and later, china's growing military and their inclusion into taiwan airspace with jacob stokes. all that and your calls, texts in tweets next on "washington journal." host: good morning, everyone. welcome to "washington journal" on this sunday, october 10. with schools around the country opening up this year, on capitol hill this week, biden administration officials were testifying on how it's going so far. lawmakers question the officials over children wearing masks, testing, and staying open during the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. this morning, we want you to tell washington what it's like for you, where you live, your back to school experience so far. parents and students,

202-748-8000. educators, teachers, your line, 202-748-8001. and even if you don't have a kid in school or a part of the education system, we want to know what the debate is like where you live, 202-748-8002. you can also send in a text with your first name, city and state, 202-748-8003. or join the conversation on facebook.com/cspan, and you can send a tweet with the handle @cspanwj. your back to school experience in just a minute, but let's begin with that hearing on capitol hill. democratic senator ben ray luhan was questioning the top biden administration officials that testified about the effectiveness of wearing masks in school. take a look at these exchanges. >> several studies have found that mask usage dramatically reduces the spread of covid-19,

including one of rural schools in wisconsin said it reduce it had by 37%. secretary, do you agree that wearing masks in schools reduces the spread of covid? >> senator, i think the evidence now is overwhelming that good mask policy helps keep people safe, making sure that even if you are vaccinated, you continue to use masking policy if you're indoors, make sense, especially for our kids, because we have kids under the age of 12 who are not vaccinated. there's no doubt that the studies, the evidence, the science that has shown us that masking works. >> and secretary becerra, i'm going ask you a series of yes or no questions. i'd ask for you to try to get through them quickly, as i have several others. is the best way to keep schools open to deploy proven health measures like masks and testing, secretary becerra? >> follow the science and the data that's helping us keep people, yes. >> sounds like a yes.

>> secretary cardona? >> the last year and a half have proven yes. >> yes or no, does banning loyalties from implementing public health measures undermine the effort to rescope keep schools open? >> senator, we have to use common sense, and we have to do everything to keep our kids safe. we would want to make sure we're using the different treatments and therapies and strategy that is keep our kids safe, and masking, vaccinations, distancing, ventilation, hygiene, that you will works, and we should be able to do all those. why should any parent not be able to do that? >> the reopening data is pretty clear. in places where they're more relaxed, they're 3 1/2 times more likely to have spread, which results in school closures. >> does banning localities from implementing public health measures impact students with disabilities and underlying health conditions, year no? >> kids are disabilities are more vulnerable, therefore more

success he wantible to covid. we have to do everything so keep them safe, and the most effective is all the different strategies i just mentioned. >> students with disabilities are disproportionately impacted when poor policies are implemented. >> yes or no, has disinformation on masking and vaccination on tech platforms negatively impacted the response to getting kids back into the classroom? secretary becerra? >> again, science should guide us. the facts should guide us. the data shows where to go should guide us, not social media, not politics. so i hope that families who are concerned for their kids' safety at school will follow the science and the facts. >> secretary cardona? >> we're focused on following the science and communicating that in different platforms to make sure our families are getting accurate information. host: education and health secretaries on capitol hill recently testifying about how it's going in the nation's schools. most of them have opened up

during this pandemic after being closed down for over a year. we want to know what it's like where you are living. take a look at this recent headline, florida board of education votes to withhold funds from school districts that enforce covid-19 mask mandates. from the keysr family foundation, they did a recent poll and found about 7 in 10 mothers and vaccinated parents say schools should require all students and staff to wear masks. so we turn to all of enthuse morning. what is the back to school experience like where sniff robert in fayetteville, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: hi, my wife and are you both retired. but we have a lot of younger friends that are in the educational system, teachers and administrators, and one friend

that's in and out western pennsylvania, she's in the college system out there. it doesn't seem like there's very much problem as what you saw on the news. but, you know, what's really sticking in a lot of people's craws being here being designate as terrorists just for going to a school board meeting, i don't know how that's going to go over very well. but i think if we don't have the right to protest a school board meeting anymore, i think we should just vote these people out that aren't doing what we ask them to, vote them out of office and put the conservatives into place. that's the only thing left for us to do. host: so was that happening where you live, the school board meetings? caller: well, now, i have a friend that's been to a couple here lately. his wife teaches. it's been pretty civil.

but like i said, we're not like northern virginia and such in this area here. it's pretty conservative area. but from what we hear, our kids are still being taught things that are not congruent with how society is, like critical race theory and a bunch of other stuff. so yeah, our people at school boards meetings just aren't as vocal as some of the other places in the country. host: this has come one lawmakers on capitol hill as well. take a look at this. here's an exchange between republican senator josh hawley and the deputy attorney general at a hearing this week about this justice department memo related to school board meetings. here's the fox news headline, hawley, cotton grill d.o.j. official on memo targeting

threats against teachers and school board members. republicans expressing concern that a federal response to unrest at school board meetings will chill free speech. take a listen. >> if this is not a deliberate attempt to chill parents from showing up at school board meetings, for their elected school boards, i don't know what is. i mean, i'm not aware of anything like this in american history. we're talking about the f.b.i. you're using the f.b.i. to intervene in school board meetings. this is extraordinary. >> senator, i have to respectful disagree. that is not -- >> point me to an instance. >> the attorney general's memorandum made quite clear that violence is not appropriate, spirited public debate on a whole range of issues is absolutely what this country is all about. >> then why is it being investigated by the f.b.i.? >> it is not. when and if any situation turns

to violence, then that is the appropriate role of law enforcement to address it. >> but the memorandum covers more than violence t. talks about intimidation, harassment. i'm asking to you draw some lines. we do this all the time in the first amendment context. this is the sum and substance of first amendment law, so i expect that you'll be available and willing to do it now. tell me where the line is with parents expressing their concerns, waiting for hours in the school board meetings. we've all seen videos. this happened in my state. sometimes school board meetings have been ended before they can speak because the school board doesn't want to hear it. and now parents are told that if they wait and express their views, that they may be investigated for intimidation? >> i don't know who's telling them that, senator. the job of the justice department is to investigate crimes. when a situation turns violence, when and if it does, it's the job of the justice department and local law enforcement to address that. the attorney general's

memorandum simple asks the u.s. attorney community, the f.b.i., and their counterparts to ensure that state and local law enforcement has an open line of communication to report threats, whether they happen in the context of election officials being threatened, where they happen in the context of members of congress being threatened, which the f.b.i. responds to on a regular basis, as is appropriate. the job of the justice department is to address criminal conduct. host: you heard the exchange between the senator and the deputy attorney general. what they were talking about was the letter sent by merrick garland to the f.b.i. here's some of t. threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to the nation's values. those that ensure our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety. the department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute

them when appropriate. in the coming days, the department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed towards school personnel. your back to school experience so far, that's our conversation this morning. steve in chatsworth, illinois, good morning. caller: good morning. i hope everyone is doing well on this sunday morning. my grandson is autistic. and he screams. he doesn't know how to pronounce words or letters. and he doesn't need a mask to cover up his usage of the tongue and mouth, and it inhibits his vocal sounds. especially when the teacher does one-on-one sessions with him. he's a special needs child because he's autistic, and it's

quite sad. how are they going to do it? how are they going to work with him on a mask on? host: is he old enough to get vaccinated? is he vaccinated? caller: he's 5 years old. host: ok. caller: yeah. and second, with the first caller, it's absolutely absurd of using the patriot act. i hate to say it, joe biden is becoming the dictator. doing these mandated -- teachers are leaving their positions. we're not going to have any teachers or nurses to help out with the hospitals. i mean, it's quite sad. this whole covid, and more people have died underneath joe

biden administration with covid than donald trump's. host: so on this issue of teachers, mandating teachers get vaccinated and the shortages across the country, listen to the exchange between senator tim kaine of have, a democrat, on his concerns about this. >> good see you. i'm really worried about teacher shortages. school shortages generally, school bus drivers and guidance counselors, and my city, richmond, my hometown, 435 vacancies at the start of a school year just a couple of weeks back. it's been a very difficult time for teachers. what are y'all doing to kind of put your arms around that problem and focus upon teacher recruitment and retention and teacher preparation? because i think this is a challenge all across the country. >> it is, thank you, senator. we're reopening schools, that was the goal. children are back in school,

back this person learning, but there's so many other needs that we have to focus on now. the teacher shortage was exacerbated during the pandemic. what we need to do is make sure we're being innovative with programming to allow for recruitment programs and pipeline programs. we have educators, para educators, liaisons in our being. we have to work with our higher ed to make sure that there are clearer and quicker pathways to get into the profession. i saw a great program at the university of wisconsin madison where they're doing that. they have folks that are interning and then getting a job in the school for master's. so there are funds available in the agenda to help accelerate this, especially in special education, bilingual education, some of the other shortage areas. but we really have to make sure we're also elevating the profession by providing the support that they need, ensuring teachers are safe. let's start there. and making sure that we're

promoting the profession as a viable cooperation that teachers are getting a livable wage as well. host: the education secretary at a recent hearing on capitol hill, talking about teacher shortages across the country. if you're a teacher or if you decided to resign as a teacher over this pandemic, we want to hear from you this morning, known known for line for educators. parents and students, tell us about your experience, 202-748-8000. all others dial in at 202-748-8002. even if you don't have a child in school, we want to know what the debate is like at your school board meetings or just in town over reopening schools, wearing masks, and getting tested. here is a facebook post from pat david sprinkle, a teacher in new york city, writing, physically exhausting and draining, but joyful. students are getting so much more out of being in person.

and then one says so far, so good. we get notified immediate physical there's any outbreak. most people in concord, north carolina, are interested in making some political statement, thank god. at this recent hearing with education secretary, the discussion came up about why during the beginning of this pandemic most public schools shut down and stayed closed, while private, parochial schools, breathe schools, excuses me, were able to reopen. take a look at what the republican senator from louisiana had to say. >> nationally, public schools, only 47% were open in january of last year. catholic schools, 89%. private schools, 92%. there's also significant disenrollment from public schools as parents sought to have their child educated, even though they are being kept shut upon the insistence of some teachers union against the

science, against the clear recommendation of, among other things, the american academy of pediatrics. there's been hogs tilt among democrats, frankly, and among the administration as regards to charter schools. seeing how charter schools actually -- private vouchers and charter schools actually given an alternative a parent who is otherwise locked into a system that will not literally educated her child, why is there this hostility towards this alternative for the parents? >> thank you, senator. i do agree with you that school reopening was critically important for all students across the country, and i'm very pleased to say that across the country, our schools are open. >> yes, but we're really talk about an extend period of time where children lost a significant amount of their education. by the way, this is about social justice, because it was the minority child in the inner city school that did worse by far. with some saying that seven

months of learning was lost among african-american children on urban children and seven months for the low income and six months for the african-american child. so why are we holding our parents and our children prisoners to a system that ignore their educational needs when the science showed the schools could safely reopen? >> thank you for that question. i remember last spring and even before that, working on reopening schools. and what i can tell you is those schools where predominantly black and brown students attend were woefully underfunded, and they didn't have the funding to address the ventilation systems, to address some of the basic needs -- >> no, secretary cardona, are you going to tell me that that inner city parochial school that some philanthropist had opened up for these children, that was an older facility, did not have similar problems and somehow did not attempt to adapt?

i find that -- i just don't believe. that. >> ok, what i'm sharing with you, sir, is my visits, my experience as a commissioner, talking to superintendents, visiting schools with ventilation systems that weren't touched for 20 years, with class size of over 25, 26, we make sure that schools are safe for students and for staff. many of these same families were sharing their concern about schools not being reopened. i'm very thankful -- >> let me ask you -- >> that our government provided -- >> a apologize. host: now with most schools across the nation reopening, we want to know what your experience is like. what protocols have your schools put in place to insure or stop the spread of covid where your kids are living, or if you live in a community, what's it like? what's the debate like where you live? 10 welcome you all to join in this conversation this morning. take a look at this poll from keyser. most parents say their child's

school is doing about right, doing the right amount to limit the spread of covid-19. do you share that same sentiment? robert in clearwater, florida, good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i think the schools are getting better and stuff, but i think the democrats are making republicans to be racist. i mean, they talk about aunt jemima's pancakes, uncle tim's whatever, rice, i mean, pancakes or whatever or rice, that's kind of really dumb. host: go back to the school debate, robert. what's it like where you live? caller: i i have in clearwater. it's getting better. i got grand kids in school. i never seen such a thing like this where they have to have police guarding the schools. when i was in school, they never had that stuff back then. host: do your grand kids have to wear masks? caller: they -- they wear them

because they want to wear they want i told them they don't have to wear them, but that's good. but they never got -- nobody in my family d. i already got my shots, both of them, but i didn't need, to because i never got it. host: do you know if their classes have had to go home during this school year because of close contact? caller: no, but i heard of schools being closed down because these nutty kids are shooting at this schools air whatever, but i don't know if it was around here though. host: all right, robe either, we'll take a look at this. about one in four parents say their child has had to quarantine at home due to a possible covid-19 exposure since the start of this school year because of the delta variant. has that been your experience? parents and students, dial in at 202-748-8000. we want to know what it's like for you. it's your opportunity to tell washington as they debate whether or not kids should be

wearing masks and vaccine mandates for teachers. all of those debates happening in washington. we want to know what it's like where you live. patrick in louisville, ken. patrick, what do you do? caller: i'm a rank one teacher from the state of kentucky, elementary schoolteacher, secondary schoolteacher. i just want to tell you my experiences that i've had recently working through the archdiocese of louisville. it's a catholic schools. they hired me october 1 last year as a substitute teacher. that's when the covid-19 kicked in. so they asked me not to come in to the buildings because they didn't want additional staff to come into the buildings because of the covid. so in january, same situation occurred. they rehired me again. they asked me not to come into the schools for the very same

reason. so this past -- let's see, i think it was august. they sent me a letter, the student of schools, for the catholic schools near louisville sent me a letter telling me that they would let me go because of the covid or the delta, and that they would call me back when the delta would cease. i got the bright idea to file for the benefits back in january 6. i did that online. so when i didn't have my checking account information, i just told them to send me my check in the mail, which they

agreed to do. i went back online to give them my banking office, and they had spelled my name wrong online. instead of saying cain, my last name, cain, it was caih -- host: so patrick, your point? caller: well, the point is that the delta, covid, in my opinion, now, i could be wrong on this, but in my opinion, i think they should close the schools because, especially elementary schools and high schools, because delta very serious disease. i've got two members in my family -- three members now that had that. one of them is very, very sick. host: patrick, when you were hired by the school and you were

not physically in school, were you still teaching virtually? caller: you talking about zoom? host: yeah. caller: well, you know, that's not education. i know the department of education, the guy that's in charge of that there in washington, he kind of goes along with that. i don't believe in that, because a child needs to see eyeball to eyeball to teacher, because there's more to education than just, you know, being on a computer and not having the information. you got to have human being contact to really truly educate, especial a young person. host: so patrick, if you can't go to school though because of the delta variant, your first argument, then what do you do? just no education at all or do it virtually? caller: well, it goes back to

historically, it goes back to what this nation has done over the many years when you have pandemics. back in 1918, that's what they did. they let kids go to school. of course, of course they had kids working in factories back in those days, too. host: walt says awesome on facebook, my kids are now home schooled. they're advanced for their age group, now love to learn, and they are never going back. mia in st. clair shores, michigan. what's it like where you live? caller: good morning. i think it's really bad that we don't see that children are really, really -- it's unnecessary to mask these kids, because i think we need to go to the positive aspect on this virus with children. i mean, it does have a 99.8%

survival rate. where is this ever being said? it just isn't spoke about enough. our schools are in real dire need way before this pandemic ever hit. host: are you arguing kids should be going to school? caller: i am 100% with our schools opening back up, but the reason why we're seeing so many private schools opening is how terrible our public school system is. we used to be in the top 10. we're in like 28 now. our public schools need a complete reboot. there's no doubt about it. last year, two years ago, near michigan, our high school had more days off to go protest guns than snow days. and i know this because my neighbor's kids got to spend it because they never went back to school. they're supposed to go protest

guns and then come back to school. this is all without parents' permission. this is before the virus. the school systems, we really, really need to take a stand on this. it's bad. host: ok, to your point about the disease and how it's spreading, this is from the american academy of pediatrics. as of september 30, there are 5.9 million cases nationally since the pandemic started among children. 16% of total cases nationwide, 850,000 new cases since august 30, a very low percentage, between .1% and almost 2% of cases resulted in hospitalization. children were version very small percentage, look at that, of all covid-19 deaths, and seven states have reported zero child deaths. mel in ohio, hi, mel. good morning to you. welcome to this conversation.

what's the back to school experience like where you live? caller: well, thank you for having me on, first thing, sunday morning. i'm 72-year-old. i have no grandchildren that's in school. but nibble mandates. i worked a job for 35 years, now retired. one of the stipulations for me to be employed was i had to be able to wear a self-rescue device in case i was on the fire brigade. it was a mandatory stipulation in my employment. if i didn't like it, i could have quit and went somewhere else. but i liked the money they paid, the benefits and i understood that the no beard policy had to be enforced to fight fires and save lives in the plant. everybody needs to be held accountable. but these school boards, the

meetings of people outside chanting, i sometimes wonder, who's the kids? they're out there chanting, and the lady from michigan that called and said such a great survival rate, we're over 700,000. my quite a few i both have the pfizer shots. we went yesterday and got the booster. and i believe in the science. i'm going to do everything i can in my realm to protect the people and the loved ones around me. there's no doubt in my mind. host: mel, that's why you got the shots, to protect those who don't? caller: correct, yes. and he had a comment at the drugstore of somebody that doesn't believe in the shots. and this person's part of our police department, which they're not mandated to get the shots. host: are teachers, mel?

caller: i just firmly believe in science. i believe in the president. and fauci and all these people that are telling us to save ourselves. it's just what you got to do. host: you heard the cabinet officials, health secretary and education secretary saying kids should be wearing masks in school. take a look at the mandates for states requiring masks in school. this is the map. the dark green are states that have a mask mandate ban. the light green are no mask mandate with local flexibility. the orange states are mask mandates bans that have been overturned. and the blue states require masks. look at this map of the united states. this is the mandates in states across the country for schools,

for school mask policies. caller: yeah, i'm sorry. i can't see your map on the screen. but i will say this. instead of state by state, all these arguments over the whole political realm -- oh, i can see your map now, we're green, they're in ohio. all these mandates state by state, make it a federal mandate. let's just end this argument and food fight. the people at the top make the order. everybody falls in line. military, when you join the military, you don't have an option, oh, i don't want that vaccine, i don't want this one, nope, it's mandatory. host: i want to get to marie in maryland, who sends us a text writing she's exhausted. she's a teacher in montgomery county. there are no subs, and teachers lose their planning time to sub, actively looking for a new job. we want to hear from educators

this morning. dial in 202-748-8001. allison in tucker, georgia, thanks for calling in. caller: good morning. i have been teaching for 28 years, and i currently teach kindergarten. it's definitely added a layer of stress that wasn't there before. i'm very excited about when the children can be vaccinated, even if the parents shoes not to vaccinate them, i'm going breathe a sigh of relief. right now, it's like they're sitting ducks. teach very much so looking forward to the vaccine being approved for 5-year-olds. host: allison, do your 5-year-old have to wear masks in the classroom? caller: yes, ma'am, and i actually -- i've spend hundreds of dollars on children's masks. host: your own money? caller: yes.

absolutely, yes. because i need to be able to put my head on my pillow at night and fall asleep. i know how contagious this delta variant is. so, yes, absolutely i have. the disposable ones. the parents are generally good. well, it's mandated with my school system. governor kemp left it up to the individual school systems. and gratefully i work for a school system that is driven by science. it's mandated and there really hasn't a hullabaloo without it, nothing major anyway. but the parents do send their kids with masks, bought lot of times they're fabric and the kids might need in them. they might be dirty. so, yes, i will often offer a new mask when i see that the one that they're wearing sun comfortable. host: how hard is it for a 5-year-old to keep a mask on their face?

caller: oh, it's easy. first of all, explaining how to properly put one on, you know, just the mechanics of it. and the kids, they're wonderful about it. once they understand that it's to keep not only themselves safe, but also their friends safe, they are great about wearing a mask. it's just a matter of getting them in the habit of doing it. host: and what about the loss of expression that they can see from you, the teacher who's wearing a mask, and for you to see the expressions on their face? how do you think that's impacting learning? caller: it's not. children are resilient. i mean, you just find ways, you listen for tone. you look closer into their eyes. yes, it's fine. it's not an issue. it's more important that they're same. host: has your classroom had to go home yet because of the delta variant? caller: no, no, actually no one from my class has been quarantined, that i'm aware of. that's where it does get

interesting, because the privacy rights. so i have had a kid or two that's been out for a few days. ok, yeah, looking back on it, probably two or three. host: ok, and so you don't know whether or not they were quarantining because of covid? caller: precise, yes. except occasionally i will find out just because the parent will inadvertently letmen, but it's all up to the parent. host: allison, what policy does your school have in place, if any, for testing? caller: that is one thing that i wish was more wide spread. but my understanding, is because we have covid trackers. like there are a couple of people in school who are in charge of keeping up with people who needs to leave, when they can come back. but my understanding is that they have to show a negative test, and it cannot be a home test, in order to come back if

there's a suspicion of covid. host: got it. allison, thanks for calling in this morning. caller: great, thank you so much. host: we'll go to fanny in ford, virginia. hi, fanny. go ahead. what's it like in ford, virginia? what's the debate like? caller: i don't believe in mandates. people already vaccinated, what they worried about? they supposed to be protected. host: but about the children. caller: do we know the damage it do to kids, due to not getting enough oxygen? we don't know that yet. and i don't believe children should wear masks because they are letting all these peoples in our country with no vaccination or mask. they are in the store. they are everywhere. and human nature dictates people will not work when they can get more for staying at home. money give tymps a reason to talk against not working.

and that's my opinion. like what's going on in america. host: all right, got it. kelly sends us this tweet, thanks to liberty university's no vaccine requirement and lax views on mask wearing in public during move-in week, lynchburg, virginia, became a hot spot. ohio, elle, you're a parent? how old are your kids? caller: my kid is 7. my daughter is 7. host: and what is her experience been like so far? caller: she's wearing a mask. i'm co-parenting in separate households. but she's wearing a mask. what i'm more concerned about is the other kids that come that school that are not wearing masks. and the other staff and faculty that may not be vaccinated. i mean, when they came up with

this plan to not mandate the mask and then people are actually protesting by the mall and all other the streets, nurses, teachers, other folks that work in public service, they're protesting the vaccine idea that they should be mandated to get vaccine, but then you're sending my kid to school with all these people who disagree with the mandate, but they're getting sick, so every day, literally, i'm on edge because i'm getting messages from the school district, seven students within the district have tested covid-19, protocols were followed in accordance with the montgomery county public health, thank you. next day, you know, eight, nine students in the district, and then they just list the numbers every day. so we made this decision to go back to school. i know it was a tough one.

but if we don't all kind of fall in line, how do i protect my kid? host: so wearing a mask is optional? caller: it's optional. and then i'm not sure where we're landing on the vaccines, because people don't to want get them in the area. whip does your daughter say about how many other kids are wearing a mask in her class? caller: i think they're masking pretty 9:00 her class. in her class, it seems to be ok, but i don't know of these numbers, if any of them were in her class specifically or in her age group. they don't tell me the demographics of the numbers. they just say this many students, this many staff members are tested positive and been asked to quarantine.

host: was she at home last school year learning virtually? caller: yes, she was, and she did. i mean, i was concerned about her emotional health, and that's why i came back to ohio. i left california, where they put a lot of mandates in place, so i moved in december to be closer to her so that i could help out a little bit more, because we were co-parenting in two different states. but i was concerned about her emotional health and the lack of socialization i am glad that they're back. because i think it's better for her. because we're not all sort of cooperating with what needs to be done to fight covid, you know, we're having the results. host: kyle in buffalo, new york. what do you do in the school system? caller: i'm a teacher.

19 years. glad to be back in the classroom with the students. new york state obviously has, i think, good grips on things due to the fact that we're probably the hardest hit state initially. high school students probably don't cooperate as much with the mask wearing. we always remind them to pull it back up. we do allows students -- host: sounds like they're worse than the kindergarteners. caller: yeah, yeah. [laughter] yeah, probably are. i keep my windows open, ventilation. you know, we try to social distance, but it's hard to social distance in a classroom. you know, you really can't. i mean, you can maybe not have kids sit as close together, but, you know, there are times where, you know, we have -- well, it's not mandatory, but you can allow students mask breaks as long as

they're six feet away from other students. but the mandates for vaccines, i'm totally against. i can't believe people would actually want to force somebody to do something to their own body that they're completely against. kids really aren't as risk. i mean, i need to see numbers of high school students dying. we have high school students dying of gunshots, i hate to say it. host: well, kyle, i just to want jump in, because cnn was running a dateline this morning saying a new study found that kids are just as likely to contract covid as adults. caller: i mean, i think the problem is contracting is one thing, but survival is another. i can remember when i was in high school, and we had the chicken pox outbreak. not saying that people die of chicken pox, but kids are definitely a lot more resilient than someone who's 50, 60, 70 years old. you know, we don't know a lot about this new vaccine, so i

would be skeptical to allow my 12-year-old to get it, just because there's not really -- first of all, our household, we already had covid anyway. so according to the science, like some of the caller said, study the science. if you had covid, you actually have antibodies that protect you more than the vaccine itself. i think that's what we need to start testing people for the antibodies, now that covid has been around way before the shutdown. there were people who had it that didn't know they had it, and, you know, but i really think new york state is a good model for other states to look at as far as -- host: what mandates are in place, kyle, in new york state? caller: definitely the mask. they do random testing. protocols are, i believe, anybody in at least three or more in one particular classroom test positive, everybody has to quarantine for a certain time

period. now, if burn person tests positive, they'll send a notification. but if there's three tip natural one room, i believe, everybody has to quarantine. now, when it comes to sports, sports has a different protocol as well. certain members on a team test, they have to sit out for a time period. you know, like i said, they do random testing. masks are definitely mandated indoors. host: what about mandates for teachers? caller: i don't think there's any mandates other than mask. you know, social distancing stuff. you have to sign a healthcare form every morning saying if you have the symptoms or not and this and that. every day, before you even get in the building, you have to fill out the online survey. if you feel like you have anything, you're told to call in basically. and i haven't seen any teachers out, at least in my building.

i mean, we get notification that is students may have had it, but, you know, for the most part, i don't see any major shortage of teachers going out. i'm sure there may have been some people who were sick, but i don't see it. i think, honestly, i think our governor, she's been very strict on certain things, so she's continued the progress i guess that was made from last year's shutdown. i will say this also. we have to think about the students' mental health, because we have a lot of students who come from social issues. buffalo, new york, is one of the poorest cities in the nation. so a lot of these kids are doing well because they're just getting back to school and having social interaction, dealing with teachers and students and friends instead of

being at home, living with 10 people with different issues. they're probably safer in the school building than they would have been at home. people don't think about the mental health issues that being stuck at home, not really learning, because a lot of kids weren't supervised properly, especially when it came to education. now they're in the classroom. now the teacher can work with them, you know, and just communicate. you know, i have had students tell me that they're having stress issues, and they are having less stress issues now that they're back in school. so that's a positive sign. host: all right, and kyle, what do you teach? caller: i teach business legal courses. host: in high school. thanks for calling in. we're going to go to jean in new yorktown, virginia. what's the debate like in yorktown? caller: well, i have been -- first of all, thank all of our

educators and administrators with the schools. i participate and support the petersburg city public school as a parent. my kids are grown, college, all of that out the way. but because i have an area -- a business in the petersburg area, what i've decided to do is do what i can to help the public school system there. i've gone to private school route with my kids, as well as public, and why i say to help them, i sit in, listen in on the city council, as well as the school board meetings. and they have a population of about 4,100 students. so kyle, one of the poorest cities? no, petersburg. but great comments by everyone. when i say petersburg, out of the 4,100, 75% of those students are poverty, fall under the poverty line, i believe.

we have an excellent superintendent that's been on board since 202020 or late part 2019, of course, then we had covid in 2020. dr. martin, they're doing great things, but we have to why, i say what i am doing is because parents and volunteers, we have to and he do what we can. we have the unity, unify ourselves and collaborate together with the school systems to see what they can do. if you have an education background, help the public schools. now, i like to see statistics that show private school. you know, we hear a lot, we beat up the public schools. but what are the private schools doing that are being so successful that allow the students to continue to be in school and take part in athletics? will they collaborate with the public schools? collaborate with the public school superintendents to see

how we can work together. such as brain storming, how we can work tomorrow i've been advocate for the petersburg city public schools to do a smaller teacher to student ratio and facing out more, and likes, dr. martin is doing a great job, but when we have the kids do an excellent job. i see the little kids on the plane. they are so disciplined with their mask. it's the parents, i think some of the adults that are not setting more of a positive example for the little kids. but i have to commend those kids. they're doing an excellent job. host: all right, i'm going leave it there so i can talk to troy in tampa, florida. troy, do you teach? caller: good morning, yes. i am a substitute teacher for the county, as well as adjunct professor at a college at a different county. host: are you getting called in a lot as a sub? caller: oh, my goodness, every

day. i want to thank all the educators, administrators out there for helping educate our children. i also have a 10-year-old as well in the school system. i was unable to volunteer because of covid, and i was able to get a job as a county substitute so i could go into the school systems and help. host: and you're getting calls every day? caller: every day. every day. i feel for the teachers who i chat with, because they're all exhausted. just from the contentious nature of of the masking and covid issues and ineffect leadership down here anyway has put people at odds with wearing masks, not wearing masks. the county had to go against the governor's orders to request everybody wear a mask, and now it's at parents' discretion whether or not they're going to wear a mask, and we're putting the kids in harm's way. host: did you see this headline?

florida board of education votes to whole funds from school district that enforce a mask mandate. caller: yeah, that's why i feel like our county, unfortunately, took a turn and said now it's optional, so that they would not be part of the lawsuit. so it's really sad that the governor is willing to sue counties and educators and systems. system is already stressed out across the board. teachers, and i think like the previous callers said schools are of vital importance for the students' health and well-being. my son definitely has benefited from being back in school. ship tricks you may be interested in this exchange between republican senator susan collins and the education secretary at that hearing that we've been showing you on capitol hill, where the maine senator asks him about testing, if you've come into contact, if

a kid has come into contact with somebody who's had covid, what are the testing protocols to either let that child stay in school or get them back as soon as possible. take a listen. >> a recent study in the lancet suggests the test to stay approach can be safe. there was a randomized trial that included more than 150 schools in britain that found that case rates were not significantly higher at schools that allowed close contacts of infected students or staff members to remain in the class with daily testing than those that required at home quarantine. if our goal is to keep conceals

schools open, it seems to me we should be looking at the science, yet despite this evidence, the c.d.c. has said that at this time they do not recommend or endorse a test to stay program, even though the consequences are that thousands of students in this country are once again not in school, because of quarantining. so my question to you is do you agree with the c.d.c. or do you agree with the lancet study and those school students that are using a stay in school and testing method? >> thank you for communicating the importance of in-person learning. that's the best thing to do after this year and a half. i recognize that there is

emerging data or studies around this test to stay. to be very frank, isn't beginning of the pandemic, we've worked closely and listened to the science of the c.d.c. and it's helped us safely reopen schools. so we're going to continue to work with the c.d.c. as&as their guidance changes, we'll implement it in schools. we are going to rely on our experts who have guided us to the point of reopening the schools across the country. >> well, the problem is that the guidance from our health experts over the past year have been conflicting and inconsistent. and that heightened the did he say trust in these institutions -- the distrust in these snakes at the time when the public needs to be able to rely upon them. host: a recent hearing on capitol hill, where the education secretary and top biden cabinet officials were testifying about reopening schools in this country. our conversation with all of you

this morning is your opportunity to tell washington what it's like where you live. amelia in riverdale, georgia. amelia, good morning to you. go ahead. tell us your experience. caller: hi, good morning. thanks for this opportunity. i'm going to bring to you from a different p.m. i'm a nurse near georgia. i'm listening to some of the callers, and they are talking about the mandate. let me tell you something. if the flu vaccine is mandate for healthcare workers, where i work in facilities where, if you didn't have the flu vaccine, you were not able to return to work. so mandates are not new for the health profession. number two, i've listened to people that are so misinformed about the vaccine or the vaccine is not efficient. they never think that the vaccine will stop you from

catching the flu. i mean, the covid. what they put out there is that the vaccine will keep you from being sick. and right now, about 100% of the patients that we have in the hospital, they all are vaccinated. another thing that i would like to enlight people about, there's lot of folks that have covid. there's no such thing about antibodies months after having covid. we are having problems with a lot of what they call long haulers. people are devastated with all type of illnesses after covid. and one lady asked about private schools. i have a granddaughter that attends a christian school near georgia, a small school. she was attending school last year because last year she was in the first grade. it was only six students in the classroom. it's a small christian school.

but they were able, and that's the difference between the public and the christian schools, because, you know, i mean, they were able to have a plan in place with the kids, smaller classrooms, and they have to wear their masks. and the vaccine is not anything new. so people, please do your homework. do your homework. and kids are carriers of the virus. that's the reason why the kids may number school. they may have the virus. they may not show any symptoms. and then they take it to their families, their parents and grandparents. and that's one of the reasons, please keep your children masked and, when the vaccine is available, please have them vaccinated. host: all right, amelia, i'm going to move to barry in california. barry, good morning.

you have kids in school? caller: good morning, yes. we have kindergartener and fifth grader and a sixth grader. myself personally, i don't think that they should allowed to go back to school until they had a vaccine. when i was young, and there was the flu that came out, it was, i guess, around 68 through 70, a lot of people died, it was nicknamed, i don't know what actually was asked, it was nicknamed the hong kong flu. a lot of people died. and we were -- me and my whole family, five of us kids, we were taken out of school until we were able to get our shot. now, you know, we didn't go back to school till we were actually a little bit better, even after we had our shot. and that should have been something, like when kids get sick and everything, they go home from school. they're home from school.

until they get, you know, better or they get a doctor's release. so this should have been done -- i mean, the trillions of dollars, billions of dollars being sent to other countries could have paid for our teachers to be out another vaccines for our kids. they're our future. i hate to say it because the kids like going back to school, except for some kids. some kids did really good at home, you know. and it really brought families together. but some kids have to really excel more at school and that's the thing. but you shouldn't go back to school until we have a vaccine. host: we heard that point. when we come back we'll turn our

attention to social safety programs and democrats push to expand them as part of the president's build back better agenda. that conversation with our central law and policy executive olivia golden and robert doar. later we're joined but a fellow in the endopacific security program at the center for new american security to talk about china's growing military power. we'll be right back. >> nobody that the paris would succumb to the nazis because the city of life was supposed to be this city of enlightenment and free thinking and open. when the nazis got into poland in warsaw, there were mass executions and terrible and they

executed liberals and free thinkers and everybody was scared they came towards paris and thought it would happen in paris as well. >> martin dugar, the brutal occupation of paris and the liberation by american and french forces in august of 1944. watch on q&a tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. you can listen to q&a and our new c-span now app. this week on the c-span networks, the senate will be out after passing an agreement that would lift the debt ceiling through early september and the house would vote on the measure and the u.s. supreme court would hear oral argument on several cases throughout the week and you can listen to all of them on c-span. org and the c-span now app. and the kentucky governor

general will seek to hold a ban on a abortion procedure struck down by previous courts. we'll have live coverage of that argument on c-span and c-span radio. at wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on the new c-span now app and the supreme court will hear a case seeking to reinstate the death sentence for the boston marathon bomber for tsarnaev that was vacated and the committee will hear recruitment of veterans by extremist groups and target veterans and academics that instrumentingle. and watch them this week or watch c-span now, our new video app and head on over to c-span. org for scheduling information or stream video live or on demand any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government.

♪ no. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: for the second hour we're turning our attention to social safety net programs in this country. joining us is olivia golden, the executive director for the center of law and social policy. also former deputy of health and human services, assistant secretary for children and families during the clinton administration and robert doar

from the american enterprise institute and president of the a.e.i. thank you very much for both of you being with us this morning for our conversation. olivia golden, i'll start but and have you both answer this question. define social safety net. host: i think in the context today is i would want to say there's a whole set of really important investment in families and workers and people who traditionally have been left out of the economy that we're at a once in a generation opportunity to do. so i would think about many of the pieces in the president and congress build back better agenda invests in childcare and in paid family leave, in the child tax credit, and of course health care and nutrition. so i guess the way i think about what we have an extraordinary opportunity to do now is invest in families, in workers, in the people who have been most damaged by the recession but

also during the decades before so we can build a recovery that really works for everybody. host: robert doar? host: i'm coming to you from new york city before i came to a.i.e.i., i spent time running the social agencies and worked closely with the safety net and for me it was an area to help people get in employment and combine that employment with a variety of aids, i ran the snap program, fad stamp program and medicaid or earned income credit, refundable tax credits for working individuals. the safety net in the united states is a combination of a lot of forms of assistance that goes to people in need and people who are working at low wages. and that's what it is in the united states and that has led to some progress the last 25 years and sometimes we don't give ourselves the credit it

deserves and me and olivia have been here a long time and we help people get into work and combining the earnings with the work with other living assistance to make the wages go farther so the families have the resources they need to get a fair start. host: robert, what progress has been made, outline it for us. guest: if you look at child poverty, even the national academy of science report two years ago showed there was a significant drop in child poverty the last 25 years and was because of this combination of getting single parent families mostly, single mothers into employment and then supporting their employment with the earned income tax credit, childcare aid, public health insurance, food stamp benefits. that has led to, if you look at poverty properly measured, a very significant decline. what we're not doing very well is helping people move up from there and that i think is really the challenge ahead and what i worry about what president biden is proposing is he's actually

walking away from a commitment to help people get employment and also focusing what we've done well at attacking and not looking at how we help people get from $30,000 $40,000 income up to safely to the middle class. there's where we need skills and training and education programs and better economic programs that spread the benefits of our economy across the country. instead, i think what he's doing is he's building back an entitlement and sort of walking away from the lessons of welfare reform and giving people benefits without a focus on employment. host: olivia golden, how do you responsibility? o host: what we've seen in the last two years of the pandemic and recession is both a direct tragedy for families, why people have lost family members, illness, they've lost jobs and shining a light on failures of the past several decades.

i agree with robert there have been many successes, for example, the affordable care act, investments in the income tax credits but also think over these last decades, the united states has lagged far behind the rest of the world in our investment in families, particularly something robert said he is in favor of which is investment so you can work and raise a family so with we don't have paid family leave, the only one of the wealthy countries not to have that and we have very skimpy investments in childcare and very skimpy investments in core, helping people be able to eat and pay bills. so the recession and pandemic both made some things far, far worse, destroying where childcare was working, destroying it, people losing jobs, and also shown a light on people that have been put out

including women and people of color and people trying to raise kids in a world of low wage jobs. i want to highlight one very big success of the investment the nation made around covid. the census bureau issued the poverty report for september of 2020 and what they found was that despite the damage done to workers' earning by the pandemic the poverty level measured, as robert said appropriately, fell for the first time since that measure has been used. and it fell because of extra investments in nutrition, in unemployment insurance, in reformable tax credits and in the economic stimulus payments. we know public investment and scale can make a huge difference and the opportunity we have now, i have a completely different view of the current proposal and think it is about jobs and about families, both. and so investing in the child

tax credits to address poverty, in childcare. we still have women, the most recent employment numbers still show women leaving the labor force, tiers of critical investment and support work and paid family leave as an example that again, the pandemic showed us that people who work also need time to care for young children, for ill family members, whether that's because of long haul covid or because of chronic illness, they need time to care for seniors. and so policies that enable people to sustain work and family over their lifetime are crucial to a strong economic recovery and also crucial to supporting families and children. host: we want our viewers to share their thoughts on paid family leave, childcare, other

social safety net programs. we want to hear from you. 202-74880001 and independents u2 02-748-800 it. 202-748-8003 and include your city and state and really read those for our guests as well. let's listen to the president and wait for your calls to come in, outlining the social safety net proposals in his build back better plan. here he is. president biden: right now we pay the highest prescription drug costs of any developed nation in the world, the highest. my build back better plan will lower prescription drug costs by finally giving medicare the power to negotiate the prices of drugs they purchase for the american people. saving americans hundreds of

billions of dollars. on top of that, my plan would add hearing, dental and vision benefits to medicare. right now there are hundreds of thousands of americans who need a home and community based care services and my plan expands home care for older americans and people with disabilities. i'll improving jobs and the pay for the workers who care for them. my plan also will provide access to quality, affordable childcare with new and upgraded childcare facilities across the country, middle class families will pay no more than 7% of their income for highly qualified care of their children up to the age of 5. the most hard-pressed working families will not pay a dime. today my council of economic advisers and counsel of management and budget released a report to show clearly how my

build back better program will lower out of pocket expenses for families. for example, a family with two parents who together eastern $85,000 a year, they have an adult daughter who lives with them and attends community college. they care for an elderly parent who needs arthritis medicine which costs $5500 out of pocket each year. and an eye exam to get a new pair of glasses. under our build back better plan, their daughter would be eligible for two years of community college free. that will save them $2400 a year. that's like a $2400 tax credit. host: i want to go to you first, robert, to respond to the president because you made the argument the president isn't doing enough for once they have a job to get people in the middle class. if less of their income is going to the out of pocket expenses, doesn't it bring them into the

middle class? host: guest: there's a big amount in the bill and i think those benefits that they go to are far too high of what we can afford and it's a commitment from the government's part to take care of everybody cradle to grave regardless of their income and i think there's benefits of someone over $100,000. and for me those focusing for the people on the bottom is not a poverty program. he doesn't mention one of the provisions provides a cash benefit to individuals without any regard to whether they're working or making an effort to work or get into any kind of activity that would lead to work. that turns his back away from the work expectations we put in place in the wake of the bill clinton administration which were successful in significantly increasing the number of single

parent families in the labor force which made their incomes higher and poverty level lower and their life better. when we go to a system providing cash for without any connection to the local social services office that can look in underlying issues like domestic violence or substance abuse, we're harming those families by not bringing them in and finding a way to help them move up. the president is promising a lot to the middle class and those even above middle class. i don't think we can afford it and distracts from those people that are at the bottom and are struggling and will end up being the most poorly targeted anti-poverty effort in the history of our country. host: ms. golden, your response? guest: the first is the point robert contradicted himself a little bit, whether it's a good thing or not good thing to

invest in people before they move to middle class. the child tax credit would be involved for all children which robert is worried about with huge evidence of success. on work and moving up, i guess i would say when you look at both the experience of these last years in the united states and you look at the experience of states and the international experience, investing in a wide range of familyies, for paid family american leave, those issues about what happens when you leave a job because you have to stay home with a sick baby or with a relative or senior, we saw during covid every family needs time to care. it's absolutely right that our failure to have family and medical leave in this country has hit workers with low wages by far the hardest and is one of

the things that comes from sustained work and moving up. it's black workers and young workers and those with low wages and women wage earners the hardest. fixing that for anybody is a way of enabling our country to work together and there are also educational strategies. the president emphasized community college and i wish to note the jobs agenda including subsidized jobs that help people get work experience while working and so is the range of other jobs. i think this is an investment in a wide range of families succeeding. second on the question of the child tax credit, which i'm hoping everyone -- every one of your viewers is aware of it and it is available for $3600 a year

for children under 6, 0-5 and $3,000 above that. and robert is referring to essentially a miss researchers believed for decades, this worked for a long time and always people were arguing if you help people be healthy, if you help them eat better, if you help them stabilize their lives and take care of their children, that will mean they work less. when you look at the actual evidence of what happens is not the case. what happens is when people have the basic and able to get health care, we saw it in the experience with medicaid and when they're able to get health care and food and stabilize lives for their children, in fact they succeed at work and are able to work in a more sustained way and do better. so when we look at the actual evidence we have so far on this children's tax credit, what we

see is, first of all, it has an immediate effect in reducing hunger. he with saw many of the viewers saw this in their communities. part of when covid eliminateed their jobs and the census bureau analyzed as the first payments went out, they saw a reduction in food insufficiency among children quite striking and happening very quickly. we know that. we know from a survey we and others have done to parents they're using the money to pay bills. we know in 2020 there was a version of tax credit we know an impact on child psychology. it's very important for the country's future that children grow up healthy, secure, and able to contribute.

it's a moral necessity and necessity for our economy and our future, so i can't think of something more important than extending that which is part of the president's build better and a baby born today can benefit from the security and ability to thrive for many years of their childhood. host: let's get to -- i'm going to go to -- guest: one thing we know to the extent the benefits have been provided left a lot of people staying out of the labor force. you can't go anywhere within the united states to tell you that an employer can't find workers. and that's a problem. it sets a better example for their children. while i'm a big believer in supporting food stamps and i ran the largest in the country in new york city. i'm a believer in employment. if you provide in a monthly

check the way the president wants to do, it will lead to people staying out of the labor force, no question about that, and i think it will be damaging to people at the very bottom because being in work is helpful to them and their families. also it sends the wrong message and a universal benefit. and it's not popular. andrew yang ran for mayor and got crushed in the democratic primary. in the democratic primary for president when vice president biden ran a more moderate campaign, he destroyed all across the south in the votes against sanders and warren. i just think this is a big overreach and large expenditure that will really not help people in the bottom. host: paul from new york, independent, we'll go to you. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: my concern goes to the cost of the programs and how

effective they actually are. you guys have obviously a lot of policy knowledge but just a few quick points. on a first term basis, the u.s. spends more on health care than virtually any other o.c.b. # # # # company. and in terms of spending k-12 for students in the u.s., higher than most we see in the countries and we get less. i guess what i'm concerned when i speak to progressives, i'm here from new york and speak to many of them, if these programs don't actually deliver, if you make investments, quote, unquote, can you have negative returns on investment. you have to say more than we're making investments in families. if you look at subsidies for health care or housing, we spend a lot in terms of tax subsidies, it seems to lead to higher prices for these very same products. our health care costs are out of control and we spend a lot

publicly, a huge amount per person, public spending on health care and get rebad results. my question to you guys is how do you make the argument we're getting tangible returns for these costs? because if you don't have them, people are going to reject them if you don't get good returns and simply leads -- marcus: olivia golden, i'll have you go first. host: we have lots of evidence about investing in children paying off. guest: we sadly have lots of evidence when it comes to investing in children we're at the bottom of the wealthy country. you're right to identify health care as an area we invested a lot and failed to get universal coverage out of it although we are now getting very close to that. we do have lots of evidence that getting people health coverage have had positive effects and did a lot of research most recently on the expansions of medicaid and the way in which that, for example, reduced black

maternal mortality, improved a range of outcomes. there what i think we have is an area we have to keep and sustain our improvements in covering everybody. it doesn't work for us to have a system you have to be wealthy in able to afford medical care and make sure everybody is covered at the same time we focus on the system that certainly needs to be improved. in the areas we're talking about most here, childcare, paid family leave, the child tax credit, we actually have a lot of evidence of the benefits. i just want to know one piece on childcare, robert talked about people not working and we actually know a lot about why these last several years of the recession. we know that about three million women's jobs had been lost. we know women each month including in the most recent

statistics of friday are leaving the labor force and the reason had to do with childcare and their family members. what we head for decades is a system that fundamentally couldn't work and relied on parents paying and there was a piece in "the new yorktimes" today that talked about north carolina and parents pay twice what they pay for their mortgage to pay for childcare while at the same time a childcare worker was having to work extra shifts at starbucks to pay the bills because childcare pays to terribly. we can't stop that. it's been a problem for a long time and the way we invest publicly in the other sectors like health care. that's an area where we're far behind other countries and where people are not able to work as a

result and families are not able to combine parents for their children and working. what the pandemic did is it really shown a light and made worse that problem and shown a light on how bad it was -- was and we now have the once in a generation chance to fix it and enable people who work in childcare to get a decent wage and enable parents to combine work and care for their children. there's a lot of work of where the investments are effective and from our history, the international experience and states that have tried these things. of. host: robert, before you respond i want to share part of "the new yorktimes" article olivia was referring to. as proposed the effort by the biden administration would cost $250 billion in 10 years and a burden before the house to raise

spending five fold or more within a few years and additional $200 billion would go to providing universal free kindergarten. from the new york reporting, the treasury department said the average cost of care is roughly $10,000 per year per child and consumers 13% of the family income and more than twice of what the government considers affordable. the average teacher earns about $24,000 a year and many live in poverty and many rely on public assistance which is subsidized health care or food stamps. robert doar? guest: the caller is right and we spend an exorbitant amount of education and we don't get good results as we should. we've covered a lot of children. when i was commissioner of social services before obama we'd reached a rate of less than

5%. and spending more money and enrolling more people don't necessarily get you better health outcomes or educational results and this childcare extension will have the same result. we'll spend a the love money and provide a great subsidy for people all the way up the income scale and people struggling who really need targeted help, it would help them move up to join the middle class and kind of get lost in the shuttle and our support for parents with children get no better. i would fundamentally disagree. my colleague has done a lot of work comparing us to developed countries in the world. when you combine all that we do and look at the numbers correctly, we spend as much as the other major democracies and our results need to get better. i acknowledge that. i'm very concerned. i want to help poor children and not necessarily help people in

the upper middle class and think they're doing all right and this bill is a universal approach, an entitlement approach and i think it will cost us a lot of money and we won't really have better outcomes for low income children. host: going to allen who is a maryland republican. hi, allen. caller: hello, there, can you hear me ok? host: go ahead. i'm a former signal caller in the army. i call in. i'm a new york city psychiatric social workers and an army social workers and i see how the army does socialism and don't see that negatively because of the numbers we have to deal with. it seems to be hard on a particular element. i'm running into clients not thinking well and managing their emotions. when we're talking about all these efforts to help individuals, why not train them to being well and choose jobs

they're likely to make a living and i say that from many presidents from both sides. the military tears its teeth out trying to figure out what to do with the families when a female sergeant deploys and i say resurrect something like boys and girls town and say it in all sincerity where it's some place that's the best year of your life, you have clinical social workers and you may be pastoral or maybe not and you walk away from saying that's absolutely the best experience. but the research shows when you go back to a malou where people are lethargic or during covid why did we say liquor stores were essential, is are we scared of prohibition? what happened to public works administration and get off the idea that everybody needs to be educated with a m.b.a. and get

into the idea like the military which is the idea of specialized trades, if we're going to fund someone to go to community college, why don't they do something to physically build the infrastructure? host: i'm having robert doarn, thank you this caller and olivia, i'll have you take the next caller. guest: the point the caller is making is there is a role for targeted and engaged activity between a social worker or program and an individual that can help them get the skills they really need or address their underlying issues and what we do in state and local which wases manager and use the direct money and have a relationship between a local worker and individual. what is in president biden's proposal is kind of a work around that entirely, checks from washington every month flowing into families, low income families who are not working and now have no need to

come in and discuss their issues or the problems or challenges they face with people that can help them. that's the sort of under appreciated episode, for those at the very bottom. it goes to individual with no earnings and isn't refundable but a public assistance payment from washington by the i.r.s. but the i.r.s. has nobody who can actually talk to someone and engage with them and find out why is it they are living with a household with children and only getting what they get from the government. and i realize welfare programs haven't done everything right in that world and i know we've done a lot right and one thing we do right is engage with people and help them try to find a job. the i. r.s. will not do that p. done

there los angeles, a republican. go ahead. caller: i'm involved in agriculture and it's supposed to to on this race issue, and you're actually going after the farm -- [audio concerns] host: i'll have to have you call in on a more stable line. james from brooklyn, democratic caller. caller: how are you doing, can you hear me? host: yes, we can, go ahead. caller: i have three quick points. first of all, every democrat bill that comes out there, for some reason, their money never gets to the black community and we're always at the bottom of the food chain. the money never gets to the people. we call if what happened.

the state puts legislation in and people who really need the money don't get it. and the its made more money off these programs than anybody else and we don't get education or when you apply for these things, if you have a criminal record you don't get the money and therefore we don't get the money. the whole covid-19 package bill, they're talking about spending more money and haven't even spent the money they got. where is the money? host: i'll have olivia golden jump in on that. host one is the incredible focus on the black community and making sure dollars get to the people including the black community and including women workers and young workers who not only were hit hardest by covid but who were hit hardest by the decades before that of

disparity. that's central in this legislation and completely agree withit. the second is i of hear james is reframing with a robert sees as helpful involvement by states to having all kind of rules for people getting help. it's a big run. how do you actually get help to people. and look how they address these things. the children tax credit, robert talked about it with a lot of theories about what people might do and why it might not be good. we know a lot about that and we surveyed people and the census bureau in its regular study looked at things like nutrition. we know people are buying it to pied for for their kids and paying bills and the middle class will use some of these

activities for their children but bills is the beggest thing. we know from the census numbers it looks like it's getting to black families, families of low incomes and middle incomes. it's getting to families but not as well as it should so we're having to work a lot on that, making sure it gets out. but i would say having simple ways of delivering the help and also making sure you place at the center of beam who were left out is really important. the other thing i would say is there are minister programs and some do a good job and some do not but gives us a lot of measures like pay family and medical leave which allows people to hold on to their job and not lose a job when they're

coughing for a baby, the skill, we have experienced because nine states and the district of columbia do it and they discovered a story about work and it looks as crow it helps the people over time because they lose a job and they find that i way in and and parents can stay home with their children and there is a question the caller asked earlier why do we have such a expensive health care system? there are many, many reasons but making it impossible for people to but the care is one of those. new evidence out there dishave

so be -- new evidence out there shows what works. host: bob, go ahead. caller: i live in texas now and would like to address this to both experts. perhaps more mr. doarn. i've lived in northern europe for a while, and germany, so i'm quite familiar with what they call the scandinavian model. i didn't live in scanned may have yeah but it's a philosophy that the social net, medical, education, housing, etc., should be applied to all scandinavians. one of which is it will eliminates resentment and competition. i hoped in on mr. doarn's comments that people makings

$00,000 a year would look down upon those who get the benefits and would argue $100,000 is not a lot of money. these countries aren't envious in our system and not coming over here. i wonder if either of you have studied he's theory systems and death. the scanned may haveian are the happiest in the year-old and love their social benefits similar to ours but we don't adapt. it's a philosophical approach more than any others, thank you. host: mr. doarn. guest: the united states is a completely different country than the scandinavian countries and we're bigger and more diverse and much more attractive to immigrants and others around the world who come here often very poor looking for opportunity and an upward path. so i don't think the analogy have restrong.

i should say we have entitlements, herbal security and compared that goes to a lot of americans and there's a question whether we can afford more entitlement. one ingredient of scandinavian country is generally they had a broad-based consumption tax and raise much, much more revenue of that an we do. before we dive in creating an entitlement society when has not worked in the past when it came to health care patients, we need to mo sure dedid afford it. and african-americans, hispanic, americans who are poor, single parent families and i want to target our government assistance at those families that are really in need. i don't really want to add more benefits to upper middle class

families. i think it is not a targeted and effective and efficient way to help people in need. i don't think president biden was elected to do that. i don't think the american people really want that. i'll take the united states over scandinavian countries any day while they may not envy us we have lots to offer in terms of opportunities to struggling americans and struggling people around the world and why they come here to take advantage of those opportunities. host: lorraine in ithaca, new york, democratic caller. caller: yes, hi, my name is lorraine and thank for you c-span and your guests today. my questions are a few. one is around universal income. that experiments are going on in canada and i believe there's a couple starting up in the u.s. where families, really poor

families, those targeted families mr. doarn are talking about get $20,000 a year flat-out and then able to spend it as they wish. they're seeing how they're spending and what they're doing with it and it cuts red tape by a whole lot. i've been a social worker for 37 years and i can tell you that the red tape causes an extra layer of stress on families and people who are already expressed. and my second point is everyone in this society cannot work. i over my 37 years have seen people who can work a little, they can work part-time but it's not enough. they can work for a few months and then their brains aren't working right and they can't work for a while so they can't hold on and keep jobs. and thirdly, my third point would be that profit motive is so involved in our health care

system that our major health cares have merged and merged to where i can't remember if we're down to 33 or 16 major health care concerns and don't know what level of profit they're making off the backs of poor folks. so i'm very concerned that's where the money goes. host: lorraine, i'm jumping in because we're short on time and olivia gold be, i'll let you respond first and then i'll go to final thoughts to both of you. guest: : thank you. i want to build on your point of red tape. my advocacy organization, our mission is about reducing poverty, promoting economic opportunity, tearing down barriers that cause racial disparities. so we really are focused on what works for people who need help the most, but i think like you

and unlike robert, that doesn't mean we always think the most targeting is the most effective way to do it. there are a bunch of ways to provide the force the nation needs to provide in the united states, we do some things universally, robert mentioned social security and medicare and k-12 education, lots of workplace safe support like enforcement of safety regulations we do for everybody. some things we do in a targeted way, the child tax credit we've been talking about is actually available to about 90% of children but not for those in the wealthiest families. and to me when you set an income tap, it isn't always a mistake but there are two situations when it really is a mistake. one is it you set it too low and people who really need the help, they really need health care and childcare, we just heard how incredibly expensive that is. if you set it too low and people can't get the help.

and the other which you put your finger on is when creating that extra rule creates red tape and prevents people from getting distance and those things we're fighting the right way. in closing thoughts i would say a few things. the first thing i would say is we are in an extraordinary moment in the united states, an extraordinary moment because the tragedy and devastation and the pain of these last years that you'll note the jobs losses and the fact we're millions of jobs down and particularly women's jobs. the pain is one of the ways that's extraordinary but it means at the moment we have a chance to fix some things that not only we saw over the covid period were a problem, we saw

close up racial disparity who died and who were in jobs they had to work even if it was unsafe to see their families and we saw women's work really demolished. we saw things wrong that in many cases were wrong before covid and now have the chance to make sure they're not wrong afterwards. we have the chance to make investles in children and people struggling the most and investments in more systemic challenges our society faces like making sure that families can both care for children and seniors and people who are ill and work successfully, and we have the chance to really build back jobs through investments and the work in home care, childcare as well as in the broader infrastructure and if we invest in those jobs and workers and families, we can build the united states as an economic recovery that works for

everybody. host: your final thoughts, robert. guest: i have a completely different view in our response to the covid-19 crisis. i think the country in a bipartisanship way did respond to the emergency caused by the shutdown and an enormous am of emergency aid will flow out of washington and provide a safety net for people struggling. but now as the emergency fades and the crisis passes we can't use emergency efforts, emergency efforts target a emergency situation to justify a broad significant transformational changes that we haven't thought through carefullily and we can't afford over the long term. in my judgment when we have many, many more jobs available than people who are taking them, we have a situation where we've provided aid to folks and that aid is helping them remain out of the labor force and think

that's a problem. we haven't faced up to it and need to. i think president biden's proposal ignores that and i think we can't afford the huge expenditure he's proposing and those at the very bottom, we're sort of ending a work base focus that had been very successful without really thinking about it and blaming covid crisis on it when really what we're doing is turning our backs on welfare reform policies of the 1990's that the american people have broadly supported. host: olivia golden and robert doarn, we appreciate the conversation this morning. thank you both. guest: thank for you having me. guest: thank you. host: we'll take a short break and turn our attention to china and talk to jacob stokes at the center for new american security and we'll talk about china's growing military power and how the u.s. is responding. we'll be right back.

♪ >> in the past 30 years, eric larson has written eight books, six of those landed on "the new yorktimes" nonfiction bestseller list. some of mr. larson's best known books include "the splendid and the vial," isaac storm" released in 1999, "dead wake" in 2015 and probably his best known work "devil in the white city" hit the bookstores in 2003. with his most recent work, he makes a transfer to ghost story

fiction, the title "no one goes alone" is available on audio only. >> author erik larson on book notes plus. listen to all of our podcasts on the new c-span now app. tuesday morning the u.s. supreme court hears oral arguments in cameron versus e.m.w. children's surgical center, case launched by the kentucky attorney general aiming to defend the state's anti-abortion law struck down by a federal court. watch live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-spans. org or watch c-span now, our new video app. >> the house veterans' affairs committee holds a hearing on the recruitment of veterans by violent extremist groups. watch live coverage wednesday beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. online at c-span. org or our new video app c-span

now. >> nobody really thought this would ever happen, that paris would succumb to the nazis and was unthinkable and finally happened because the city of life was supposed to be this bastion of enlightenment and free thinking and just people -- an open fight. when the nazis got into poland, in warsaw, there were mass executions and it was terrible. they executed liberals and executed free thinkers and everybody was scared and they came towards paris and that would happen in paris as well. >> martin dugar, author of the book "taking paris" on germany's brutal occupation of paris and the liberation by american and french forces in august of 1944. watch on "q&a" tonight at 8:00

p.m. eastern. listen to our podcasts on our new c-span now app. announcer: washington journal continues. host: joining us is the jacob stokes. we invited you this morning to talk about china's military power. it's the front page story of "the new yorktimes" and let me share the headline. china military, testing the united states. what's happening? guest: good morning, greta, thanks for having me on the show. it's been a busy week in asia and the taiwan straits in particular. we saw china fly almost 150 aircraft into what's known as taiwan's air defense identification zone over the course of four days. it's important to note the air defense zone is not the same as territorial airspace which goes

out 12 nautical miles from the territory of taiwan, the air defense identification zone is much further out so that -- these incursions were provocative and towards the government in taiwan but we have to sort of understand the overall context. but it was a record including 56 aircraft on monday. that's important to note and one question, why is it happening now because china is trying to pressure and intimidate taiwan's government into negotiating for political unification on beijing's terms and at the same time it's trying to get its pilots better practice as they become more proficient doing these types of operations. and doing so when taiwan's military has for respond it

wears out their military other than china's military. out an opportunity to boost china for its leadership. host: how did the u.s. respond? guest: by condemning the actions and noting the fact it will be destabilizing and provocative and ultimately it's not conducive to resolution of cross state issues and peace stability in the region and they shared that message certainly with beijing and consulted with taipei and then also u.s. allies in the region about the situation. in addition, jake sullivan met with the top policy official who is a member of the ruling policy bureau and met in switzerland for six hours where they talked about taiwan but also a range of other issues.

host: let's look at president bide one was asked about the tensions between china and taiwan and what he had to say. president biden: well abide by the taiwan agreement and he shouldn't be doing anything other than abiding by the agreement. host: abiding by the taiwan agreement, what is he talking about. [. guest: he was using a shorthand to refer to policy against taiwan which is a bit cumbersome to say characterized by something known as the three joint china communique and taiwan relations act which is a law and the six assurances to the government in taipei. there are a number of aspects, probably too many to go into right now and there are three things viewers should really know about the u.s. policy

framework towards taiwan. the first is that while the u.s. recognizes there's only one china, it's the people's republican of china in beijing. the u.s. does not take a position on taiwan status. the u.s. position is that taiwan status, i.e., whether it belongs to china or not is undetermineed. the u.s. policy shows they are to provide arms and equipment and services sufficient for taiwan to defend itself and that's a legal requirement under the taiwan relations act. and third, really the most important principle that undergirds all of u.s. taiwan policy is any changes in the status quo between china and taiwan need to happen through peaceful means. in other words, it can't happen by military force and co-worse and needs to be acceptable by

those in china and taiwan. so i suspect that is what president biden was trying to refer to briefly. host: what does taiwan want from the united states? guest: support so it can maintain its free prosperous lifestyle and resist temptation and political fresh influence beijing. host: jacob stokes, describe the military buildups by china. when did it begin and what does it look like right now. guest: starting in the 1990's china had a small military budget and it started to grow from the small base and those double-digit growth numbers happened for more than two decades and continued to be in the high single digits now. and so the result in 2021 is that we have a peoples

liberation army is the official name of china's military that is backed by the second largest amount of spending in the world behind the united states. china spends somewhere between $250 million a year on the military and we don't know the exact numbers and is about a 1/3 of what the u.s. spends and china's military is primarily focused right around its periphery, right around in east asia whereas the u.s. military is spread around the world. in addition, so the result is china has the world's largest navy in terms of ship numbers though they're less sophisticated on average than the u.s. navy and china proses the world's largest so in addition china's military has been built and designed to do what defense experts call asmet rick operations so it's designed to exploit the

weaknesses in u.s. and allied military capabilities so it's not a one for one defense dollars equation, it's more complicated than that. at the same time, despite this high levels of defense spending we know china's military is not an unstoppable juggernaut. they still have problems building certain types of military technologies such as jet engines, and in ide in addition they're still working hard to get to where the u.s. is on some of the sort of software of military operations especially training and equiping effect comblive bat leaders. so we shouldn't overhype the threat but it's definitely there. host: our guest here to talk about u.s.-china tensions. we want to get your comments and questions.

what is china's goal with their military buildup? guest: china's goal is to have more control over its region and that starts with fulfilling china's territorial ambitions. so in beijing's view taiwan belongs to china as does large parts of the south china sea and some parts on the border with india and a smaller portion with the small mountain country of bhutan. so first and foremost it's about gaining territorial ambitions. in addition, it's important to note that the people liberation's army main goal is to protect the communist regime and government. so the military doesn't belong to the state it belongs to the party. those territoryle ambitions are destabilizing enough,

especially if they were to be brought about by the use of military force. but increasingly china has a global military as well or it's increasingly operating globally and that's mostly to protect china's overseas interest where chinese citizens are working abroad or they have investments to try to protect those overseas. so we have to watch closely what the chinese military buildup is looking like. host: we'll go to gave in new york. welcome to the conversation. caller: thanks. i'm curious, is this potential conflict, is this because of doing -- china first of all china has the belt and rope program. it's an industrial power tons of manufacturing and it's miving in a particular direction. as was the united states when we became a global power we are

a manufacturing base. now we've transitioned to this financialization as opposed to china's manufacturing. the belts and rope may be you can talk about that. but how is, is this transition of china rising and the united states kind of -- what do we do we have $30 trillion in debt, we printed $8 trillion to underpin the debt. so who is moving? it seems china is moving forward and the united states is kind of going down. does this necessitate a conflict and is that why china's kind of, i i've seen they've intervened in the market trying to reduce the credit stabilized the financial situations host: go ahead. guest: thank you. i appreciate the caller raises some really important issues. in terms of the belts and road initiatives there are multiple

met vasions for this big industrial policy to build infrastructure and other types of trade policies around the world. the idea one is to export china's excess industrial capacity so steel and other things like that where china is building too much of it thet to sell it to the rest of the world. china is also looking to put itself at the center of global trading patterns. and so the types of infrastructure they're building would do just that put it at the center of global trade. in terms of whether the u.s. and china are destined for conflict i don't think that that is -- i don't think that necessarily needs to be the case and there's a lot of focus certainly on the u.s. sides on avoiding that without making major concessions on u.s. interests or values. so in many ways the sort of ball's in china's court on that

question. i would also, the picture of china's rise and the relative power between china and the united states is a bit complicated. china's rise has also been undergirded by a major expansion of debt mostly in the corporate sector and the state-owned enterprises sector and we're really seeing that come to pass in the real estate slowdown that's currently affecting china's markets. in addition, china has a demographic slowdown. it has challenges with environmental challenges such as providing enough water for cities. so china's rate of growth can't continue at the pace that it has in e recent decades whereas the united states still has a lot of dynanism and i think some of the effort that said some of the effort needs to be put into domestic renewal as a way of renug the united states

but also in doing so competing with china more effectively. and if we do that, that is more likely to bring about a perpuation of peaceful world that we've seen in a major power sense since the second world war. host: audrey in west virginia, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is that i believe the yilingtse has farmed out a lot of jobs to china. there's nothing made in china that cannot be made in the united states and it's taken away jobs from people here in the united states, it needs to be brought back. we can do it obour own and be independent of china 100%. i think it's wrong of our government to take away from the americans to give the money to another country. host: all right. jacob. guest: the caller raises a

longstanding concern and a really important one. we saw a peach from u.s. trade representative laying out u.s. policy on trade towards china. the focus of that is really about how can we protect american workers and ensure that the united states can maintain its competitiveness in global markets and hold china accountable for any unfair trade practices. and so this is, this has been described more as a worker centric trade policy in trying to sustain exactly a's the caller said good jobs in the united states and enshuring that china is forced to play by global standards when it comes to trade. host: jerry in new jersey. caller: my question, i have a question and then i have a statement. the question is how equipped are we to help taiwan, in other

words, what would be our -- how could the ability to help them if china tries to take them over, how far would we go? but the comment that i have before i hang up is twofold. c-span i noticed put this man on to try to cover up for biden's statements trying to help him out because i see that biden has to kind of help him out in every situation because he misses steps. but the main comment i have is that now that china has equipment that we left in afghanistan, how prepared are they going to be to just overtake that we wouldn't have the ability to protect ourselves? i think china has something on biden that biden's working with china and it scares me to death. i think more has to be investigated with the that. there's something going on with china and biden. host: all right. jaken stokes. guest: in terms of what the united states would do in the context of contingency or

conflict over taiwan, u.s. policy has for many decades been based on a concept known as strategic ambiguity. in other words, we haven't committed one way or another about whether the united states would intervene militarily to stop china from crossing the taiwan strait and invading taiwan. in and this is really meant to support the broader policy framework i talked about earlier which is to sustain or to drive political negotiations that are peaceful without either side of the taiwan strait, in other words beijing or tie pay from making big moves unilaterally. and so i think this is an important policy to sustain. it's helped the region stay peaceful for many decades and that's critical going forward. what we can do in the meantime is help taiwan as i said defend itself.

and so recent arms sales to taiwan, even training the to taiwan forces, and then helping taiwan maintain its connections to the broaderer globe. all of these things can be really useful in deterg china from attempting to invade taiwan and you'll louing taiwan to continue on as it has been. host: bill in michigan. caller: my question is, when is the world as a whole going to come together and hold china accountable for this covid outbreak? guest: this is ra good question. we have seen from the trump administration and sustained in the bide b administration as well calls for greater transparency from china on this question of the origins of the covid-19 pandemic.

and the purpose is really twofold. certainly to figure out the origins of this pandemic but then to use that information to help prevent future pandemics. and so it's absolutely critical and the lack of transparency from chinese officials in beijing really needs to change. host: how are other countries responding to china's military buildup? guest: other countries are also quite concerned. we've seen growing concerns from other especially democratic powers. and so one of the major efforts has been to work more closely with allies and partners to balance china's military rise. so we've seen efforts such as more from the quad a lateral security dialogue or the quad made up of japan, australia, indya and the united states. and then we've seen efforts such as the recent agreement between australia, the united

king dovepl and the united states to work more closely on military technology and intelligence sharing including one major aspect of that deal which is known by its acronym or office, to help australia get nuclear powered submarines which can sail further and stay out longer as they try to rebalance military balance in east asia. it will take a little bit. it will take more than a decade for those submarines to come on line but that's an important indicator of the level of concern among other countries in the region. it's not just the united states. host: tom in illinois. caller: i just wanted to mention that so everybody knows the biden fountation, $70 million, 22 unaccounted money from china. and the amount of stuff that we make to make people

millionaires and billionaires they're doing their business in china unched human rights violations is just incredible. and china paid our universities 250,000 universities to keep their mouth shut they pair our newspapers money. what is going on with our government? and that we are even doing business with the people and the rich completely rich. the democrats are no longer the people. they're rich corporations making money on our backs and sense rg us as they go about it. guest: the caller raises an important concern that's been ongoing for decades about human rights abuses in china, whether that's in the western area in china where more than a million uighers have been detained. you know, against their will. in tibet. and also in hong kong as we saw the last couple of years where china has set aside the agreements it made with the international community and with the unenite kingdom to

impose its own system in hong kong well before the timeline elapsed where it had agreed to previously. and so the question is, we have a broad spanning relationship with china but how do we get at these human rights abuses. there's been the biden administration has put in place sanctions on and blocks on products coming out of the area that have been made with forced labor and also put sanctions on senior chinese officials that were in charge of hongocong policy. so i think there's been a relatively strong response. the caller also mentioned chinese investments in the yithesde united states. he's absolutely right that we need greater transparency on chinese investments in the united states. and there have been efforts in recent years to do that. so a couple years ago there was a change to the review process the u.s. government goes

through to review major chinese investments in american companies that could have political influence but also to get key technologies that we want to prevent china from getting its hands on. and so there are steps being taken by the government to address these concerns. in addition, there have been efforts to require chinese media outlets to register under the foreign agents registration act. so that's been an effort again to bring transparency to chinese investments in the united states. host: we're going to get patrick in, a democratic caller. good morning. caller: good morning to you. it's stunning when you look at these similarities and the developing distaupe yan states whether it's china or the united states. we have seen a linkage between the controlled corporate media now the social media systems

massive disruption in our fundamental rights creation of the national security act the patriot act the national defense authorization act. so when you look at these two organisms whether it's the chinese reality or the american reality, the american people are not understanding what is developing. and all of this theater we're witnessing is nothing but a bunch of nonsense to rationalize more military more control more foundations more military platforms to destroy the democracy of america. the american people truly need to wake up and demand repeal of the national security act. we're arbitrarily putting our own citizenry in jail based on lies. host: i'm going to jump in. what about the main argument there? guest: the question of how the

united states and chinera or democracies and authoritarian societies are responding to the impact of technology on societies and government is a really critical one. so i'm glad the caller raised it. decades ago the presumption was that technology would be a force for forcing china to open up and to liberalize its governance. but what we have seen is an ability to harness technology tools in the service of authoritarian governance. so in other words they have a surveillance state that's more sophisticated than anything we've seen to date and it is a real concern. i don't think -- some of those concerns do apply in the united states certainly but the fundamental difference in our governance system means that individuals can -- they have legal rights the that are different from what chinese citizens have, and also we can take action through democratic governance in a way that is not

available to chinese citizens. and so it's really incumbent on us as americans to regulate these technologies in a way that supports our democratic society and enables it rather than the opposite. host: thank you for the conversation, sir. guest: thank you. it's great to be here. host: we're going to take a break. when we come back, we are going to be turning our attention to the drought in this country largely in the western states and parts of the midwest are in a record-breaking drought wrecking havoc on the environment but also the economy in those areas. so on the other side of the break we want to hear from you and those of you who are living in these areas about what you are seeing and how the drought is is impacteding your community. we'll be right back.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: from the west coast to the midwest many communities across the area are seeing historical drought conditions in this country. so this morning we're asking all of you that live in these areas to call in and let us know how it's impacting where you live. what sort of restrictions, the if any, are put in place and what are you seeing? if you live in the eastern central part of the country, mountain pacific area, let me show you a recent map this is from october 7, 2021 with the conditions in the west and into the midwest. on your screen the maroon the darkest areas is where they're seeing exceptional drought, the red is extreme drought. the orange represents severe drought, the light orange moderate drought, and then the

yellow largely in the midwest abnormally dry conditions. some on the east coast as well. so again we're wondering how this is impacting you. the reason is that up on capitol hill this past week a sque in the senate held -- subcommittee held a hearing let by markellely of arizona his state being impacted by these drought conditions held a hearing to talk about what is going on. listen to what he had to say. >> approximately 90% of the western u.s. is currently experiencing some degree of moderate to severe drought. water has always been a limited resource in the west. we've got this old saying in arizona that whisky is for drinking and water is for fighting. by the turn of the 19th century as westward expansion took hold, a complex africa of case law interstate water compacts

allocated and is in some cases overallocated surface water supplies. congress later established the bureau of reclamation to reclaim and maximize surface water in the west. today, however, abnormally dry conditions are reducing the ability of water for farms, industry, and cities and towns. native fish and wild life have never been so imparlede. and drought is making our forests more susceptible to wildfire. behind me we have a graphic produced by the u.s. drought monitor program updated weekly it shows the general reach of regional drought that has persisted for the last 20 years. you can see how bad it is in the west. some climate scientists call this a mega drought.

tree ring and soil data indicates that we are experiencing the worst drought in 1200 years. host: the senator from arizona, at a hearing last week talking about the drought in the western part of this country. the worst drought in 1200 years. at the heart of it is the colorado river, the colorado water basin. it serves 40 million people. they rely on it in seven states and it's drying up fast. at that hearing, jennifer pitt spoke about climate change and its impact on the colorado river. take a listen. climate change has come barging through the front doors of the colorado river basin. the colorado river has lost 20% of its historic flows in the

past 20 years and scientists are forecasting another t 9% loss with every degree of warming. we need to act quickly to avoid a catastrophic water supply crisis and we also need long-term solutions because of temperatures continuing to increase the colorado river water supply will keep shrinking. there's so much at stake. the colorado river provides drinking water to 40 million people, it's the lifeblood for 30 federally recognized tribes. it's the silent utility underpinning a trillion dollar company. if you eelt a salad, pretty much your lettuce is served with it. these rivers are the region's lifeblood. habitats that support birds, fish, other wilede life.

people value the colorado river in so many ways not least for what it means to us culturally and spiritually. stand on rivers edge and you really are reminded what it means to be grateful. host: from a hearing on capitol hill last week on the drought conditions this this country if you live in the west we want to hear from you the this morning and anywhere elsewhere you are feeling the impact of the drought. as you heard from jennifer pitt it's not just if you live in those cities you are feeling it in other places as well from pro public cas reporting they say the enormous significance extends well beyond the american west. in addition to providing water to seven states, 29 federally recognized tribes its water is used to grow everything from carrots to the hamburgers served in a massachusetts

diner. at that same hearing senator republican wyoming senator john brasso asked about the impact of this drought on food resources in this country. >> how does the administration intend to ensure that drought doesn't cause interruptions in food in this country? >> we're working closely with partners and recognize the hardship that many have endured in this year in particular and in past years and also tried to make sure the that we have tools available the to meet the emergency needs but build resilience. and those are the the types of programs that we're looking forward to in the infrastructure context and our other programs as well. >> a final question are there

things we could have done ten years ago to put us in place to manage the drought and building more storage would that have been helpful to capture? >> it probably depends on a place by place basis to answer the question. in some questions we have available storage that we've been able to utilize, in some places we see continued challenges in our infrastructure that we know we need to continue to scomb prove upon. the aging infrastructure is an important priority for us, building additional cape yanlts is something we want to work on. host: we're getting your thoughts the this morning on the recordbreaking drought in this country and the impacts of it that you're feeling. brian in michigan. caller: hello. this is near and dear to my heart. 25 years ago as a gal i love out in colorado in the

mountains just loving it. but she was born and raised here in michigan. she's visiting here the family and i do know things, i understand things, i understand the colorado. now, jill wasn't quite getting it. i said you don't understand. we're sourcing that river out to so many places including las vegas. you're going to dry it out. she got mad. but here's the key point in all of this. whether it be las vegas or others, we're tapping into too much. we're overusing. right away people will say it's too expensive. it's not too expensive. look what you're dealing with. so a simple mind like myself 25 years ago cowl see this coming i find it totally unacceptable. we taught saudi arabia, we taught israel, we've taught

many other count countries desalination. it's as simple as this. it is expensive at first but my god you've got the biggest body of water in the world the pacific. you take that salt out of it. what you do is you're going to have to use nuclear power. it could be as simple as a platform as the anymorites which will come out. we're going to decommission her. something of a platform of that nature with desalination. host: still there? we lost brian. all right. lynne in california. what's it like where you live? guest: i live in the earn sierra next mountains and it's really bad. this issue is definitely not new. what is amazing to me is how

many houses are being built in reno, nevada. you go to las vegas they're building everywhere. you go to restaurants, there's millions of glasses on the tables, tons of water that gets dumped. in these money pits it's like where's the their conservation? where's their concern? our water is taken from the city of los angeles and they just keep building and building down there. and then there's huge clean water crisis and we have wide open borders. so i don't think that anybody in government or in power could really give a crap because once again it's dominated by billions of dollars from these people that are building. you should see the building that is going on. host: let me ask you what sort of restrictions are put in place for you the consumer if any caller: none yet.

so i mean, there's like watering constrickses and -- restrictions, and days you can water, days you can't, what time you can water. but as far as big restrictions, i don't know. and once again i have yet to see the government being able to fix any problem. it's just so corrupt and there's so much money thrown around that i just -- when you watch creeks dry up, because i live in the mountains, and then you go down and you just -- google the amount of building permits that are going on in los angeles right now. and i would just like to ask them where are they going to get their water? host: how do you respond to this reporting? because your concern is the building but listen to their reporting. since about 70% goes to growing crops the next step largely

demand large scale reductions for farmers and ranchers. they can talk about crops being grown to feed cattle, some of them, and that these crops are also being grown to then ship overseas to feed cattle in other countries. what do you think? caller: well, as always the farmers and the ranchers are the first ones to be oot tacked and the easiest ones to go after.

food is life. and i would give the farmers and the ranchers the water way before some developer like stevewin in las vegas that's putting up a whole big other resort there. that's what i'm talking about these developers and these multimillion dollar people that just keep on building and building and building. the ranchers and the farmers should get it first because they feed the world. and stop getting our cattle shipped here from australia. i've got cows in my backyard. so food first before any building any developers and then also how could they be concerned about the water when we've got a wide open border? host: so from the same hearing i want to show you testimony by julie ellington with the north dakota stockman's association. she spoke about how the decrease in water levels is impacting beef supplies.

>> the yellow oranges reds and browns tell the story. nearly the entire west designated in some level of disaster and north dakota is no exception. currently 99.8% of our state has some drought designation and we have set records we never wanted. among those the earliest onset of the highest drought severity and coverage index in our history. water of course essential to our management and without it everything changes. pass tours go dry decreasing available forge to graze or sales later and some rendered entirely unuseable. the ranch this summer we worked to combat the drought. our crew back home, installed new miles of pipeline implemented 13 new water tanks

as well as renovated and abandoned well to help respond to the water demand of our herd. changes to grazing have extended to public lands as well. in north dakota, the forest service and land management about 1.7 million acres. that doesn't seem a lot to many of you on the committee as you have learned your federal land expanses in your home state but those numbers are significant not only to our cattle industry but our state's ecology. host: from a hearing last week on the recent headline reads. a mega drought is hammering the u.s. in north dakota. it's worse than the dust bowl. here, a tweet, calling activity from u.s. farmers and ranchers has been elevated this year. hashtag drought. conditions in major. expect to influence water decisions throughout the winter as well.

we're asking you how this drought is impacting your community where you live. jeffery in new york. go ahead. caller: good morning. i would like to suggest part of the infrastructure building should be investment in desalonization plants such as many of the arab desert countries desal yin yate sea water. i was in the u.s. navy and we did it on all of our ships. basically, you're boiling water and separating the steam into drinkable pottable water and the salt is a biproduct of waste. and so you have clean drinkable water and desalonization would work in the desert. when i was stationed in san diego in the nave san diego's an oasis on the ocean and five miles inland is pure desert. and the same with l.a.

it's an oasis. inland is a desert and you need drinkable water. where better to evaporate water than the desert? and i live in upstate new york. we've got plenty of water and the great lakes we've got plenty of water. i can see a great migration of people towards where the water is and away from where the water is not. host: and what do you think the answer to that is? caller: we've got plenty of land in upstate new york. come on up. host: joe an in nevada. what does it look like, do you see the drought where you live? caller: of course. we've been going through the drought the thing for years. when i first moved to nevada we yawsed to call the truckee river the truckee trickle because every once in a while you get droughts. we've got 70% of our irrigation water where i live because i live on farmland. so we irrigate.

but it has cut us down. but i want to say about las vegas. las vegas tried to go in with l.a. because they weren't getting enough water out of the colorado. the colorado does not feed san joaquin valley. they get theirs from snow pack in the sierras. sand joaquin -- colorado feeds l.a. las vegas tried to go in with l.a. and get some plants out put on the coast. they didn't want to look at that. so where are we? we're all trying to grow and bring people in but yet we don't have the water the to do it. host: how do you think this is going to get worked out? because there's negotiations right now between the seven states that get their water from the colorado river because something has to give.

caller: yes, let's put those plants out there. why not? because californians don't want to look at it? we've got water there, people. let's bring it in. and instead like vegas, go to the next county and try to buy up their farmlands and steal their water and pump it into vegas so they can have another casino. vegas was told to diverse the if i their economy and stop making so many casinos. they didn't. it's a big playground. what do they have to do? host: respond to the this part of the report. water is also being wasted because of the flaws in the laws. the rights to take water from the river are generally distributed like deeds to property based on seniority. it is very difficult to take rights away from existing stakeholders whether cities or individual ranchers so as long as they use the water allocated

to them. the that system creates a a per verse incentive. ranchers often take their maximum allocation even if to spill it on the ground for fear if the they don't they could lose the right to take the water in the future. caller: i think that's crap. farmers and ranchers use their water wisely. they don't go spill it on the ground just so they lose it. they know better than that. that's a bunch of crap that our regular media keeps spewing out. how about stop letting the tulees and the weeds that grow from the environmentalists that overtake the water? how much water do those have? we can do a lot more planning than this, people. come on, get it together. host: so listen to the senator from arizona markellely at this hearing. he talks about the pending water rights agreements between the states. >> are you confident in

interstate agreement will be reached and is reclamation participating in this? >> thank you, senator. as i mentioned we have a proven track record of developing agreements in the colorado river basin. i am confident we will continue that track record and reclamation is absolutely in the middle of all of the ongoing discussions. i want to compliment the work of my colleague tom brew shouseski and others that have been rolling up their sleeves and really trying to be out in front of the future conditions that we may be seeing. host: and how confident are you that another drought contingency that another drought agreement is going to be reached? >> failure is not an option. 40 million people with millions of acres of farmland rely on this. we had the plan in 2018 and 2019 we had hard choices but we

got there. we'll get there again. i believe arizona and the other states do not want an outcome in which perhaps the secretary might dictate winners and losers and we certainly do not want to be in a courtroom in which a judge dictates winners and losers. so those are several motivations but we will get there although it will not be easy and i also want to compliment assistant secretary for the help that reclamation has provided and is helping to provide in that regard. it's absolutely essential. as i mentioned earlier, the data and modeling project, the outcomes they're projecting for us are critical to those discussion. so we will get there and because we have to. we don't have a choice. host: record breaking drought in this country and we're asking you to call in this morning and tell us what it's like where you li or what impact you're feeling from it. ray in new york. caller: hi.

my thought on this is first start out with what you know. what i know is politicians often will twist the truth or lie outright to give get to where they think they need to go based on whoever is telling them what to do or what group they're part of. so i don't trust senator kelly at all with his background. but this place has been a desert since before america was founded. so this is not anything new. and what's going on, at least to what i understand, is the politicians are using their bully pull pits to lie and twist and exaggerate and, look, the water that's going to fall is going to fall.

there's nobody's going to change that. and the people that depend on the water will either have to stay there and suffer through whatever decision is made, or they'll have to find a different place to live. and it all works out in the end. host: so listen to senator markellely. he talked about the snow pack in the mountains and how that is impacting water levels in the seven states. >> for folks watching this, if you don't understand the science behind this maybe you can talk about that. how do we wind up with 90% or so of snow pac and only 25 or 30% of the normal amount of water into the river? >> senator kelly, we believe that is a prime example of what climate change is doing. it is hotter, it is drier, and the snow either sublimb mates or does not run o off into the river and soak into the ground.

in the prior year those summerer precipitation in which arizona, we call it the monsoon was a nonsoon we had very little precipitation so the water shed was very dry, the soil was dry, and a lot of the water soaked into the ground. we've seen the snow melting earlier in time, we've seen vegetation growing sooner which of course the then uses more of the water as well. so those are kind of the elements that all connect to that outcome that you describe. and we've not just seen it last year, we've seen it in prior years as well. host: let's go to billy in kansas. we're talking about the drought in this country. good morning. caller: ma'am, i thank you for your time this morning. i've spent 30 years here in south central kansas and i want to tell you what i've seen. i've seen a country utilize the

groundwater very efficiently to build millions of unneeded acres of corn and that corn goes into ethanol and ethanol is one of the worst fuels i'ver burned. it ruins your small engines. anybody a that has to say about that, take it from me it doesn't work to use ethanol fuel in your small engines. anyway, i would like to start with an open file 91-186 and 93-417. they talk about the desalonization or the salt problem in the south fork of the river which happens to run directly over an enron instituted underground leaking storage field.

this field is own by northern natural gas. the unintended consequence of having warren buffet and henry munger and calvin hawk as your neighbors has done nothing but leave the whole thing wide open for litigation. so the land owners association down here just lost a case after ten years in court and you didn't hear anything about it in the press. but the state of kansas, even the county, every county taxpayer contributed to this through the county commission who voted to support this litigation because the farmers were going broke. well, i've been in the oil and gas business and i've watched this whole thing develop and the kansas corporation commission was told enron had to have this underground storage built back in the 60s or people were going to freeze

back east. well, i was also there to witness that it leaked and by some strange rule they decided that the people had the right to, after litigation, go after the gas that had migrated off of their storage field thrsh the un-- thereby the consequence was to killed the opportunity for people around this feel. host: we've got to move on. scott in connecticut. caller: thank you. i appreciate you letting me on. i'm an ecoljist and i'm always -- it's always gut wrenching to listen to your program because of the comments that are politicized and case in point how we should be talking about ecoling and science and people are politicizing it and there's

a resistance to necessary change. when you brought up the fact that we should be reducing our meat consumption in the united states doing that one day a week which we've done historically to support war in this country, people reject that as an option. the colorado river hasn't been reaching the gulf of california for decades. nobody's talking about the reservoir which is being depleted. all of this should have been addressed 40 years ago in the terms of climate change and here we are in 20 2021 -- 2021 and we still can't get our act together. congress is still debating over the reconciliation bill which would help address climate change, at least take some significant first steps. desalonization is not practicable in terms of

addressing all the issues currently with the drought in the midwest and the western united states. it's just not going to happen. so we have to conserve and part of that is going to be our dietary changes which are necessary. reducing meat consumption. in the 1950s when i was a grad student i studied using textbooks written by eugene odom out of the university of georgia. and he had a grad student there who determined that as you go from one level from producers to vegetarian to herb vores and to predators or omni vorse, you lose 90% of the energy from each of those transitions to those levels. that was called the linderman coefficient because of odom's

grad student who determined that. the same occurs in terms of water consumption. you lose or we could say waste water as you go from one level to another. so we have to adopt a more vegetarian lifestyle in this country. reduce our meat consumption even if it's just one day a week which is nothing you mentioned earlier in the program how significant that can be in terms of our water conservation. and it's going to have to happen because of climate change. climate change is continuing to get worse because we didn't address it 40 years ago when it was known, well-documented, science. host: so i'll just read that part again from propublicas writing. water usage data suggests if americans avoid meat one day a week they could save water equivalent to the entire flow of the colorado river.

more than enough to alleviate the water shortages. caller: there's the coefficient explained perfectly in terms of the water conservation that would be achieved by just reducing the consummertion one day a week in the united states. host: and scott mentioned what we've been talking about and part of the debate in the hearing was this water agreement between these western states seven of them. it goes back in history to the colorado river compact agreement. which was signed between the seven states, established in 1922 and ratified in 1944. so you're looking at a hundred-year-old agreement between these states. stan in alabama. hi, stan. caller: good morning. host: what are your thoughts on

the drought? caller: i grew up gardening for a living because we were poor and we had to grow a garden to have something to eat. the impact on the community of the drought is felt all over the nation. part-my career i hauled produce from the central valley of california which doesn't exist any more. all these politicians and all the scientists have been talking this morning, they don't know anything about growing a garden. ben franklin, simply said about that. if you don't know where your food comes from you don't know much about life. so many people in this country don't know where their food comes from. host: whether or not this becomes an issue for the entire country is the question posed by matt who covered the weather and he tweets out, will mass weather will permanently western drought become a

permanent u.s. crisis? don in new mexico what's it like where you live? caller: where i live of course we're suffering from the drought. but most people don't understand that the rio grand river where i live is actually an irrigation ditch. and the water is held in the irrigation district and then every year the water is released from the irrigation district to texas and mexico. and this is, these trees that are there for this water go back to the tree of guadalupe. and so much water must be released every year to texas and to mexico. and right now there are cases in the supreme court and they deal with surface water and ground water. and the surface water is of course the water that comes from the river and comes from t

down through the colorado. and the ground water is the water that's in the ground and that's pumped out of the ground from the aquifers for irrigation, for down here we have a lot of peaken orchards. -- pecan orchards. the problem is as the water is going down the surface water is going down to mexico, it is absorbed and goes into the aquifers and what is happening that the debate is the farmers that are here are pumping that water out and using it and the protestation between texas and mexico with us is that the water is being used up. host: so the crux of the

argument this case before the supreme court is surface water has been deemed by the court -- correct me if i'm wrong -- as interstate commerce. but the question is, is ground water interstate commerce? caller: well, i think that's the real problem. because the -- what's in the ground and is being pumped out, in this particular case, who does it belong to? and what's happened is after the ground water is used over a period of time it becomes brackish which means it becomes salty and is less useable. and one of the things i constantly hear people talking about is the immigration problem. the immigration problem is solveable. the issues around water are almost unsolveable because of the demands for it from both farmers and communities. host: ok. bridget in texas.

caller: hi. host: what's it like in austin, texas? kmplingtsdz i have read john robins s work. we lose 5,000 gallons of water with the production of one pound of beef. it's incredibly polluting, cows are so massive as their waste drops on our planet it traps heat in our environment. it's vital people get on a plant-based diet or at least transition to goat milk and goat cheese and so forth. it's creating, making the droughts much worse. so much stagnation, if people could see an aerial view of how much stagnant water is very close to a lot of populated areas, you know, it's astonishing the damage it's doing to our environment. host: and from the reporting about stagnant water, breath

taking amount of the water about 10% of the river's recent total flow simply evaporates off the sprawling host: just from pro public is reporting from stagnant water, a breathtaking amount of water from the cleared river, about 1% of the river's recent total flow simply evaporates off sprawling surfaces of large reservoirs as they bake in the sun. last year lake losses from lake immediate and lake powell alone added up to a million acre-feet of water, almost twice what arizona will be forced to give up now as a result of this month's shortage declaration. these losses of increasing as the climate warms. steve, let's go to you in clove us, new mexico, steve, good morning to you. caller: how are you? host: i'm well. what is the drought like where you live? caller: we're in good shape. we had some rain. i did want to comment we talk about looking at science but we

also should look at history. if we look at how the land has been -- i'm about a third generation person here that my dad and my grandfather and my great grandfather were all in this area and farmed. and if you look at the history, there's been droughts over the years. in fact, our country here, a lot of people never settled here because they couldn't find any water until they were able to dig a few wells. but the thing i want to say is woe try to make it too simple, not feeding or watering cows. cattle, they drink water, dairy cattle drink water. we produce milk out of that and recycle. when we make cheese we take the water out of the cheese. but the thing is, we as

americans need to manage our water. we need zero escape in a lot of our homes where we're not utilizing up a lot of that water. and we've been doing this for years. we've got laws now that control how you use your water and what you do with your water. so really for this show, we really need to get a lot deeper in it and see exactly how those things work. host: unfortunately, we're out of time. thank you all for watching today and for calling in and joining the conversation. that does it for us today. enjoy your sunday. we'll be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org]