that guy talking about prices and not only prices going up, but we have the rich making most of this money and operations, when you start making billions then it is time to start raising prices on those billionaires. host: that is joseph in

michigan. one of the people commenting on the democrats' plan was a top republican on the ways and means committee that you saw from that recent mark hearing. it was kevin brady, criticizing the proposals not only on the tax side, it also the spending side. [video clip] >> prices are growing faster than paychecks every month. how does it make sense that he found another 3.5 trillion dollars that will drive prices up higher and last longer? when businesses are fighting to recover from the covid pandemic, how well raising taxes help them get back on their feet? after the u.s. leapfrogged the most competitive economy in the world following republican tax reform, what are we thinking? saddling american businesses with higher tax rates than communist china and most of the world? especially when it guarantees u.s. jobs, research, manufacturing investment are

driven overseas. you remember. it happened all the time during the obama/biden white house. who gets hurt most? workers and communities pay the price when businesses are forced to send money to washington to be wasted, rather than invested in their workers. how does it make any sense to take more of what small businesses work so hard to earn, leaving them even less to spend on growing their business and hiring more? why in heaven's name are democrats exposing even more family-owned farms and businesses to the death tax? forcing them to sell their land or business to pay the irs rather than hand down their lifetime of work the next generation? this hurts multigenerational farms and women and minority-owned businesses. we look more like foreign countries favoring foreign companies and workers over american ones. no mistake, the tax bill raises

taxes on the middle class. just ask the liberal tax policy center that states nearly three quarters of workers will see higher taxes starting next year, and up to 90% in the future. host: if you want to see that hearing, you can find it at our website. a related story to keep an eye on, the washington post this morning with the headline, senate republicans say they will vote to allow a debt default, leaving democrats searching for a plan to avert an economic crisis. mitch mcconnell's rival -- why the kentucky republican is unfazed whenever he digs in on a political strategy. people in kentucky know he cannot be shamed into changing. that was representative john yarmuth. that was january 2020, and the context focused on how speaker pelosi's decision to hold

articles of impeachment. two years later democrats have set up a similar strategy that will force republicans to accept their fair share of the national debt. if this fails the federal government could run out of funding authority and enter another shutdown. and create a debt crisis that could rattle financial markets. senate republicans will not vote to increase the treasury's authority to keep borrowing, which is the same to -- which is the same as voting to allow a default. , has created a new rule out of whole cloth to justify his actions. let's hear from san angelo, texas. cliff, go ahead. caller: i found an interesting amenity go -- a minute ago when you were asking one of the callers about paying for -- the

corporations or the wealthy paying more you almost said, don't you think they ought to pay their fair share? but you stop yourself, i could tell. host: i wasn't going to say that at all, but go ahead. caller: that's fine, i apologize. that phrase, whether anyone knows it or not -- and i think there is a lot of people out there who have heard that phrase -- are very disgusted with it. it is a sick phrase. president biden the other day must have used it five times. nobody on the left can define what fair share actually is. if i asked people on the left, tell me what the figure is, really what it means is more. give me a minute here. let's identify what the rich pay. the top 1%, the top 1% pay 40%

of all taxes. the top 1%. the top 5% pay 71% of all taxes. the top 25% pay 87% of all taxes. and here's the kicker. the bottom 50% pay zero taxes. when you want to give a tax break and take it from the rich and give it to the middle class or the poor or however you want to say it, you are not giving them a tax break. you are giving them more of the money that the ones who are higher earners are making. host: that is cliff. let's hear from deborah, pennsylvania, on our support line. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. wow. mcconnell and the last caller, listen up, average americans.

for the last 40 years at least billionaires and millionaires have had their hands in our government for years. the tax code laws were changed. they make their money on investments. it is not taxed. they limited voting. the trickle-down economics was mostly float to the top. we kept, people. stop getting your information from facebook. host: as far as why you support the raising of these taxes, why is that? caller: because the wealthy people do not pay taxes. it is the working people that pay taxes. they make their money on investments. recently six u.s. treasury secretaries said there was, like, billions in unpaid taxes.

and biden wanted to increase funding for irs to collect some of those taxes. republicans fought tooth and nail against that, so that is out. i mean, wake up, people. host: it used to be in this country the rich were taxed enough to fund the military. now the middle class is asked to foot the whole bill, pay more tax, go into debt for everything. if viewer offer twitter saying, perhaps the tax code should be simplified. a flat rate for all except for those who are not earning enough to make a decent living. corporate taxes will eventually be paid by customers through higher prices. not sure how to solve that problem. when it comes to efforts on capitol hill on taxation and the 3.5 trillion dollars budget bill, the new york times highlights that centrist and progressive democrats have clashed over the size of the spending and legislation.

the scale and details of the taxes, prescription drug pricing, tax credits for the poor, the aggressiveness of credits to speed the energy sector, and much more. even items that are not priorities for mr. biden have open rifts. on friday one of the parties most outspoken progressives took aim at a crucial priority of several top democrats, including chuck schumer, saying she would resist attempts to repeal a cap on deductions for state and local property taxes that would aid high earners. scranton, pennsylvania. your next. caller: i support it, because first of all you have to eliminate these tax loopholes, which is probably not going to happen because of all of the rich politicians. they are all making money and avoiding taxes.

as far as individual wealthy people, their taxes should be raised because their quality of life will not change at all if they pay a little bit more. it is just greed. the corporations, i feel, the republicans say jobs will go away. it rewards corporations if they say, ok, we are going to hire five thousand people. ok, you get a lower tax rate. they deserve it. but can we just do that? host: that is about all i have. connie is bama in -- connie is in ohio. caller: maybe download that a little bit. you know, we've got people in congress that owes taxes. aoc. congress is getting rich, we are getting poorer.

i oppose it. it is socialist. we don't need it. our country is in enough heard and pain. it needs to end. get the place in order on capitol hill. $2.6 trillion, just social security. pay it. that is all i've got to say. host: that is connie. let's hear from alicia in hardy, virginia, on our support line. caller: hi there. we definitely have to think about proportions here, because it is not fair for us lower middle class, poor people to pay so much in taxes. we really have to look at proportions with corporations and businesses. and i do have a solution to the tax problem. if every able-bodied person works for the government two weeks out of the year, and if

you are an electrician, you work for the government for two weeks as an electrician. and you don't have to pay any taxes. everyone who works for the government two weeks out of the year pays no taxes. how about starting with that? host: what makes you think it would work? caller: i have run it through my head and several people, and it can be developed. it is an idea, and it can be developed. host: what makes you think it would work? caller: if every able-bodied person pays 10% of their salary, that is fine. but if you are working for the government two weeks out of the year, then you have to pay no taxes because you were doing the work you would normally pay for. you are paying for people to fix your roads and bridges, but if you are the one out there fixing the road and fixing the bridges, why should you pay for it?

host: let's hear from michael on our oppose line. hello. caller: thanks for taking my call. i think that chart you showed earlier about how much these rich people pay, buffet, bezos, bloomberg, and -- whoever. i'm no fan of these guys, but buffet pays $125 million, bezos four hundred $27 billion. host: that was the pro publica study. caller: they pay a lot of taxes. the 1% pay 40% of the taxes, and the 5% pay 70% of the taxes. that is from government studies. that is from government whatever. and that is true. and how much of a percentage do you want them to pay?

when you ask that woman who was opposed to this that is supporting raising the taxes, how much does she pay in taxes? does she pay $1 million? a lot of people do not pay any taxes at all. and that is correct. it is not fair for people to demonize the rich all of the time. one last point is that the people that -- when trump lowered the tax rate, so many people not jobs. unemployment was lowered. and that is where people get money. that is how people get money, and the rich are going to have to do that. host: richard in nashville, tennessee. hello. caller: good morning. pedro, i work for a grocery store. i will not get into the details, but they are a major player. they make $1.9 billion in profit

last year. it is common knowledge because it is a public company. normally i would not want anybody to be taxed, but with the rich when you $1.79 billion in total profit, that is after you have paid everybody. i understand you have to reinvest, but when you still pay your people minimum wage or a little better and hold back on how many people you hire, and most big companies will say, you will get 150 hours this week, so then the 40 hour week person gets knocked down, or a part-time person. 18 hours minimum a week in my situation, $10 an hour, and they get less hours.

i agree the big corporations need to be taxed heavy. do you know why? it it is a shell game. host: we will change gears a little bit and talk about issues of security. a recent deal signed by the u.s., u.k. and australia, what it means for security and possibly china. john schaus joining us for that next. later, we hear from brandeis university's michael willrich, author of a book on the history of the smallpox epidemic in the u.s. on the history of vaccine mandates. all that coming up on washington journal. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] >> coming up this week on c-span, homeland security

secretary mayorkas, fbi director christopher wray appear before congress on threats to the homeland. c-span3 will have live testimony on tuesday. the house homeland security committee on wednesday at 9:00 a.m. eastern. and federal reserve chair jerome powell holds a press conference this week. watch on c-span or listen on the radio have. head over to c-span.org for information or to stream video live, on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪

>> washington journal continues. host: our first guest is john schaus, international security program senior fellow at the center for strategic and international studies, a former policy advisor from 2013 to 2014. welcome. guest: thank you for having me. host: the united states, u.k. and australia, a new announcement when it comes to security measures. if you could come out set up what led to this being made. guest: let's start with what is

the announcement. it is an agreement between the u.s., australia and the u.k. to work on research and development, technology deployment and military capability development projects. the first piece of that, which president biden, prime minister morrison and prime minister johnson talked about, is that the three countries will work together to develop for australia a nuclear powered submarine program. it is a big deal, the crown jewel of u.s. military capability, and so far, we have only shared that with the u.k. based on a 1958 treaty, so a long-standing cooperation with a small number of close allies. what is the background? there are two prongs. the region in the indo pacific, as the defense department

increasingly calls it, is not seen as stable. over the last 20 years, we have seen a range of activities from different countries, but especially china, changing how countries operate and what bounds they have to operate within. china famously built a number of islands, submerged reefs and caves, turned into runways and airstrips, military outposts in the south china sea. there is litigation about this in international courts, but the ruling is china has no opportunity to do that. that is the first piece. the second is australia is trying to find a way to preserve its sovereignty, its own decisions based in the indo pacific, and a close alliance with the u.s. has been part of that decision process for 70 years. this is just the next step. host: you mentioned china.

many voices within the administration saying this is not about china, but a lot of the reporting says it was. i want to play some comments from the defense secretary that he made wednesday about the agreement. his perspective and then we will get yours. [video clip] >> this is not aimed at anything or anyone. the intent here is to help improve our trilateral cooperation and our cockle -- and our capabilities across the board. the first step is to focus on helping australia acquire a nuclear powered submarine capability, and we are going to work on that going forward and that's exciting and it is exciting because it will provide australia additional flexibility and capability and i think will

be very beneficial to all of us going forward. but we will continue to explore many of the things that you just mentioned in terms of greater and more frequent engagement, air capabilities, more training opportunities for ground forces, and increasing our logistical footprint and australia as well. host: mr. shouse -- schaus, he seemed it is not aimed at a particular country. what do you think? guest: you can say that and it can be true but not entirely true. as i said, the region is changing largely because of how china is pushing itself more aggressively comment changing how it engages with other countries, trying to limit other

countries to operate as sovereign countries. australia is taking steps to improve its security, improve its relationships with other entries, and it is not specifically aimed at china, but china's action are the main driver behind it. if australia needs those submarines or different partnerships or capabilities to address problems other than china, that's also a useful tool to have. host: there was a response from a spokesperson from the foreign ministry. china believes any regional mechanism should contribute to enhancing mutual trust and cooperation between regional countries and they go on to say that countries should abandon cold war -- abandon the cold war zero-sum mentality and do

more to contribute to the regional peace and development. what do you think? guest: it is getting a little tired. china has used some variation of that response in response to any action of any country in the region for 15 years, but it does not discuss, for example, in the year 2000 and, china's navy had 110 ships. it is estimated to have 100 -- to have 480 ships. they are changing the calculus and taking steps that are causing countries in the region to have questions about what china's intents part, because no other country has increased its posture in anything near that way. host: if you want to weigh in,

here is your chance. democrats, (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to text questions or comments, you can do so at (202) 748-8003. you talked about this change in posture china has taken. what has led to that and what is the influence of the current president, xi jinping? guest: china has for decades had several key driving considerations for its foreign policy, but at the top, china views his country differently than most of the world does. china believes taiwan is part of china and any independent government in taiwan is a long-standing problem that needs to be resolved and it wants to reabsorb taiwan. much of its military

modernization is based on the idea of how much military does china need to retake taiwan? that is probably the biggest driver in how china's military has grown and developed over the last 30 years. host: when it then comes to this announced deal and in terms of retaliation, what can china do in response? guest: we will have to wait and see. china has shown a high level of creativity in its policy actions, particularly since xi jinping became president. he has been president for almost 10 years. his second term is set to expire late this year, early next, but most analysts assume he will try to change the last 40 years of chinese history and go for a third term, which suggests he will take stronger steps and feel more emboldened when

changes are made in his direction. host: john starts us off this morning in mechanicsville, new york, republican line. you are on the john schaus. go ahead. caller: thank you. i have been pretty concerned about china for a while. i mean, you mentioned other things regarding china expanding militarily. and not just a military threat but an economic threat. i think sooner or later, there might be some miscalculation in that region because of the way they have been destabilizing it, and i think this country ought to move forward with a -- forward in a very vigorous manner, shoring up the defenses of not just japan and south korea and vietnam, but we should start paying more attention in india.

-- in india. they are a counterweight to china. our economic relationships in the region should be nurtured and built up. and i realize that china might give north korea a little more leeway in its aggressive behavior, but this is not going to go away. this is probably going to get worse. i believe, anyway, at some point, there might be a confrontation vis-a-vis taiwan and we have to be ready for it, and quite frankly, right now, i am uninspired by the current administration and who is in command. i do not know lloyd austin's qualifications. i mean, i know he is qualified, i have concerns. guest: the india point is an excellent issue and we are going

to see a little of that later this week, where the leaders, the president and prime ministers of the u.k., india and australia will meet for a conversation amongst like-minded democracies that explores many of the issues the caller mentioned, economic security, trade, investment, setting rules for the world. we heard from both secretary austen and secretary blinken earlier this week and their australian counterparts how central that will be for u.s. actions in the endo-pacific in the coming years. i think beyond that, what we are seeing is an increasing connection both between the u.s. and countries in the region and amongst each other because all the countries, including the u.s., understand that china is

operating effectively and quickly, and if we are going to preserve that space for national decision-making, it will take a combination of countries, it cannot be won on its own. host: the viewer spoke about his worries as far as miscalculation in responses to china. what is your level of concern on that? guest: it is a fair concern. if china wents countries to illuminate the cold war mindset, one thing the u.s. and soviet union did well was have regular engagements, regular summits and leaders could talk correctly -- talk directly to one another and say here is what i see, here is what i might have to do. right now, it has been many months since xi jinping has been outside of china, has allowed other leaders to visit china, so

the opportunities for those levels of engagement are really not there, and even when they are there, they are not perhaps as frequent as they would need to be and we have seen a slowdown in those engagements, probably since president obama met xi jinping years ago. host: bob in maryland on the independent line, you are on with our guest. go ahead. guest: what is that -- caller: what is the u.s. government doing about the hypocrisy of china? -- taiwan and hong kong and other territorial issues. client the same time china has been, what, especially with respect to north korea? why doesn't the u.s. government bring that up? and certainly, south korea knew about it, and this current south

korean government -- i mean, what's up with that? guest: that's an excellent question. my read on that is, at least on the u.s.-south korea dynamic right now, the president and south korea has a strong view of where south korea is and where he wants to take it. i think so far this administration has been pretty willing to work with and under the communication strategy of president moon. what we see below the headline level is an increase and sustainment of day-to-day connections, contacts, activities and exercises both in diplomacy and the military side, so while we are not seeing much noise, we see progress at the working levels.

host: i national security strategy was released earlier this year. i want your response. it says by restoring u.s. credibility and forward-looking global leadership, we want to make sure america, not china, is setting the agenda, by bolstering and defending our network of allies and partners and making smart investments, deterring china's aggression. that is the statement. do you think this agreement reflects that philosophy? guest: it does. a key part of that is bringing in the united kingdom. this is not simply a u.s.-australia agreement but a multilateral agreement with countries from multiple arts of the world working together to achieve a common objective --

from multiple parts of the world working together to achieve a common objective china want -- objective. china wants to create agreements that are bilateral, where they have the stronger position because they have the larger economy. when china sees multilateral agreements, whether things like the u.s.-australia-k agreement, aukus, or the association of southeast asian nations, the 10-country bloc, or things like the quad, the chinese are uncomfortable with those and pushes back against them vigorously because they see them as constraining china, even if it is not about china at all. host: brett in new york, go ahead.

caller: good morning. my reading of history would seem to indicate that the circumstances now surrounding us and of china and australia and england are similar to the circumstances surrounding world war i. it was germany who decided to go -- to build a big navy ticket with the british. -- big navy to compete with the british. the germans felt they were surrounded by other countries. i think it is important that each country let's the other country know what they want and what they are willing to do in advance. there cannot be any misunderstanding between us because that's where problems, physical problems, like your comment on that -- guest: that is a pretty apt

historical analogy, recognizing that it is not perfect. mark twain told us it rhymes. one of the things i think is noteworthy is when leaders at the president and xi jinping level have engaged directly and said this is a problem, we have seen improvements. most notably, when president obama and xi jinping met six years ago, president obama there has been a lot of hacking and espionage through cyber means going on in the u.s. and it needs to stop. we saw progress on that. the rate of malicious activities slowed down. over time, he picked up again and we have not had the opportunity to address why, between president xi jinping and president biden, how we turn those off.

so i agree. those direct leader-top-leader linkages are important. host: among the countries involved, is there a clear sense how far one will go supporting the other? guest: i think yes and no. two interesting points. the initial step is nuclear powered submarine development. the first phase of that is in 18 months -- is an 18-month design plan, where the countries work out what they need to do to get started on this. so even the initial phase will not be a rapid turnaround. second, when you read what australia is writing and what their leaders are saying about their current use of submarines -- so, australia already uses submarines. so, really, the submarines it

has are expected to run through 2040 and beyond, so replacement submarines, nuclear submarines, will probably not be needed or look for until at least 2040, so this agreement is a big important --is a big, important step but a long road and i think any over excitement about things are going to change immediately, we should not expect to see that. host: as far as the subs themselves, what is the value? guest: the main advantages of nuclear submarines compared to diesel submarines as you have effectively and unlimited power supply because the nuclear submarines because -- submarines have all or half of the fuel for their entire lifecycle already in the reactor. they don't have to refuel, they don't have issues managing

batteries, they don't have to come to the surface to release exhaust. therefore it has greater range, going for thousands of miles without ever rising the surface. it has more power so it can go faster. and because of the exquisite nature of the technology, it can run wider. those are the key attributes. australia's main naval bases and facilities are in the south and west largely, which are far from anywhere australia might need to use those submarines, whether the northern indian ocean, managing sea lines of communication to the middle east , whether it is the south china sea or farther north and east, near japan or taiwan. host: our guest's with the center for strategic and international studies, john schaus, served at the dod as a regional policy advisor.

give us a sense of what you did. guest: and the pentagon, i spent two years working on issues that cover the indo pacific and try to help knit together specific regional offices that work together on issues that cross from one region to another, so communications, exercise planning, so that we are getting both the most efficient use of our forces, but maybe knit those together in a more cohesive plan. host: from austin, texas, republican line, nancy is next. caller: two separate things. why don't we mind our own business? that would be nice for a change. and whenever anybody talks about

multilateral -- multilateral bad, bilateral good -- i do not want multilateral government. and it is interesting they are concerned about them gaining more power over us. does anybody understand that we have borrowed so much money from china -- they have bought our debt -- that we have to borrow money to pay the interest on our national debt? when you encourage people in d.c. to spend more money, the federal reserve bank is creating that money out of thin air, so that's where inflation comes from and the more we do that, the more we go in debt and we have to pay more money to china to stay out of debt and we will default. money does not grow on trees. host: gotcha, collared. mr. shouse? -- mr. schaus?

guest: that is something we can keep an eye on. in terms of multilateral versus bilateral, that is something we can have a conversation on. what is the appropriate use? right now, president biden and many presidents before him have made the judgment that one of the united states's key strengths is our alliances. no other country has the number or depth of allies the u.s. has on military technology, economic issues, and that allows us to leverage their capabilities, markets and government systems to advance our interests. whether that is the way the u.s. wants to pursue things in the future or not is an open question, but i would be a fan of it continuing. host: when it comes to other matters of diplomacy and

international affairs, one of the things that came out was the response from the french. one viewer asking for you to explain why the french are so angry about the change in strategy that ultimately cut them out of the deal. guest: we will see more on this in the coming days, but there are several interrelated issues regarding the relationship. i will try and be brief, but australia just broke a $70 billion contract with france to supply submarines. that came about after an intense competition a number of years ago, where australia was looking at different submarine designs and france offered them a nuclear powered submarine. australia said no. we do not want a nuclear submarine. it is too complicated. it is politically challenging. that is not a bridge we want to cross. there have been redesign

efforts, delays. australia has been getting frustrated with france. when australia not only broke the contract with france but did so in order to get a capability they said they did not want to france was upset about that. they expected a contract to help its own economy, its own industrial base, many enterprises that provide pieces of those submarines. host: to follow up on that, sir, it was the response of the french moran -- french foreign minister, who said it is a stab in the back. trust was betrayed. what concerns me is the american behavior as well. this unilateral, unpredictable decision looks very much like what mr. trump used to do. allies do not do this to each other.

insufferable. diplomatically, does this go away? how do we resolve this? guest: it will be hard to resolve. another reason france is particularly upset is because they were not informed of the agreement until hours were hand. we are seeing the question, whose job was it to tell france? time will uncover the full story for us, but for france to have been so committed to a partnership with australia and to really be investing in that, to have it literally taken away and put in a different place, they do not have time to understand or process what is happening, so it is understandable that they would be upset. in terms of where the relationship between australia and the u.s. goes, france is a

significant presence in the indo-pacific. it has numerous islands, about two million people, 2 million french citizens that live in the indo-pacific, advanced maritime claims in that region, so france will continue to be a strong presence there, but the real question will be how willing are they and will they be in the near and midterm to engage with the u.s., australia or other countries there in ways to strengthen their position and others positions together? host: we will hear from andre, andriy and sumter, south carolina, democrats line. caller: my question is about that meeting. could you tell me why they were so -- tour each other during that time at that meeting in alaska?

why were they so bitter toward each other at that time? guest: that is a great question and i can i answer all of it, but i can say that u.s.-china relations, for many years, were on a consistent upswing paralleling our economic relationship. as the u.s. invested in china and china sold us more things, we had a positive some relation ship their relationship has been deteriorating -- positive sum relationship. that relationship has been deteriorating over the past 12 years. over the past five years, it has gotten specifically problematic, where, for example, certain chinese companies like while way have been accused of

violating u.s. sanctions, and we have seen huawei executives arrested for that. as a result, china has arrested people. there is this level of acrimony building where china thinks the u.s. is trying to strain -- to constrain it, despite robust trade, and the u.s. feels that china is trying to undermine the u.s.'s position and an international system where countries can meet as peers. we have seen a ratcheting up of rhetoric from both sides. host: bruce is in maryland on our independent line. bruce, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i hate to go back to the

u.s.-australia submarine thing, because i know that is not your guest's main expertise, but i have a question based on what he said earlier. he said the first 10 years will be planning and design. these things will not be deployed until the 2000 40's or 2000 50's. my question is, why, as a sop to the france, with a not let france and on that, bring france into it as a way to assuage them? i am amazed at the biden administration's lack of smart missy with this. -- smart diplomacy with this. guest: good question. i may have misspoken. the planning stage is 18 months.

they will work out all the things they need to learn about each other and how to execute a plan, but you are right that will probably be the late 2030's or early 2040's before the first submarine is delivered. the u.s. is only ever shared nuclear technology with the united kingdom. that is the key driver of why the u.s., u.k. and australia. france, you are right, has extensive experience with submarines, propulsion, driving those systems, but one of australia's ministers earlier this week made the statement that, in reviewing the potential for a french nuclear submarine, it did not offer the same capabilities as a u.s. or u.k. system, so i think a combination of australia's judgment that the capabilities france has are not what it needs

and the really difficult knot of sharing such important technology with france -- or anyone, not just france, other than the u.k. -- to share it with australia is hard enough. any other country would be even harder. host: (202) 748-8000 democrats, (202) 748-8001 republicans, (202) 748-8002 independents. when it comes to the biden administration's approach to china, to the differences and similarities with the obama administration? guest: the first similarity is willingness to have a conversation. the message from the biden administration, russia, china, others is we are open and willing to have a dialogue with you.

we want to understand where you are at, what your concerns are and we will tell you what hours are. where it is different is the biden administration has. for many of the same processes with china that the trump administration did. it is pursuing an aggressive multilateral agenda -- and one of the things i think the obama administration did is it started from the premise that you need china involved in all its major objectives, and therefore it was willing to push the envelope on what was possible and, in hindsight perhaps, was willing to give away things that perhaps we should have held onto a little bit harder or negotiated farther on. . and so the biden administration has a much clearer-eyed view.

we have had 12 years of experience since the obama administration started tracking what china does, its interests, what it will do for its own reasons and what it might be willing to do in other's faces, and that clear eyed assessment is useful. host: jeanette in florida says too bad republicans killed the transpacific partnership, which would have boosted stability in the region. guest: for those who don't know, the transpacific partnership was pioneered by countries in asia and the u.s. began to participate in those negotiations in the middle of the obama administration, with the idea that they would rue an agreement through congress -- push through an agreement through congress creating a

trade agreement throughout asia, but because of both intellectual and labor concerns, china would not have been eligible to join. the obama administration did not get that done and one of the first actions that president trump took was to remove the united states from those discussions, so if economic engagement is important for the region, for the u.s., and many would say it is, the u.s. took away one of its best tools to do so through the tpp. there have been other agreements negotiated. there is something called the ctppp, which is the transpacific partnership-lite, basically, which includes a number of countries in asia but not the u.s.. interestingly, after the aukus

agreement was announced, china signal that they would like to join that other agreement, so we may see a regional trade alignment where countries in the region are treating more with china because it is willing to sign onto these agreements that make it easier to trade and the united states is reluctant to do so and so we have a more complicated trade relationship. host: from monro, wisconsin, independent line. caller: i have to ask. this fellow, john schaus, he has the qualifications to be telling us this? how do you make the senior fellow when you are that young? i mean, is it all schooling? is there training? host: let's give mr. shouse the chance to give his resume. guest: i will take that as a

compliment. thank you. i have spent the last 20 years working in foreign policy, security policy, both in think tanks and the government. i spent four years at the pentagon. i spent a number of years at csis. since leaving, i have worked at the u.s. army war college as a researcher and started my career actually living in china for two years. i arrived in china right before 9/11, when the promise of better relations and cooperative ties between the u.s. and china was really a thing and people thought it could happen. time has shown that that probably was not right but the time i did spend their has helped shaped my view over what is possible and impossible and the drivers that influence people's decision-making within china.

host: nancy in texas, hi. go ahead. caller: every single decision the biden administration has made thus far has put us deeper in the fronds of war in this country. they are so concerned with what policy in -- with woke policy in every decision. host: when it comes to china, what do you want to ask? nancy hung up. but as far as your time spent in china, your time with the administration, where do we go from here? where does the biden administration go from here? guest: i think one of the things we have seen from china consistently over many years is

it is willing to try many small things, whether building an island in the south china sea or pushing back in diplomatic forms or trying to get leadership positions in the united nations, and it is trying these things to see what works. and so i think what the biden administration and any u.s. administration should keep an eye on is which of those actions are benign? china seeking leadership in human bodies is probably normal for a nation with as much clout as -- leadership in united nations bodies is probably normal for a nation with as much clout as china. other things i thin the u.s. should push back against, not just rhetorically but in action, convince china that is serious about how bad those actions are.

china has recalibrated, slowed down, thought about things, and it may try them again several years later, but it buys a little time. so when you think of an action that you may think is pushing toward war, it is creating an ability to convince china that this is something we don't like, that is a good discussion to have. host: independent line, florida. guest: doesn't our guest agree that to stand up to china and the coming elections in germany next week, the green party is the only one that says to stand up to china and russia and -- host: what do you have about u.s. policies when it comes to china? caller: does he agree that it will be better if the green

party wins next sunday's elections because they are the only ones -- host: ok. you can respond. guest: let me use that to talk about climate change, which was a big topic for the obama administration in cooperation with china and they got significant agreements on how to meet internationally accepted standards for reducing carbon emissions. that was not a priority for the trump administration, but we still saw china taking big strides and setting ambitious goals, so one of the things we have learned from that is that, for its own domestic reasons, whether pollution, soil erosion or other issues, china will start implementing a more aggressive climate change plan domestically. i think that is great, but we need to recognize that we don't need to give as much or

negotiate as hard for china to do those things because it will do them on its own, so maybe our efforts should be prioritized other places -- prioritized in other places. host: our guest serves at the center for strategic and international studies, john schaus. thank you for your expertise and for your time. coming up, we hear from brandeis university's michael willrich, a historian who wrote a book on the history of the smallpox vaccine, and we will talk about the history of vaccine mandates. we will have that conversation when washington journal continues. ♪

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go to c-spanshop.org. >> washington journal continues. host: our next guest is michael willrich, with brandeis university, professor of history, and author of the book pox, looking at the smallpox independent -- smallpox epidemic. thank you for coming. tell us what was going on at the time as far as the outbreak and the response to it at the time when it comes to vaccines. guest: at the turn of the 20th century, 100 20 years ago, smallpox epidemics raged across the u.s. some were quite serious, like in new york, philadelphia, new orleans, boston, where hundreds of people were dying rapidly of this contagious disease. elsewhere, a newer and milder

form of the disease was breaking out very rapidly. public health officials responded aggressively with compulsory vaccination measures for schoolchildren, at the borders, for travelers, people in workplaces, and there was massive resistance. that speaks to the clash of scientific authority and american democracy, which is very much at the heart of my book. host: going back to thanksgiving day, you give historical perspective. a vaccination squad moved onto west 59th street new york, doctors beginning a campus of all the blocks, beginning with children. the health department called for a thorough investigation of each case followed by immediate vaccination of all public contacts. everyone would have to bear their arms for the vaccines. -- have to bare their arms for

the vaccines. how did they make that happen? guest: they would inspect the arms in a crowded neighborhood. they do not trust vaccine certificates would be authentic and they would ask people to roll up their sleeves and look for the distinctive scar produced by a smallpox vaccine. if they did not find one, they would vaccinate people on this lot. people refused to be vaccinated -- if the people refused to be vaccinated, and in many instances, in working-class communities at the turn-of-the-century, health officials would forcibly vaccinate people. host: what happened to those back then who refused the vaccine? guest: there were criminal penalties involved.

people could be brought into court for the "crime" of refusing vaccination and charged usually with relatively minor offenses, but nonetheless, a fine, or if they failed to pay the fine, a brief period of jail time, so this is no joke and vaccine mandates were carried out with real seriousness of purpose. let's say that. host: with that in mind, a host of legal situations, civil liberties concerns rise from that. talk about that. guest: yeah. there was a sweeping response among the american people from this. a vast majority of people complied in some form or another with getting vaccinated, but many resisted. this ranged from forming anti-vaccination societies or leagues, local bodies that would

run people for the school board to oppose vaccine mandates or would actually seek to overturn the vaccination laws, or mount litigation. there were also more every day forms of resistance, people fleeing when vaccinators approached their homes, parents refusing to have their children vaccinated, marching their children to the schoolhouse doors en masse and demanding their children be educated, and an entire body of legal challenges came out of this at the state and ultimately the federal level, culminating in a famous supreme court case in 1905. host: we will discuss that with michael willrich, professor at brandeis, author of pox. if you want (202) 748-8000 (202) 748-8000 to ask questions, for those of you in the eastern time

zones and central time zones, (202) 748-8001 mountain pacific time zones. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. twitter handle is @cspanwj. the parallels between then and today -- what are they? guest: in this wave of epidemics i am talking about, one of the leading officials in the u.s. called the u.s. the least vaccinated of any civilized country. we don't use terms like civilization now to talk about people who are vaccinated or not , but right now, we are facing a crisis in the u.s. of under vaccination compared to the goals of our health officials, and it is a really serious situation, and there are parallels in the kinds of arguments that people are making against vaccine mandates.

there are parallels in the efforts of health officials to get these vaccine mandates in place, in particular to ensure that schoolchildren are in as safe as possible of an environment, but what's really new, and we can talk about this with some of the callers, is the level of authority here, the fact that the president of the united states is involved with some of these questions. that speaks to how the political system has changed since 1900. host: let's start there. you have talked about the president and the efforts he is making. back at the time of your book, was it the power of the federal government or state? guest: at the time, the turn-of-the-century, the power

of the federal government was strong in places, like at the border. vaccination was mandated as you entered at ellis island, san francisco, or laredo, texas, so you could not enter the united states without proof of vaccination, and the u.s. had plenary power in the district of columbia and in the territories, but for much of the country, the federal government was irrelevant to the whole question. the president could use the bully pulpit -- as roosevelt famously termed it -- to persuade the public by moral suasion or bullying, however you want to see it, to get vaccinated, but really, state and local governments had the main authority, which is called the police power, power to interfere with individual liberty or property rights in

the name of the general welfare. in the police power, historically, public health was an easy case. host: when you look at the president's actions, what do you see from that in the context of history? guest: today, what president five has been doing has been interesting. he entered the vaccine mandate situation very cautiously, i think. he waited a long time, waited for fda approval and a little. i vaccines. the early problem was getting vaccine production up. once there was fda approval, he started to push forward with vaccine mandates. i think he and his advisers made a series of judgments that i consider sound about where the president has authority today, not 1900 but in the 21st century

, so looking at the vaccine mandates among federal employees , the military services, and then large employers using administrative state powers, regulatory authority through occupational health and safety. so i expect challenges to a lot of this and challenges have been promised, but it has been quite interesting to see a president really tried to take the reins on this issue at a time when the governors around the united states are so divided on the question of vaccine mandates. host: michael willrich of brandeis university. our guest starts us off. you were on. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. mr. willrich, i was hoping you might address the role of

informed consent in vaccine mandates and how important work on important that is. thank you. guest: thank you for your question. this is very much a question raised by the anti-vaccination or anti-compulsory vaccination groups, as they called them, during the smallpox epidemic in the early 20th century. what is informed consent has two elements to it -- blake, what do we know, and what are we willing to do or take into our bodies? the argument is that we do not know enough, that the vaccine is mysterious, and many anti-vaccinationists at the time considered it to be hocus-pocus,

some sort of state-mandated witchcraft, and believed they had their own way of handling health, through natural cures, sanitation, or sunlight that would keep them healthy. and so consent became a big part of this question. if they don't believe in the vaccines, must they be compelled? they made strong arguments about liberty, about their personal right to follow what they consider to be their conscience, and we see arguments very much like that today. and you asked about should, and i am a historian, a social scientist. "should" is not something i really talk about a lot, but i think to the extent that vaccine mandates can be pursued with the broadest possible support in our democratic society, obviously

that is hugely important. host: how often did religious beliefs factor into someone not wanting to take the vaccine back then? guest: so there were not religious exemptions at the turn-of-the-century. there really were not exemptions of any kind. this is one of the things that people push forward. there were really some different religious sects that pushed these cases further than others, so the christian science movement in the early 20th century actually came out officially, like, we are going to keep a hands-off policy from the church in regard to compulsory vaccination, but christian science members were actually involved in many of the lawsuits against compulsory vaccination in the period between 1890 eight and 19 know

three, and it is raising religious liberty questions, the argument essentially that our religious beliefs -- essentially not that our religious beliefs do not conform to this. the argument was this is a state-enforced, plaza religious ceremony, a kind of bloodletting. that was the kind of rhetoric used at the time. caller: two periods of time, world war i, partly ended by the spanish flu, but the big thing was 1947 in new york city when they had the smallpox invasion. people did not want to take it

either at that time, shortly after world war ii, so those who did not want to were strapped down and injected. if they got violent, they were arrested. if not, they were released. this is at a time where if you do not take it you are going to die if you don't. you should not have exemptions. it has nothing to do with your belief. that's it. guest: just to respond to the new york episode, my memory of it is different, which is that, when there was an outbreak of smallpox in new york shortly after war were to, a health official raise the alarm and called for people to get vaccinated and people did actually voluntarily. historians have tried to sort this out a little bit, like,

what made their reaction so different. one of the main arguments was that people had to come out of a wartime experience. they were used to making sacrifices for the general good and work less suspicious of government -- and were less suspicious of government. and the case of smallpox they were dealing with was classic deadly smallpox, a disease that kills 25% to 30% of everybody infected. the case fatality rate is high. host: mr. willrich, you talk about those who got vaccinated and how that process went. how are those who were sick treated? what happened to them? guest: in the year that i look

at, people who were sick from smallpox needed to be hospitalized if possible, but the hospital system was so spare that families generally took care of their sick in their own homes and actually tried to keep the authorities in the dark about that they had smallpox-infected family members because, if there were no known cases in the household, particularly in an immigrant, working-class household, the authorities might actually come in and take people and put them in isolation hospitals. i have a bunch of episodes i found in the new york newspapers at the turn of the 20th century of struggles on the streets between police and mothers holding their babies who had -- who were infected with smallpox, and the police actually fighting with mothers to take babies from

their arms and to take them to an isolation hospital in the middle of these forever, on an island -- in the middle of the east river, on an island. treatment, there was firstly no real treatment for smallpox. the treatment involved keeping comfortable -- keeping people comfortable to the extent possible, treating fever, compresses and things like that. smallpox involved a sort of your option of a bloody rash on the bodies of the patients that caused profound discomfort, so that was the main form of treatment. people who died ultimately died of respiratory failure or a disease attacking their internal organs, and those who survived survived with medical consequences.

one was that they were immune for life, which was good. the other was that, very often, they suffered from scarring of the face, because smallpox really ravages the face. you see people walking around in american communities with really heavy pock marks on their face. host: let's hear from virginia, sarasota, florida. caller: yes. it wasn't smallpox created in a laboratory funded by our government -- was smallpox created in a laboratory funded by our government? guest: no. smallpox is ancient. we are not sure when smallpox made the leap from an animal, possibly a rodent, into the human population, but it could have been as long as 10,000 years ago. there is evidence from some mummies of smallpox scars on ancient people.

so it has been around for a very long time, as long as many viruses. host: brandy is in alabama. -- randy is in alabama. caller: i ain't took the shot, i won't take the shot, they can't make me take the shot, but if they try to make me take the shot, i will be going. host: we will leave it there. guest: understood. vaccine mandates are pretty deeply rooted in american legal tradition, going back to the 19th century. there is always resistance to vaccine mandates or concerns about vaccine mandates. arguments like the one you just made were very familiar in the early 20th century, and i will

give you one example of a staten island, new york man who sent his children to school on the first day of school in 1910 with a note to the principal saying if anyone tries to vaccinate my children, i will shoot them, so these kinds of arguments are familiar to me as a historian. host: michael willrich, then, can you talk about the quality of the vaccine at the time, the smallpox vaccine at the time of the operate? guest: the vaccine for smallpox is the oldest of all vaccines. it dates back to the 1790's. the insight that country milkmaid's in rural england seemed to be -- country milkmaids in rural england

seemed to be immune from smallpox but had these little scars from cowpox on their hand. the insight was that cowpox, the material, the oozing sores on the underbelly's of camps -- the material from the oozing sores on the underbellies of calves, immunize them to smallpox -- immunized them to smallpox. the inside of vaccination is from that. the vaccine was still harvested from the underbellies of calves. it was more in a sort of quasi

-laboratory setting, but it was unregulated. back pain, government officials compel people to be vaccinated during serious outbreaks of smallpox, but there was no serious regulation of vaccine manufacturers, so this is an unregulated commercial enterprise. so the vaccines produced were of a varied quality, and safety and effectiveness. the reaction to the vaccine ranged from a fever and a sore arm for several days, leading to people going without work for a few days with no compensation from their employers, all the way up to tetanus being introduced to the body from what

was believed to be compulsory vaccination in a few cases, so there was a range of concern about the quality and effectiveness of the vaccines before any kind of regulation at all of the industry. host: michael willrich is our guest, author of pox: an american history, and a professor at brandeis university. guest: this is a family who years ago gave money to the university in honor of the family to create a chair of history, so i am honored to have that chair. host: let's hear from brian, east sandwich, massachusetts. hi. sorry, i forgot to push the button. go ahead. caller: thank you for letting me ask the gentleman, the

professor, a couple questions. how does this relate to -- i understand president abraham lincoln contracted smallpox. also, there is a western movie starring robert duvall, where the other cowboys are distributing blankets with smallpox. in them . and general amherst was known to distribute blankets with smallpox. is this true? thanks for listening to me and i think this is a great show. thank you. host: thank you. guest: thank you for those questions. let me speak to the abraham lincoln story, which i find to be the most compelling. the story that i have heard is

that when abraham lincoln delivered the gettysburg address was feverish and sick and when he got back to d.c. it was confirmed he had smallpox. he suffered through that in the white house. and again, at that time, smallpox killed about a quarter of the people it infected, so it is really terrible to contemplate what might have happened. host: mary in connecticut, hi. caller: my question is why nobody asked certain questions. are there no structures in the human body that could be affected by the spike proteins on the coronavirus? when pfizer applied for its

emergency authorization, the ceo sold his stock immediately, which does not engender great confidence. were there any breakthroughs from the smallpox vaccines or the polio vaccines where people actually contracted the disease after getting the vaccination? number four, in 1989, we changed our requirements for childhood vaccine, which we were using 74 aborted fetuses to develop them and we did not require animal testing because we realized it was someone -- host: ok. we will leave it there. guest: so one of the main things that was just said, which is so interesting to me today, and it ties right into the concerns raised by anti-vaccinationists

in the 20th century was the feeling that compulsory vaccination was the design or product of a corrupt conspiracy between commercial vaccine-makers, who were seeking profits, and state lawmakers, who be bought off, and, yeah, and public health officials, right? and this was part of a larger project of what was called state medicine, right, the sort of effort by the government to sort of takeover medicine from the people -- of takeover medicine from the people. those concerns were widespread and tied into broader concerns about corporate capitalism at the turn of the 20th century. they resonated with some people. out of the operate science topping about 100 20 years ago,

congress -- out of the outbreaks i am talking about 120 years ago, congress put in place a system of licensing and regulation, establishing a bare-bones system that would be elaborated over the of the 20th century for the regulation of vaccine production to make sure that vaccines were safe and effective. host: mr. willrich, then, before we run out of time with you, the supreme court got involved with this case. what was the result and who did it apply to? guest: this is a remarkable case and i used to teach it before i even wrote this book. they used to be obscure and we hear a lot of talk about it today because it is a paradigm

atic blog case in the u.s. dealing with an epidemic. -- cambridge, massachusetts, quite a few people are dying. it is a serious outbreak. the local health board, under the authority of state law, massachusetts law, orders the public to get vaccinated. everybody who has not been vaccinated in the past five years must get vaccinated immediately or pay a fine. there were considerable numbers of people trying to hide out from the vaccinators, but one person, a swedish lutheran minister, when the health officials came to his door, refused to be vaccinated and was

brought before the local police court, tried and found guilty, and the state anti-vaccination league supported his case and went to the state supreme court and all the way to the u.s. supreme court. jacobson and his lawyers raised concerns about vaccine safety, but also fundamental questions about personal liberty they claimed compulsory vaccination violated the right inherent to every free person to take care of their body the way they see it, that compulsory vaccination was arbitrary, unreasonable, and a violation of the u.s. constitution. they cited the preamble to the constitution, the we the people section, the 14th amendment, arguing for a due process and equal protection.

the supreme court ultimately ruled against jacobson and in favor of the state of massachusetts, holding that compulsory vaccination measures were perfectly constitutional. justice john marshall harlan, really one of my favorite supreme or justices just because of his interesting background and some of his opinions, compared compulsory vaccination to the right of governments to repel an invasion, a military invasion, and he compared the right of the government to mandate vaccinations, to requiring individuals to get vaccinated, to the right to conscript individuals into the armed forces during an invasion. he said that real liberty could not exist without some restraints upon the members of society in the name of the general welfare, so really send a strong statement. he also said, though, that,

look, the courts will keep an eye on these cases and will be ready to step in if compulsory vaccination measures are carried out in a way that is unreasonable, arbitrary, excessively coercive, and he implied that there ought to be an exemption, for whom vaccination -- there ought to be an exemption for people for whom vaccination poses a medical threat. an amazing case. host: are there any precedents from that that could be carried forward with the president's vaccine mandate? guest: it will be interesting to see what comes from this. there is a case from 1920 where the supreme court also upholds school vaccination mandates. so the two combined cases are

important precedents in this case, this case, the situation. when covid-19 first started spreading widely across the u.s. and governments started instituting things like mask mandates and the like, public health measures, and there were challenges to those, states, judges and federal judges, looked to jacobson as their guide. the one exception was around questions of religious freedom and whether regulations affecting churches, for example, could be constitutional under the first amendment. so the supreme court, we are still getting to know this court , and, you know, how far they are willing to go in certain areas to overturn long-standing precedent or to modify it, and i would not make a

prediction. i would say that, particularly while the epidemic is raging as it is today, that the supreme court will want to be quite -- have a quite deferential posture , but people will be looking pretty hard at the president's vaccine mandate and thinking about what the authority is in particular aspects of that and it will be interesting to see what comes out. host: from capitol heights, maryland, hello. caller: good morning. i have two comments i would like to get your guest's response on. i am an aboriginal american, indigenous to north america. there was a time when the u.s. government used to taint blankets with smallpox given to the native americans. my people used to take care of the native americans but first

we had to build up immunity to the smallpox, so we used to take a pin, stick it into the pus of the smallpox and scratch the skin, and that is how we built immunity. today, we are talking about an experimental drug the u.s. -- drug. the way the u.s. deals with experimental drug's is -- we had the nuremberg trials. you had the nuremberg trials that tried these people and found most of them guilty for imposing and experimental drug on certain segments of society. an experimental drug that you are trying to say they vaccine, it appears that you are misspeaking. and we need to have a second nuremberg trial in the united

states to deal with this -- host: i will emphasize again the fda approving the pfizer vaccine, but that said, mr. willrich, go ahead. guest: i went to grab onto one particular aspect of what the colleges said, which is important -- the caller just said, which is important, which is that historically, and i am talking about the 19th century and the early 20th century, public health measures were very frequently carried out anyway that was discriminatory, discriminatory on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, so that in the african-american community, for example, smallpox

vaccination mandates were carried out with force, coercion. similarly, in immigrant working class communities in american cities, among native americans, areas of the u.s. during the period. the problem was more one of neglect of delivery of vaccines during that period and making them available. the caller also referred to a very old technology or approach to creating community from smallpox called inoculation. this was using vaccine material or pus from a smallpox sore, putting live smallpox virus into the body which could produce a very strong reaction and an immune response without

necessarily causing a full-scale case of smallpox, and -- pedro, i think you already spoke to the question of is this an experimental vaccine we are dealing with today. i would just say that, it seems, to this laymen's eyes, there was a very extensive process of testing and waiting to see how these vaccines work when they were in a more experimental stage before granting approval. i have a fair amount of confidence in them. host: from sheldon, columbia, south carolina. caller:caller: good morning. good morning, c-span. good morning, mr. willrich. thank you for your service. i look at it through a different kind of optic, you know? my dad and mom went through the time of the tuskegee experiments

with the syphilis and everything like that. i do understand that. i came to south carolina in 1989. i was in florida. i have been finding since i have been here that a lot of versions of a flu shot or anthrax shot or now the coronavirus shot and everything, you know, from the time -- kind of slept it off and everything like that. people did not want to take it, and when people were dying of cobit or they were getting sick, they were saying, when is the vaccine coming out? now they are beating the band to say, well, the science is not right. what i have to say about it, as a military guy, somebody here in a state that is really low vaccinated, is that i am for mandates. i am for checking id's and

things like that and saying i have been inoculated because if there is any doubt in your mind that you could possibly get sick or die, and i'm 60, in the crosshairs and everything like that, i would, one, take the first and the second and i would take the booster and all of that. it is better to have it than not to have it. those people are dying. host: we are running short on time. i will stop you there but let our guest respond. guest: i want to say thank you very much for your service and for your comment. i think it is great when a range of public opinion be heard today on this show and i will say that several members of the supreme court in the jacobson case had

served in war, had military experience, including, in harlan's case, in the civil war, and they felt in very similar terms that, relative to the positive good to the public that could come from vaccination that this was a relatively small sacrifice to ask an individual to make. host: we will get in one more call real quick. donna in vero beach, florida. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is, you know, smallpox, polio, mmr, these inoculations that have been commonplace are supposedly for a lifetime, and now we are faced with covid and they are talking about boosters and maybe we have to take a shot every year like the flu shot. what is the difference?

is it because we used to live virus versus what they are using today? that is my major question. host: thank you. guest: caller, thanks. guest: my quick response is that many of the vaccines you are referring to, they did have a lifespan. smallpox, which was a live virus, really was only expected to last up to five years. people would be required to take it again at a later date. host: our guest teachers at brandeis university. he is the author of "pox: an american history." you started this book because you were working on another book at the time. guest: it started out -- i

started thinking about this book in a post-9/11 moment, thinking about wanting to write the history of civil liberties and national security issues, but i wanted to do it in a historical context and the context i know best is the progressive or the early 20th century, so i started digging around for different kinds of areas which individual super liberties clashed with general security. the compulsory vaccination, which is the most compelling of those issues to me, and it turned out much to my surprise there is this whole period of smallpox epidemics in this case that had never been examined by historians. i just went down that rabbit hole, spent a couple years. host: respects for your time today. guest: thank you for having me. host: we will spend the next half-hour or so with a question we had this morning about the administration and democrats

hoping to raise taxes on corporations and those they consider wealthy. we want to get your thoughts on if you support our impose or are not sure about the idea. if you support the raising of taxes on the corporations and wealthy folk, (202) 748-8000 is the number to call and tell us why. if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001. if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. we will take those calls when "washington journal" continues. ♪ >> he was paterfamilias to a political dynasty and a notorious philanderer. these are the words of david , a journalist and former reporter at "the wall street journal." words of a book review. it is a new book by susan ronald titled "the ambassador."

her book is about joseph kennedy, senior's time as ambassador to great britain, 1938 to 1940. >> historian susan ronald on this episode. wherever you get your podcasts. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday -- are intellectual feast. every saturday, american history tv. on sunday, but tv -- book tv, television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. >> "washington journal" continues. host: when it comes to the idea of raising taxes for corporations and the wealthy, we

are asking you in this final half-hour of the program whether you support or oppose that idea. maybe you are not sure. pick the lines that best represent you. (202) 748-8003. here is president biden talking about the economy and his goals for taxation when it comes to the wealthy. here he is. president biden: they play by a different set of rules and not often by employees themselves, so the irs cannot see what they make. they cannot tell if they are cheating. that is how many if the top -- of the top 1% get away with paying nothing. it is estimated by cerise economists that that number is about $160 billion collectively each year that don't get paid. it is not even playing field. my plan would help solve that. for example, it would give the irs the resources it needs to keep up with the lawyers and accountants and other super

wealthy. it would ask for just two pieces of information from the banks of these folks. the amounts that come into their bank accounts and what amounts go out of their bank accounts. so the wealthy can no longer hide what they are making and they can finally begin to pay their fair share of what they owe. that is not about raising taxes. it is about the super wealthy paying what they owe, with the existing tax plan calls for. this like hard-working americans do all over this country every tax day. look. like i said just a few minutes ago, 55 most profitable corporations in america paid zero in federal income taxes on what amounted to $40 billion in profit. not a penny. it is not right. my economic plan will change

that. not punish anybody, just make them pay their fair share. host: the proposals by democrats include raising the corporate tax rate 26.5% for those with income over $5 million. it would make a tax rate for those making over $400,000. a surtax on those making $5 million and increasing the capital gains rate. those are just some of the proposals being worked on on capitol hill with the white house when it comes to these rates. if you support or oppose it or are not sure, let us know. jean in alabama starts us off, who opposes it. caller: thank you for c-span and thank you for taking my call. i oppose it. i think the government needs to rein in their spending. they need to just stop looking to tax, tax, tax. it will never just be raising the taxes on the rich. they would just continue it on down.

and it scares me to death to think the federal government would go into people's bank accounts. and start checking where does dutch accounts and start checking. where does this -- and start checking. where does this end? i am all for capitalism and keeping my country strong. host: leon supports this idea in delray beach, florida. hi. caller: hi. i support this idea of taxing the superrich and the top 5% and even top 10% because we have spent billions of dollars over 20 years in afghanistan and iraq and we left a lot of expensive equipment that taxpayers spent money on instead of education and good quality health care for everyone.

there are companies like amazon, general electric that have not even paid their fair share of taxes. the top 1% and even 10% of the very rich need to pay taxes and will help our infrastructure, education, and health care. host: leah in delray beach, florida. "the washington post" tackles some of the issues on these proposals, saying this is causing problems. already, mr. biden's $400,000 cut off will rule out 95% of americans had limited funding options. but democrats have been reluctant to let some of the tax hikes that biden did ask for. income derived from wealth is treated as the same as income from work. house democrats bill is conceivably weaker. mr. biden also proposed closing

one of the most valuable tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, a provision known as stepped-up basis. when they sell unappreciated assets such as microsoft stock, a person can bequeath that stock to their heirs without having to pay taxes on how much the stock rose during their life. dominic is next. dominic in virginia on our oppose line. caller: i definitely oppose any tax increase until the government, including the current president, figures out how to spend our money wisely. further, no company or corporation owns all that. it is owned by the shareholders. and the individual shareholders expect a return. i am shocked the democratic party in general does not understand basic economics. i listen to you, although i am

on the far right libertarian scale, and i look forward to your answer. host: terry is next from kentucky. caller: hi. just a few month ago, the rich were saying we are under taxed, we would like to be taxed at a higher rate. you don't see them do it voluntarily because they can take their money overseas and do what they want to do and hide it in bank accounts. but when you hear them saying we are under taxed, i don't mind paying more taxes, that means we need to force them into doing it. i just think that those of us who are paying higher taxes than bezos and some of these others, it is ridiculous. that makes no sense. yes, they need to be taxed, whether it is mandatory or from the goodness of their heart.

they need to be taxed. it will not bother the organizations, the philanthropists. well, anyway. host: the philanthropy, you mean. caller: yes. host: there is an organization, as far as raising taxes and what people think about it, a key finding of their pulsating ensuring the wealthy corporations pay their fair share of taxes is a top priority for voters. 43% find it extremely important. they say there is broad support. the president's proposals to raise taxes on the bus and corporations, 63% support it. they also add that raising taxes will help the economy by h when he nine point margin.

only 22 oppose raising taxes. on those earning $400,000 a year, it will hurt the economy. when it comes to the potential impact on stocks and things of that nature, a story taking a look at that setting the president's ability will affect the future of the stock market. the firm estimates raising the tax to 25% and passage of half of the proposed increase on tax rates to foreign income will lower s&p 500 earnings by 5%. goldman's 2022 earnings forecast is 3% below the 2020 dollar consensus, saying that goldman sees the s&p finishing 2020 one at 4700 or 5% plus above where the index finished. friday this was done a little bit ago. that is foxbusiness.

iris in south lyon, michigan, is on our not sure line. hello. hung up. let's go to matthew in mesquite, nevada, on our support line. hi. caller: hey, how are you doing? i make $14 an hour. i am part of that demographic. i am for less taxes. of course, i want the least amount taken out of my paycheck as possible. so if that means the wealthiest in this country pay more to make that possible, i am all for it. however, i am not seeing anywhere in the proposals it is going to decrease the amount of taxes coming out of those of us making pennies on the dollar paychecks. i would like to see you talk a little bit more about that. perhaps they should taxed

the wealthiest democrats because they are the ones try to do the huge programs that we the people working for pennies on the dollar will end up getting taxed on. yeah. i think just a little bit more clear rhetoric needs to come out. host: from norman in wesley chapel, florida, on our oppose line, go ahead. caller: good morning. i oppose it because the way i see it 80% of tax money goes for everyplace but america. i mean, i don't mind paying taxes. i don't think any american minds paying taxes, but it is crazy what gets taken out like that's what gets given out like it is candy all over the world.

we have children and a lot of people. we take care of the illegals. now the afghanis. i am just confused about the taxes. thank you. host: ok. that is norman in wesley chapel, florida. you are invited to call us for the next 15 minutes on the topic of taxes. one thing to watch out for today and this week as far as the biden administration handling what is going on in texas, the headline, the u.s. weekly to deport throngs of haitians camping out at the border. the biden administration has three flights planned for today, according to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the involving plans. starting on monday, it will run 4 flights a day. most of the passengers will be single adults. under the proposal issued by the department of public security, the administer will accelerate the pace and the capacity of

removal flights to haiti and other destinations over the next 72 hours. many details like the number of people on each flight or how people will be processed before being placed on a flight were not immediately clear as of saturday. more about that at the new york times this morning. mike in florida on our support line, high. -- hi. caller: i can remember before 1980 when the highest corporate tax rate was 70%. corporations paid to that and the economy was rolling along. and then the republicans come in under ronald reagan, lowered the tax rates, and we have had problems ever since. for some odd reason, as soon as the republicans touch something, be it going to war and other countries, whatever, they cause these problems. i don't understand how before the 1980's corporations paid to these taxes with no problems. all of a sudden raising it up to 30% will kill everybody. i wish you could explain it to me. host: one of the people

expanding his take on the president's statements today was president trump's former economic advisor larry kudlow. he was on fox news talking about what the biden administration is proposing and what president biden said. here is what he said last week. >> is a terrible factual misstatement. it goes beyond. it goes beyond cognitive dissonance. i respect office of the presidency, so i will not really tell you the label i would like to pin on this. i will just say cognitive dissonance. the numbers are very clear. first of all, the top 1% pay 40% of the income taxes. the bottom 50% or more do not pay income taxes. ok. he does not talk about that. >> even bigger in 2020. 61% did not pay any and federal income taxes. >> the spending will be if you do the numbers over 10 years, roughly $5.5 trillion plus the trillion dollars for the so-called infrastructure bill,

which is about a third about infrastructure. nobody in their right mind believes a strong economy with excess of inflation requires $6 trillion in federal spending. seriously. i don't care, republican, democrat, supply-side, no one believes that. host: we will go to robert in new jersey on our line for those who support this proposal. caller: robert, good morning. caller: hi. i agree with the gentleman before. these roosevelt policies built the middle class that were assaulted by the raising tax. ohio state university is looking at it right now. the family income from 1980 to 1996 was roughly 23%. -- rose roughly 23%. the tax rate was lowered from 30% to 27% but taxes were raised seven times. where do you think the tax increases went?

the national debt was tripled from $930 million to $2 trillion. you have all of these republicans saying they want to stop inflation. how do you solve that? you have to tax people that actually have money to people that can afford to pay. host: ok. that is robert in new jersey. this is richard in arkansas, little rock. caller: hey, yeah, i appreciate it. i am not for more tax increases on the wealthy. the main reason is everyone needs to understand over 80% of all of our taxes are paid for by 20% of the people in the nation. talking about before reagan that there was 70%, six 2% taxes on wealthy, we had so many deductions back then. you could deduct your car, house, so nobody ever really paid the 70%. as far as since half the people

in the country do not pay any federal income taxes, almost 50% don't pay federal income taxes, it just seems like it is always easy for everybody to jump on the bandwagon and say let's go after people we have nothing to do with and we don't know. it is a small group because we are a big group. as far as corporations. the more we raise taxes on them, the more they believe our country. but also, the price of everything you buy will go up because they will never pay those taxes and we will have to pay them. host: this is gregory shelton off of twitter saying i personally only know one person in the $400,000 plus a your category and she employs over 50 people in well-paying jobs at $80,000 plus a year. taxing job creators will hurt most of the rest of us in benefits, etc. helen from twitter saying it makes sense to tax wealthy people and corporations but the government cannot because they can afford lawyers and accountants that will hide or drag out the court.

tax hikes on them. instead, government will continue to increasingly tax the middle class. this is evelyn, chicago, support line. hello. caller: hi. i find it very interesting that the people who are talking probably never took economics. they certainly did not take tax law or tax accounting or political science. they are just saying things. in school, universities i mean, you are taught in accounting and tax classes and law how to help your clients not pay taxes. they are only supposed to pay their legal amount of taxes. i find it very distressing, the ignorance of the american people with regard to taxes. host: you have taken all o those classes personally. ? caller: yes. host: in your experience, what

you think of the idea of raising taxes? caller: i think the very rich, they know how to hire people like me to keep them from paying their fair amount of taxes. host: like me, what do you mean? what do you do? caller: i used to do taxes and find loopholes. you can find all kinds of loopholes. host: such as what? caller: to pay less money. host: such as what. caller: there are volumes of the tax code you have to look at. one of the reasons the irs cannot go against most of these rich people is because they cannot afford to hire high paid tax accountants and tax lawyers. they just can't. they don't have that kind of money. corporations can pay millions of dollars in legal help. host: ok. let's hear from craig on our opposed line. caller: hi.

the previous caller kind of stole my thunder because i do believe that corporations never lose money. i do think they will raise prices so people under $400,000 will pay more, and then also corporations give a lot of money to charities. i am afraid there will be short in charities. i never heard of congress raising taxes on themselves, so i would be very surprised if that happens. host: that is crag in prescott valley, arizona, on our opposed line. a few more minutes on this question. to show you from the training economics website, you can look. this is the united states federal corporate tax rate, what it does over a 50 year period going back to the 1970's as you see the plateau there. it dropped sharply in the 1990's, plateaued considerably

until the mid to thousands, and then dropped again. 21% in 2021. that is to give you a visual aid. you can go to the website and find more. flint michigan, who is not sure about the proposals, hello. caller: yes. i think the wealthy in congress and the president and practically all the leaders of the world need to get together and come up with a structure where the rich will not be able to rise any prices on any products until we get the tax, have them pay the taxes that waked as well as contribute to our infrastructure. also, looking for information to help our government contact and prevent putin from ruining our country. we are all in this together. we need to put money into our

clubs for children and adults and having the rich to pay for it because their kids go to public schools as well. host: dana in flint, michigan, talking about schools. new york times this morning saying for schools to stay open, they need to require vaccinations for teachers and staff, regularly test unvaccinated people, and have universal masking. so far, distress are succeeding at one, masking, but only a minority offer others. in a sample of 100 urban districts, nine in 10 are requiring students to wear masks according to the university of washington, which has been tracking districts's responses to the pandemic since the start. just one quarter require teachers to be vaccinated. 15 are regularly testing students.

student quarantine policies are generally much less strict than they were last spring. let's hear from doug in new york on our opposed line. caller: yes. thank you for hearing my voice. i find that this is a slippery slope. once we open the door to a higher tax rate, there is nothing that the state the term of wealthy does not begin to apply to people that earn, say, 30% of the typical earnings power of the united states. or those that are even less. once you open that door, government has proven the fact that they will seek even greater opportunity once they are allowed to start on the wealthy. and who is the wealthy? that is a very unclear definition. if you want to say it is the top

1%, today, what is to say somebody earning $30,000 tomorrow is not also part of the wealthy? thank you very much. host: that is dug there in new york. just to remind you, from cnbc, they have a story about those who make $400,000 a year and above, saying they are in a verified and represent the top 1.8% of taxpayers, earning about 25% of the nation's income. $250,000 income threshold proposed by president obama in 2008. gina is next from st. joseph, missouri. caller: yes. i am calling. i am 84 years old and have been paying taxes ever since i was 12 or 13. i had a job. at that time, you did pay a little bit. not much. i got out of college and graduate school in new york city

and made $65 a week as a medical technologist. i paid new york city tax, new york state tax, and the income tax of $55 a week. now i am actually in the area to good and made quite a bit, but i still think that the rich should pay a lot more because right now the money i have left is money that i worked for 62 years. i did not make nine dollars an hour until i was 15 years and six years in college. host: one more call this will be from gary in west virginia on our opposed caller: line. good morning caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. they talk about corporations not paying any tax. i had a corporation for 17 years, had my own business, ok. my corporation did not pay one

penny of federal tax, but what a lot of people don't understand, the prophet from my corporation -- the profit from my corporation -- i was the president of the corporation. it was put on my personal tax return and i paid taxes on it. host: we you the person in the corporation? caller: there was two. i had myself and my secretary. if you study the corporations, you will find that that is spread out. but yes, my corporation did not pay a penny, but the profit each year was put over on mine. i had to pay it on my personal side. host: ok. gary in west virginia finishing this half-hour of the question. thank you for all of you who participated. thank you for all of you who watched the program today. another edition of "washington journal" comes your way tomorrow morning at 7:00. see you then.

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>> tonight on q&a, wall street journal columnist and manhattan institute senior fellow jason riley on, his book "maverick'a biography on thomas soul, whose writings on economics, race, education, and politics have inspired libertarians for a half-century. >> i don't think he is as well-known as he should be. i think it is quite unfortunate if not tragic that individuals are better known than thomas . i think quite differently he has written circles around those individuals, maybe all of them put together. it is not the volume of his work that is unmatched by their own, but also the range and depth and rigor of his thinking is something that i don't think they come close to matching, so one of the reasons i want to try

to bookend the documentary is to raise awareness particularly to a younger generation to know about his work. >> jason riley with his book "maverick" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on q&a. can also listen to q&a as a podcast where you get your podcasts. >> coming up this week on the c-span networks, homeland security secretary a la hunter mayorkas, fbi director christopher wray, and national counterterrorism director christine opposite, appear before congress on threats to the homeland 20 years after 9/11. testifying before the senate homeland security tuesday at 9:30 a.m. eastern, and the house homeland security on wednesday at 9:00 i am eastern. later on wednesday at 230 p.m. eastern, federal reserve chairman jerome powell holds a press conference. watch this week on the c-span

networks are listed on the c-span radio app. also, head over to see spend c-span for scheduling. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. host: it is the washington journal for september 19, and recent remarks about the economy. president biden wants again made the case for tax increases and the corporations, as well as individuals who make over $400,000 a year. the biden administration plans to use the revenue to pay for infrastructure and social programs. you are welcome to share your opinion on this proposal. here is how you can let us know what you think. if you support it, you can call us and tell us why at (202) 748-8000. if you oppose