>> this week, watch washington journal's special authors series, featuring live segments every morning with a new writer. coming up, former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb on his book uncontrolled spread: why covid-19 crushed us and how we can defeat the next pandemic. watch washington journal starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern for our special series on c-span or on our new mobile video app, c-span now. we continue with their annual authors week series, all this week we are featuring top writers on a variety of policy topics. this morning we are joined by former democratic presidential candidate andrew yang, his book, “forward: notes on the future of our democracy."

i want to start on the future of our democracy and young people on that topic. there was a harvard university-kennedy school of politics poll that came out that had headline grabbing findings. they found that 52% of 18 to 29-year-old in this country leave that democracy is either in trouble or that the u.s. is a failed democracy. 7% says that democracy in the united states is healthy. what are those results and what do th -- what does that tell you about the future of democracy in the country? guest: it should be a wake-up call where young people are saying that the system is failing them and their generation. they do not think that they are points of view are being represented or reflected. they feel like they do not actually have a say in who their elective -- elected representatives are. here's the tough part, they are generally correct. 83% of our representatives are

elected by only 10% of americans because the vast majority of congressional districts in this country are safe seats, either safely democratic or republican. there is no chance of there being some kind of shocker in the general. so all the primary. what kind of real choices that for the vast majority of americans. you look up and say i am supposed to have my say on who gets elected, but really i get served the same incumbents who have a reelection rate of higher than 92%. if you are a sports fan that is a better win rate than the jordan era chicago bulls. if you say the incumbent is going to win, i have very little real choice, the duopoly dominates the electoral processes and there is no real dominant -- dynamism or no new points of view and they are checked out. they are also saying that our

government is not able to deliver on a lot of the basic promises that young people would like to expect. host: if safe seats are one of the big problems, we are in the middle of a redistricting process where a lot of the safe seats are getting safer and more members are getting safer seats. how do you fix the system? what would you change? guest: politicians do not like competition. that is what we are seeing. you are right, the number of safe seats as rising from 83% to something like 90%. the politicians do not want voters to choose them, they want to choose their voters. the way we shift this is moving into nonpartisan primary so the parties cannot control who will get elected and reelected over and over again. you can do this in half the states around the country via ballot initiative. if enough of us come together and say we are tired of the farce and we wants genuine joys,

why should it be that i need to register as a democrat or republican to have meaningful input. 10% of voters are distraught -- are deciding 83% of the races. nonpartisan open primaries will fix this. that is a lot of what my book is about. you know my books about a lot of different things, but if our democracy will have a chance we need real choice. at this point, independents outnumber democrats and republicans, 62% of americans including a majority of the people watching this at home know that the duopoly is not working and we need to evolve, you know who is trying to keep it from happening? the duopoly. we have to shift to nonpartisan open primaries to give the people a real chance in a choice. host: the book is “forward: notes on the future of our democracy." andrew yang is the author and he has with us until the top of the hour at 9:00 a.m. eastern this

morning. the phone lines are open for you to call in. guest: you did not say now you are an independent and it has been a blast and it has been a joy. host: that is what i want to talk about, that decision to become an independent. when and why? guest: when i was writing this book i was reflecting on the biggest problems facing the country and you know what has to be at the top of the list? colorization. you have two sides that are clashing and clashing and pitting against each other literally driving us insane. we are going to wind up in civil war 2.0 over time if we do not change the dynamic. the reason for this is that politicians get rewarded to catering to the most extreme 10% on each side than serving the reasonable middle, which is most of us. identify this is a problem and i think it will get worse but not better because of media inset --

media incentives, c-span accepted. you really try. people are watching c-span because they know that they click the channel to fox or msnbc and they will get a specific version of reality and social media gets layered on top of it. when i found it was a central problem i was impossible to say i will solve this as a member of one of the two parties. you need a new party to change the dynamic, reduce polarization and give americans in the reasonable and frustrated middle and alternative that is what the forward party decided to do. host: let me get those phone numbers out. 202-748-8000, republicans. 202-748-8001, democrat -- 202-748-8001, republicans. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002.

tell me about the forward comment -- forward party and the elections of 2022. how are you going to be involved? guest: 2020 two is one of the best opportunities to turn our democracy around. we will be supporting candidates that champion nonpartisan open primaries and want to give voters a real choice at the local level and congressional level. and we are going to be backing ballot initiatives and democracy reform measures around the country for this group of patriots who know that the close party primaries is the reason so many of us feel like our democracy will fail and it will if we do not make significant changes. that is what 2022 is about. we need to make it a winning option for politicians and politicians respond to incentives which is why we are stuck. if we give them a different sense -- set of incentives and

the forward party is raising a movement of thousands of graduate volunteers around the country who will make this a winning issue. we need nonpartisan open prompt -- primaries and races around the country. host: david out of arkansas to chat with you, the line for democrats. you are on. caller: yes. mr. yang, i was very interested in your presidential run in 2020, and what i was really interested in was your basic living income, if you could explain that to me about wire -- where the money would come from and stuff like that, and i would like to for -- put forth a suggestion that you might check into the unite america party. they have a policy called capital homestead act, in which banks are opened up and give out

interest-free money to help people take part in buying a part of america. not only stuck -- not owning stock, but part of america, and one of my ideas is that i think that people should not own stock in renewable energy, they should actually own the renewable energy field. i will get off air and take your comments. thank you very much. host: thank you. guest: thank you david. i love the question. i did run for president. i called it the freedom dividend which was a dividend of $1000 a month for every american and now a majority of americans agree with the approach because we have seen how tough the economy can be for millions of americans due to the changes in the pandemic. so, how do we pay for it?

i will give the most powerful example, which is one you look at amazon and google which are paying next to nothing in taxes, and if we change that we can give people a dividend really quickly. amazon is a trillion dollar company that paid zero dollars in taxes in a recent year. the example i use is that let us say you work at a call center in the u.s., which right now would describe over 2 million americans. technology is being developed by google and other companies that will soon be able to do that job. how much will google pay in taxes for that software that is going to replace, unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of americans over time? and the answer is next to nothing. because google files its taxes through a tax haven. if we tax amazon and google, particularly in artificial intelligence, we can pay for a dividend of $1000 a month or some other amount to americans

around the country because, where would you spend the money? right there in arkansas in your town right to the hardware store, daycare centers, the local garage, it will be spent over and over in our communities and help rebuild the middle class. this is my very dramatic proposal. and, you know what, we still needed. this is something that the forward party is for. if you look at our platform at forwardparty.com you see basic input -- basic income front and center. the other question or comment that you had, i agree, americans need to have some kind of ownership stake in our shared future. alaska does that right now with a petroleum dividend or if you live in alaska you get 1000 to $2000 a year based upon the oil in the ground. we can do that for other shared resources and we should do that. host: is the enhanced child tax credit a step toward the freedom dividend. it runs out at the end of this

month, but efforts continue to try and renew it into 2022 and beyond. guest: yes. the enhanced child tax credit is the right direction and a big step towards the freedom dividend. i believe 60 million americans are receiving the enhanced child tax credit, and we should continue it forever. it has been one of the most effective ways to improve americans' health, mental health, and education. it has lifted millions of american children out of poverty. it is a step towards the freedom of -- freedom dividend and basic income. host: to eric, independent, maryland. good morning. caller: thank you very much. i want to tell you that if you run for president, i am voting for you. and i am going to tell you why. i am an immigrant, and i moved

to this country two decades ago, and i realize, unfortunately, that you had democrats and republicans, and both of them are just fighting for the interest of their party, so they put the party before the country. and, the country just got stuck where we are. so we we have biden and the left following him blindly but nobody is putting america first or giving us the choice to get what we want. so what happens if both parties do that? i am happy you are giving us a third voice and i am happy to tell you that if you run i am voting for you because i do not want to be locked and if ua democrat or republican, and i want somebody will move us

forward. guest: thank you so much and happy holidays to you and yours, and millions of americans agree with you. we are being force fed choices that do not resemble the will of the people and in 2020 for the most likely candidates are going to be donald trump on one side and joe biden on the other and 50% of americans not want either of those choices. that will be harsh but it is true on the numbers -- i am the numbers guy. it needs more dynamism, parties, and choices. if you look around the world we are anomalous and having two parties, it is a dumb system. we would be the worst designed failure in the history of the world. when you say we need more point -- more choices people say you cannot. are you kidding me? a friend of mine said the worst number of political parties you could have in a country is one, the second worst is two, and we

can see the results where you have this polarization, the clash, and like eric said, you have to blindly follow this person because you are told to hate the other person. it is a catastrophe and we must change it. if we do not things will get worse and not better. thank you eric for seeing the vision, i appreciate it so much. host: plainview, new york. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. there are estimates that technology will displace maybe 30 or 40% of future workers. how would you address this problem, i do not think that ubi is the answer and there are many people who cannot be getting these higher level jobs. also, how would you address rising oil prices? thank you. guest: thank you for the question. i wrote a book on the topic of

technology displacing american labor called "the war on normal people" and it was a book before this one. i am deeply concerned about this. i believe that a foundation of resources for americans would help us transition to a different type of economy and give people more flexibility. you could start your own business, pursue different opportunities, that is the kind of dynamism that we need economically, and i think a basic income type measure will be a huge part of that, that i do not think we should stop there. we should be investing in vocational programs, college is not the end all be all. we should not present it like it is. we should make the learning that takes place on college campuses available in smaller increments than four years. we need certificate-based

programs. it is a massive challenge and our government and institutions have been failing us. higher oil prices, i think we should be doing more to try and address the supply chain crisis. we have tanker stock offshore. we can do better than this. tapping the strategic oil reserves might make sense in a place like this. inflation is punishing the american people and that has become a partisan talking point for democrats are saying not so bad and republicans are saying it is awful. it is real. we need to get back to a point in the country where we can just call facts and if you do not like the fact, you will still have to accept them, but this is a symptom of the polarization we are seeing where people will put forward their own version of reality even though most americans can look around and see it as a real problem. host: sean in columbus, democrats. good morning. caller: good morning i have a

question in terms of your policy of a third-party choice or having more choices as far as the boat. when you compare that to lobbyists and term limits? i see this as a problem of the same people getting reelected because they are being backed by corporate america. i do not see it as the third party option because the corporate america will buyout the third-party as well. i see this as being a dark money issue. what you think about the fact that there are higher factors in this? guest: you are spot on. that is one reason that the forward party is for term limits. every -- 74% of americans think it is a bad idea to send someone to congress and have them crouch in d.c. for decades. 74% of us believe that people should do work and come home. it leads to corruption, as you say. you have to ask yourself who was

going to push for term limits? the democrats or republicans? no. the forward party wants to try and reduce the influence of lobbyists by having term limits, and one of our biggest proposals is something called democracy dollars where every american who is watching this right now you get 100 bucks to give to whatever candidates you want and we flush out lobbyist cash. a phenomenon you are describing it has been getting worse and worse over time is because -- because companies have discovered that lobbying works and they can at a minimum keep bad things from happening. we cannot get drug price negotiation because the drug lobby will be there. you cannot get anything done in d.c. because some very powerful interest duties will rush in and say it will kill jobs and that our elected representatives are like i cannot make you mad because you represent jobs and you have lots of money, and i

want to keep my job and my 94% reelection rate. all of the problems you described are tied together and the forward party wants to fix them and cure them. i am going to suggest to you that after we get to a point where people want to buy, you are right, and that will happen. if you look at the platform of the forward party we do not want three parties, we want more genuine options so that voters like you can vote out whoever is corrupt of any party, and then you have real choices. that is the way you hold elected representatives accountable because guess what right now you do not have any meaningful choice. host: what is a fair term limit for a member of congress? guest: 12 years in each house. that is long enough that you can get some relationships and some know-how and get your feet on the ground, but then get the heck out of there. host: 24 years under your plan.

guest: that is a pretty long time, right. if you are in ohio you can serve 12 years in the house and senate and that is a great career. the other thing that we need to do is that we need to give these legislators a real passout that is not to become a lobbyist because right now they serve, and in their best economic choice is to stay in d.c. as a lobbyist which is one reason you have this set of problems. i would say 12 year term limits in each house, but when you leave you go work for a university or nonprofit, please do not become a lobbyist. host: i do not know how you feel like yes or no questions but cough drop has five of them and i will ask them and then after you answer feel free to expand on any one or two that you want. he wants to know "do you think democrats should end the filibuster?" guest: i think there is nothing

in the constitution about the filibuster, and so why are we having the senate essentially hamstring itself in this way? you know, i am with the effort to amend the filibuster. host: how about adding five seats to the supreme court? guest: that is not a yes or no question. host: do you want to expand? guest: i think that the supreme court has become dangerously politicized and so i am for term limits of 18 years and have people rotate on-and-off. lifetime appointments make no sense at all. i mean, back in the day when you had more people on the supreme court, people will retire and they would not stay until they were literally on death's door's. host: legislating federal voting rights, what should the democrats do? guest: the right to vote is very important. i will suggest that any

limitation on voting is something we should be upset about. you know what the biggest limitation on voting is right now is that you do not have any meaningful choice when you get to the ballot box, which by the way, quite a lot of people right now are checking out. host: should democrats put roe v. wade into federal law? guest: that is a tough one. i am going to beg off of that. i am personally for women's weeper -- reproductive light -- rights and i think revisiting it is the wrong direction. host: final question, should democrats indict trump? guest: i think people have been trying where trump has been concerned. i have always been someone who has thought that trying to throw past presidents in jail is like a negative phenomenon. that is endemic to many

developing countries, so that is a general principle of mine, you do not want to degenerate to a point where you are trying to prosecute everyone who has been in office. caller: good morning, and thank you for offering us additional choices. i think competition and being able to check each other is super important. and, i wish you luck in that endeavor. i do have a question. i keep hearing the united states being referred to as a democracy , we are a constitutional republic. there is a significant difference that is super important. i did hear you mention the constitution and the right that that provides us. and, i am just curious why you

keep referring to the u.s. as a democracy. guest: thank you so much for the question. you are 100% right. you know it was not in the constitution? the democratic party or the republican party. so, if you look at our founding principles, george washington, anti-partisan, john adams, anti-partisan said that the two parties would be people. madison warned against factions that did not shift, so if you take seriously our heritage as a constitutional republic you would say that our constitution has nothing about political parties. if anything all of the founder'' words say that we should be trying to have multiple parties if having them at all, and that is the direction that we should head. you are right, we are a constitutional republic and i wish we could get back to those principles. host: kurt out of new jersey.

independence. good morning. caller: good morning, andrew, thank you for speaking. i am not educated, i am pretty smart though. so, i googled your name and you do not show up. how do you expect to accomplish anything? i duck duck go-ed you. i was a democrat and i voted for trump and now i am a skeptic. and i wish you luck, i pray that we do get choices. thank you. host: we are currently googling -- googling and there are plenty of websites that come up. how would you respond? guest: i just want to say thank you for listening and for continuing to have hope that there are a lot of people who have given up, they are tired of

the lies and of the corruption. of the fact that at this point you have a political media complex where you have networks that are essentially hand-in-hand with one party or the other. so, the question is what the heck are we going to do? what is our path out of this? if 62% want an alternative why do we keep getting told that we cannot have it? is that in the constitution? the two party system is made up, and we need to change it as quickly as possible. we have that power. the problem is we get told that we do not by the media organizations that right now like the status quo and the way things are. so, to kurt's expression that we hopefully can have better, a lot of us have to get together to make it better, and that is what

i want to see happen through the forwardparty.com if you go to forwardparty.com you can see that we are not just for three parties, we are for more parties. anyone who is not for the duopoly should embrace the set of reforms that we are championing, it is not just about our party becoming competitive and successful, it is about a fourth or fifth party. we need a more dynamic representative system. thank you for believing that i am trying to make it happen, because i am. host: about halfway through our conversation. the phone lines are open for you. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. the book, “forward: notes on the future of our democracy." as you put it is a book about many things including your run

for office, your presidential campaign. you note in that book how clearly politicians grow susceptible to growing out of touch explain a little bit why. guest: politicians have teams who were constantly trying to get them to save the same thing over and over again so you start acting like an out of moton and then voter -- an automaton, and voters catch on that and people are -- and voters catch on and say this person is using bullet points and we will not get any real change. generally correct. i talked about the political media industrial complex. if you get to d.c., my gosh. that is very much a factor. you have members of congress who are spending 30% or 40% of their scheduled fundraising, that

money is completely neckdeep in d.c.. use -- you feel the influence of money everywhere you go. can you imagine a genuine human being trying to make a difference and run to office they run into this political industrial complex quickly and then they become someone who is not going to change much of anything. and this was my experience when running for president. and then we started getting attention, thank you to those of you who decided to support my campaign. if you did not, do not worry about it. as soon as we started getting money in the door, consultants from d.c. started showing up and we were like we really need you and they were like you need us because you have to spend money on advertising and try to work the media and the rest of it, so you kind of weave through them but my book goes through some of

these things, and i can see clearly why we are so stuck, and the easy answer is to say that these people are terrible, the truth of it is that we have a terrible system that would make even a decent person seem less cool. so, that is what the book is meant to convey. i am a civilian who ran for president of the united states, got very far into the process was on seven debate stages, competed in half a dozen political brand names, and i did that in part because people are fed up. and why are we fed up? our system is designed to take ease and even decent people and make them folks who cannot help us. that is what we need to change. host: new jersey, rhonda. democrat, good morning. caller: good morning c-span listeners, good morning mr. yang, i consider it a blessing to be able to talk to you. guest: thank you. caller: i want to thank you and

the entire democratic party for the stimulus money that you passed last year. and i want to tell you real quick what i did with it. i re-carpeted my second floor, it was 1700 square feet and it ran me to grand. -- two grand. i was able to buy a central air unit. mine had been out first -- for three years. i bought a repurposed one and had it installed for $500. i got my trees trimmed, regular people, americans wanted to charge me $1500 a tree. i got two immigrants to cut my trees for $500. i cannot tell you how much that money helped me. i want you to encourage your party to pass that stimulus

money, even if they do it for people who make less money. i do not think everybody needs it. with couples that make over 200,000 do not need the money. the people that needed it are the regular folks, regular common folks that live in west virginia that are starving, and you know what, thank god -- host: you bring up -- host: you bring up a lot of issues let me jump in on stimulus money. guest: thank you so much one of the most heartwarming things that happens to me when i am walking around and someone says thank you for the $1000, the $1200 and the $800, and the fact that i played a role in that makes me really proud. i ran for president because i think we can do better for our people, and we 100% can. you know, there are folks concerned about the amount of money that is being put into the

economy. only 17% of the $2.2 trillion went to people and families. we have to get more of this money into the hands of families that would use it into the economy on some of the things that rhonda described, and then you could rebuild the middle class and small businesses. you could have a better way of life. the cash relief checks showed it was possible, and the enhanced child tax credit has been a game changer. we can do this, but right now we are not acting like we care about the average american family probably because we do not because our political incentives make the average american family irrelevant. we just keep plowing money into the pipes. the pipes of the banks, of our financial system and to say the system is more important than us, and it should be the other way around. if you look at the average american family they are down on

politics because this does not working but occasionally something peeks through and they say i matter to you and the stimulus checks were an example of that and we need to lean into that in the enhanced child tax credit. the government is not able to deliver on a lot of things that it can deliver on that for real. that is one reason it is one of the main tenets of the forward party, in part so we can put pressure on other parties to follow suit because the american people know that this would help. thank you rhonda. host: david and edmund, rip up -- in edmund, republican. good morning. caller: good morning i first want to introduce myself as a disillusioned lifelong republican. president lincoln admonished that all of the armies of europe and asia would never occupy the missouri valley or drink from the mississippi river.

but, if america was to fall, it would be by suicide. and, it appears to me that, while historically my party has pursued its social and political agenda within the framework of a free and democratic society, that we are kind of through a looking glass to the point where there are no small number of americans who appear to be more than willing to pursue both agendas forsaken unto democracy itself. and i just wonder is that the suicide that mr. lincoln was warning us of? i would like to hear your comments on my subject. guest: thank you for your comments. it reminds me of a conversation i had with a military veteran a

number of days ago when he said he spent years fighting enemies overseas to find that we are disintegrating from within. and we are on the verge of failing as a democracy and a constitutional republic however you would like to frame it. in part because what you are saying. you are right, that is the greatest threat. that is what we have to try and stave off, and one of the ways to do that is to rejuvenate our system so that we do not have just two parties where if one party decides to come to a very bad temptations and say the other party is so bad that we will contest results and make it so that no one believes in a free and fair election anymore, that is the beginning of a disaster risk process that is very hard to come back from.

so we are in much bait -- greater danger of being corroded from within and failing, and this is not speculative anymore, this is an immediate threat that we could witness in the next several years. i do want to present a picture of what could happen in 2024 where if it is trump versus biden, which i think is the most likely scenario, i think we are potentially going to see widespread protests and a contested election on levels that we have not seen in our lifetimes. host: michigan, rob in in -- what is it? caller: that is correct. i think the last two elections have shown the public is trying to choose the lesser of two evils among the candidates who are extremists. one side has an ego to stickel

candidate that i would not welcome -- egotistical candidate who i would not welcome into my home and the other side has socialists that i would not write -- welcome into my part -- into my country. maybe it is time for a third party. i would suggest that condoleezza rice has a candidate and with her there i think she would bring a number of disaffected voters who would say let us get back to middle ground priorities. and i think she could win the election and that would have to because the realignment of both of the other party saying that extremism is not a winning path. and i welcome your comments on that. guest: i agree with you on a lot of what you just said. i think if you had strong third-party alternatives they would potentially get a majority of americans on board by the

numbers where right now independence outnumbered democrats or republicans, 52 -- 52% of americans want a real choice, and if it is trump versus biden and you had condoleezza rice or some other figure, sorry about that. what percent do you think you would get? you could wind up with 40 or 51% personally, and that is based on the numbers that we have seen, the surveys. the question is will that happen in 2024? i think a lot of americans want something like that to happen because we know that the system will not work and so many americans are doing what you described, choosing the lesser of two evils and saying it is better than that one. and is that really what we should be settling for? in a country of 330 million people, and the 21st century where we are just like point to that one because i hate that

person a little bit less than the other person. what kind of system is that? it makes no sense. if condoleezza rice or somebody were to run i think she would win? host: what do run again? guest: i am a patriot and parent and i ran for the first time because i felt like i could help the country. if i felt that was what the country needed i would one run again. host: houston, texas. nancy, an independent. good morning. caller: you seem to forget that president trump did the first stimulus check. i did not hear you mention any of that. and your democrat party fought him all the way. what is your comment on that? also kamala harris is -- host: that is nancy in texas. guest: i will give full credit to anyone who passes stimulus checks.

you are right that the first checks went out under the trump administration republicans, and i was 14 because it helped the american people. host: louisville, kentucky. a democrat. this is bernie. caller: good morning. from what i understand, you were on the program a couple of months ago talking about the forward party. taking the best things from the democratic and republican parties to create this new party, the forward party which i thought was a great idea. how will the forward party approach campaigning when the democrat and republican parties tend to do a lot of mudslinging during the campaign which does nothing but turn my stomach and i do not know if it changes anybody's mind. how will the forward party approach campaigning and not getting into the mudslinging? and by the way, i love the laugh. guest: thank you.

my wife likes it too which i suspect is the most important thing. still married after 11 years. and, a presidential campaign, that is pretty good. what is fascinating is that if you campaign for office and then you say something like i am an independent or i am third-party there is a certain number of voters who are like i like you. and when you talk about the mudslinging, that is one of the things that they want to get away from. they want a candidate who is going to run on something that they care about, and get away from the emotional cues of saying look the other party is out to get you. the fact is that the problems around this are getting worse and worse, there is something like a hand in glove relationship and running as independent, forward or third-party and trying to be positive and have a unifying

message because if you are going to run third-party it does not make sense to trash one side or the other. hopefully we can make this a winning recipe and communities around the country. it is tough because the media out rewards mudslinging, and it does not reward someone who is just trying to make a difference. host: we talked about the lessons you learned on the presidential campaign trail. can you learn -- can you talk about the lessons you learned running for mayor of new york? guest: i was thinking about the mayoral campaign when i made the comment where at any time you say something negative about another candidate the media will point that is the story of the day and if you propose a policy that they will ignore it. and so that is a dynamic that i saw very much in that race. host: what got ignored? guest: any idea that you thought. -- thought that people would be excited about. one idea was to tax the vacant

lots because it would help spur development, it was an idea that i was proud of, no one cared. if someone said something nasty about me than it was front-page news and i tried not to be nasty, so we were not getting a lot of that kind of coverage. host: flesh out the vacant lot idea. guest: right now people are treating land in certain parts of new york city as an investment, and they are not developing it because they are waiting for a better opportunity, and that is a loss for the city because something should be happening on the land. land is an important resource, so we should be taxing vacant lots at much higher levels and saying look, if you are going to try and owned this land you should not treat it as a bond or something. you have to do something with it. if you are not going to do something with it, sell it to someone who will do something with it. host: how much would that have brought in? guest: billions. there was one vacant lot that

would've paid tens of millions in taxes if it was taxed at the same level as other types of properties. so, yes. it was a very good idea and i hope the new mayor does it. host: do any cities in the country or around the world do something like that? guest: there are other cities around the world that are much more intelligent and efficient about this. i am also going to suggest that the u.s. is virtually alone in the world by not having a value-added tax because it is much harder to game your way out of it if it is a big company. it is weird that so many of our big companies pay so little because we have a very gameable system. i believe it is because of lobbying and corruption. other countries around the world figured this out. amazon should not be paying zero taxes. host: quick 101 on a value-added tax. guest: it is like a tax that

every stage of production to pay a little bit of a toll. so, if you are a company you cannot get out of it because the other companies tell the government essentially like they gave me this and then i turned it into a chair and then the chair went here and it went into a car. and so, it is a little bit like a more sophisticated, but that is because companies telling another company, nobly can squirm out of it. host: back to social media. melvin on twitter requests this "please rejoin the democrat party." would you ever consider rejoining? guest: i appreciate the sentiment. i am a patriot and american, and i think that bipartisanship is killing us. i have a lot of friends in the democrat party and i hope they consider me a friend but i want to do what is best for the country, and i think that

polarization is destroying us and i think it is impossible to cure that from within two of the major parties. thank you for thinking me in this light, and this is -- and i am very grateful. host: your phone calls as we talk with him about “forward: notes on the future of our democracy," and the topics you want to talk to him about as well. homestead, florida. rick, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for lifting your voice i have two quick questions. child tax credit is very popular even with moderate republicans like myself. how much damage will both democrats and the republicans do if they do not pass this forward in the new year? the second one is with multiple parties you can have somebody winning with 21%, what danger would that be having, 79% of the

people against you? and i will listen to your comments again. thank you for lifting your voice. guest: thank you. but child tax credit needs to be continued, and i am still cautiously optimistic that when the senate reconvenes in the new year we are going to see a revival of discussions because after it got missed on january 15 everyone will hear about it, republican, democrats, and communities around the country because it is a lot of everyone's favorite thing. 62 million benefit it directly. an equivalent number is benefiting indirectly where people are running a small business and people are coming into buy groceries and run daycare. i am cautiously optimistic but we need to let our constituents -- our representatives know and both parties that this is the best thing that you have done in eons.

so i am working hard to try and help the child tax credit persist and continue because it has been an enormous when but we have to let people know. moderate republicans love them and there are a lot of republican senators who like this, i know this for a fact. let reason prevail. one of the reasons why the child tax credit is failing because of polarization and if you had not -- if you had voted on independently in the senate it passes because a bunch of republicans would support it. right now it is getting stuck because you have this terribly partisan system where it is a fiasco, i am upset about it. that is on the child tax credit. to your point about having minority of americans end up voting for the purpose and that a lot of people do not like it. number one it is happening right now.

number two, we need to progress in terms of the way we count votes. i hope you stick with me. there is something called instant runoff voting, it is also called ranked choice voting where you can vote for first, second, and third choice and the winner has to have a majority of support. on some level on your ballot. and so if you have this process and it can be a spoiler, to say that the democrat or republican and then a third party person right now nobody votes for the third party person because they will spoil it for the democrat or republican and both parties uses argument because you cannot have an alternative or will mess it up. if you use runoff voting you can vote independent and then democrat or republican second choice. it is a very simple change.

50 plus cities around the country have adopted it. two states have adopted it, maine and alaska. if you adopt instant runoff voting problem solved and that is, by the way very heil the list of the forward party. if you combine that with nonpartisan open primaries you can have different points of view marriage and make it so eight reasonable candidate who is unifying and prone to compromise gets rewarded rather than the flamethrower on one side or the other. host: to the peach state, dixie rose in oakwood. independent. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you all today? host: good. caller: yes, sir, i would like to thank all of you all who participate in these debates and the betterment of our country, that our country imposes upon the world and that what we do is

the focus, and that this man is a glimmering light in the darkness that we should support new and youthful and get out of this turmoil of tit for tat for these people. what we are living in right now is just turmoil and stuff, and anybody that has a positive attitude is great. but i want to thank everyone good and bad for their contribution to the united states. and, i will vote for you, mister. guest: thank you. i could not agree more, that everyone who is participating today does deserve a pat on the back, if you care about the country and trying to make it better, you are trying to be constructive. that is what the country really wants and needs. and it should be something we are trying to get behind and reward whether it is me in the

forward party or something else that someone is trying to do. a nonprofit trying to help people, just help them help people. and try and be our own antidote , because it is not going well, our institutions are not doing that well but we as individuals and community members, we can help people and if we do that, we will feel better about ourselves and our contributions, so thank you, and that is so positive. the fact that you see me in that way makes me very happy, and happy holidays. host: time for two more calls. karen in alabaster, alabama. a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. there are some points that i agree with you on, term limits, i would love them to get those passed. your nonpartisan primary idea seems like an interesting one.

i am trying to think of what the catch would be for the democrats on it to be honest, but i would have to review it a little bit more. but it sounded like a great idea. i also wanted to say that you have a very charming, persuasive personality, i wish you were republican. i think your laugh is great too. you keep saying that amazon is not paying taxes. i do not like corporations either, i do not like jeff bezos or their politics that they do pay taxes, and i think when i say you guys, i mean democrats, you say this all the time, they talk -- they pay a ton of payroll taxes. a way that the corporation works as they have their revenue coming in, they have expenses and then they have net profit, and that net profit is allocated to the owner of the corporation or the shareholders and whoever the people are who created the corporation and they pay the taxes. what you are trying to do is also tax the corporation so they

will be double taxed. but that is how that works to anybody out there who does not know. the last point is save our democracy, that is a subjective term. the previous caller had said that it is a constitutional republic which you agreed. i believe that biden's executive orders and a lot of his mandates are going against our republic. they are not constitutional. and so, who's definition of save our democracy do we listen to? my definition or your definition. that is all i have. guest: thank you further comments -- further comments. i have a clever way to get term limits past. what you do as you go to congress and say 12 year term limits in each house, but it only applies to people who come in after you. because you know they are not

going to get themselves out of a job so you say you can have your cake and eat it too, you get grandfathered in. and then they can vote for it and then over time they would leave and they would get people in. so, hopefully you can see visually what that would look like, that is the kind of change that we would need, and that is what the forward party wants to make happen. amazon is paying taxes in various ways in terms of payroll taxes and the rest of it. i would say that when you talk about the owners paying taxes, like right now if you are jeff bezos and you own that stock you are not having to pay until you sell the stock, which he does not do. and so, there has to be some kind of mechanism to benefit from that company's incredible growth, particularly because that company ends up weeding out all other other -- another lot of other mom-and-pop shops and

businesses. i also agree with you that when you say save our democracy different people mean different things. and that is something that we should be working on. we need to try and find common ground because most of us should at least agree on some basic principles like the fact that we should be able to have meaningful choices and there should be real accountability for representatives, but right now there is not. host: we are running short by joann has been reading for a while and caller: i would like to know how the forward party what address the infrastructure, the financial infrastructure so it will address the $347 trillion that is secret money in the little tiny state like my state,

thank you. guest: what state was this? host: south dakota. mr. yang: i'm not aware of something specific to self dakota as far as they're being a lot of money in the financial system. host: i think she's talking about the pandora papers were work in the stories out of that . mr. yang: i confess to not being any more familiar with that than the next person. there is a real need for us to do a better job with transparency and our financial system to getting consolidated to a handful of megabanks. it's one reason i am for innovation in that space which can include bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

i'm not sure if that addresses her question at all. host: before you go, the future of the forward party? mr. yang: hopefully, we will make an impact as soon as november, 2022. if you want to be a part of the forward party, come check us out at forward party.com and you can be one of the first members. you get to make a difference at the ground floor. feel free to pick up our book. i'm concerned about the country and hopefully we can do something about it and hopefully we can make that happen right now in the next number of days. appreciate you all and happy holidays to you and your families. create the kind of memories that you need. host: his book his notes on the

future of our democracy, we always of recent you taking the calls on "washington journal." >> this week, watch washington journal's special holiday week author series, featuring a segment each morning with a new writer. a former trump fdr commissioner discusses -- fda commissioner discusses his book on covid-19. watch question journal -- washington journal for our special offers week -- authors week series. ♪ >> flags are flying at half staff at the u.s. capitol to honor former senate majority leader harry reid, who died yesterday. a statement saying in part "from

the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed, everything he did was motivated for his devotion to the silver state. he was the man from searchlight, born into the humblest beginnings and went on to lead an extraordinary life and fight for every man and woman across our state." and from nevada's jacky rosen "a former boxer from searchlight, he taught me it is always worth fighting the good fight and i am forever grateful for his friendship. senator reid carried our state to new heights. no one has done more in the history of our state to advance nevada's interests." mayors from four eastern european cities, warsaw, prague, budapest and bratislava testified on capitol hill about threats to democracy abroad. massachusetts congressman bill keeney shared this meeting of the house foreign affairs subcommittee on europe. >> i