the national alliance on mental illness talked about access to guns and the so-called red flag logs. be sure to join the conversation with cause, facebook comments, and tweets. ♪ host: good morning. it is wednesday, june 1, 2022. amid rising inflation rates that threaten the u.s. economy, president biden invited jerome powell to the white house to signal his ministrations focus on lowering prices. on the same day, president biden published an op-ed entitled "my plan for fighting inflation." this morning, we want to know if you think this white house can solve the problem of price increases from the pump to grocery store aisles? are you confident president biden can fix inflation?

for yes, (202) 748-8000 is the number. if you say no, (202) 748-8001. if you are unsure, (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text with your thoughts. (202) 748-8003 is that number. otherwise, catch up with us on social media, on twitter, and on facebook. a very good wednesday morning to you. you can go ahead and start calling in now forget the white house messaging on the topic of inflation yesterday began in the pages of "the wall street journal." here is the editorial from president biden. my plan for fighting inflation, the subhead. i will not meddle with the fed but i will tackle prices while guiding the economy's tradition to steady and stable growth. democrats on the joint economic committee with a nice backup of president biden's three-point plan yesterday.

it addresses inflation and focuses on three specific areas, giving the federal reserve the space it needs to get inflation under control, lowering the out-of-pocket costs for families, and reducing the federal deficit. and again, that plan published in the pages of "the wall street journal." later in the day to reinforce the messaging from that plan, president biden calling federal reserve chairman jerome powell to the white house. these were part of president biden's remarks ahead of the meeting. pres. biden: my plan is to address inflation. it starts with a simple proposition, respect the fed. respect the fed, which i have done and continue to do. my job as president is not to not only nominate individuals for that institution, but to give them the space they need to do their job. i am not going to interfere with their critically important work. the fed has two

responsibilities, full employment and prices. chairman powell and others have noted that they have a way on addressing inflation, like i am. and a larger complement of board members now confirmed, i know we will use the tools to monitor monetary policy. host: president biden yesterday from the white house to good this morning, we are asking you, are you confident president biden can fix the issue of inflation? (202) 748-8000 if you say yes to that question. (202) 748-8001 if you say no. if you are unsure, that is ok because we want to hear from you as well. (202) 748-8002. members of congress weighing in yesterday in the wake of the president's remarks at the white house and in the wake of the op-ed he published. here is a few of them. senator elizabeth warren from massachusetts, two ways congress

can bring inflation down his reducing costs for families and fixing a broken tech system that lets giant corporations get away with paying little to nothing in texas. democratic congressman, democratic leadership helped create 8 million jobs in two years, allowing millions of americans to get back to work and provide for their family. we must have their backs on the issue of inflation, meeting the moment on gas prices, and moving forward with plans to lower everyday costs. and then from the republican side of the aisle, roger wicker, the republican for mississippi, the senator saying president biden argued today our economy was in a position of strength but we continue pain at the pump and sticker shock at the store. the president seemed increasingly out of touch. one more from the republican side of the aisle. blame on the ultra magas. president biden must take account ability for his failed

economic policies and stop his out-of-control spending and repeal his restrictions on american energy producers. that is how we combat inflation. just a few of the comments from the folks who work in that building behind me on capitol hill. asking you this morning, are you confident that president biden can fix this problem? again, if you say yes, if you say no, if you are unsure, phone lines for all of you. we will put the numbers on the screen. renee is in maryland on the line for those who say yes, they are confident. caller: yes, good morning, and thanks for taking my call. i am a first time caller. this is real quick. i am confident. i think that he is doing the best that he can under the circumstances. and i think people are being a little disingenuous. if you remember, the economy that bush, baby bush wrecked, obama had to come in and clean it up.

but nobody has taken into account covid and all of that as well as now the ukrainian situation. it is a lot. it is a lot. i worked three jobs for mortgage and house and stuff. but it is what it is. host: rene, how do you get three jobs in in a day? what do you do? caller: [laughter] one of them is a professional job. i work for the state. when i get off, i do my doordash and the other is some of it i can work from home. it is a lot. but i tell you one thing, i am so grateful. i pray for our president every day and all that is strong in him because what we had before. so yes, i think under the circumstances he is doing the best he can. host: on doordashing, average price of a gallon of gas in maryland according to aaa right

now is close to $4.60, a little below the national average of $4.67. what does that mean for doordashing? caller: what it means is you have to factor in and be smart about it. i talked to dashers all the time where i deliver. shame on the people that do not to. you have to be strategic about it, about how much you want to put into it, the orders you are going to accept, and how far as far as the mileage in terms of delivery. so, yeah, i have been doing it for a while. it is tough. it is tougher with the gas. but again, you do what you have to do. in a legal way, if you understand what i'm saying. host: yes, ma'amhost:. thank you for calling in. hope you call and again down the road to get a lot a people call in while driving about so thanks big at first time caller. joseph, next in maryland. go ahead.

caller: good morning. i am excited. this is my first time to get through to c-span. i am not sure the president will be able to do that because it started with the pandemic and now the war in ukraine. during the height of the pandemic in 2020, we own a restaurant and i wanted to buy some brisket. brisket was close to seven dollars a pound. now, the same brisket is up $3.69 a pound. in that time, nothing could be done in 2020 because that was a supply chain issue. that was a shortage of workers in the factories because of covid. i think the president is doing his best forget one other issue is the issue of oil companies. oil is being sold in advance so it is all done in advance. if you would imagine, why would

they rise when they have a stop prior? it is all in advance. something has to be done in the way of oil companies checking the prices. i think they have to help one way or the other. thank you for the show. host: that is joseph in maryland. president biden talking in that column yesterday about his efforts to lower gas prices, talking about his efforts to release from the strategic petroleum reserve millions and millions of barrels to help lower gas prices. more into that column that came yesterday and the focus of a lot of attention throughout yesterday afternoon. but it was the wall street journal and "the washington post" with a little bit of background on why this sort of flurry of attention happened yesterday. and they say, this first from

"the washington post" reporting, after president biden grumbled over his administration's handling of inflation, expressing that aids were not doing enough to confront the problem directly according to two people familiar with the president's comments, speaking on condition of anonymity. the white house grapples with the growing likelihood that higher inflation will extend through the midterm elections. one or two more paragraphs from "washington journal" reporting on this. expressing frustration in recent weeks with their messaging around inflation according to people familiar with the matter. some officials have said they should publicly accept the administration's stimulus contribute into higher prices while arguing such steps were worthwhile while others have been opposed to making that concession. political advisers have trotted out different inflation counterattacked, by linking

higher prices to corporate greed or blaming them on russian president vladimir putin, but economic advisors have not eagerly embraced those lines just yet. that from "the wall street journal." a peek behind the press of the screen there at the white house yesterday in this op-ed. lines for those who think you are confident in president biden's ability to fix inflation and those who say you are not and those who are unsure. james is not. lancaster, virginia. good morning. caller: you have to face reality, folks. host: are you with me this morning? caller: yes. can you hear me? host: go ahead. why aren't you confident president biden can fix inflation? caller: because of the reality. we are not back to where we were at workers participation. we are at 60%. we were at six to 4%. you cannot face reality.

gas was two dollars a gallon a year ago. it is memorial day weekend. paying nine dollars for a slab of ribs, this year, paying $22. it is 8% inflation. that is so bogus. 3.5% unemployment. you are not even back to the floor yet. how can they write unemployment being that low when we have not got to the plateau? we have to face reality. we have refineries still not running because they don't trust regulation. that is why prices are high. there is nothing he can do. he is surrounded by incompetence. this is the most incompetent administration in my 56 years of living i have ever seen. now we are going into a recession. that is why i came out in a fury yesterday because he had probably already seen the numbers in advance.

he is in panic mode. he will panic today and tomorrow to prepare for the dismal report that will come out friday. host: the jobs report on friday? caller: the jobs report. host: first friday of every month, bureau of labor statistics with their monthly job report on the previous month comes out at 8:30 a.m. eastern and certainly something that will get a lot of attention when it does. tyler in carlsbad, california, good morning. you say you are confident present a bite and can fix this. why? caller: good morning, and thank you for c-span. of course he can because unlike the other caller that is not an economic historian or economic expert by all means, there is a 10 year rule would it comes to either real estate, inflation,

depression. but recession is a testy one. you are going to have a 10 year rule, and we are going to go through that. anybody has any common sense, they understand that is how it goes. if you look at commodities, if you look at -- i mean, look at the nasdaq right now. i mean, going up and down 300 , 400, 500 points. host: if this is a cycle that just happens, how can president biden have any impact on it? caller: that is a great question. the impact he can have is to tell, you know, to actually keep the rule. i mean, just like alan greenspan and everybody else. keep it stable.

you know, raise interest rates. people don't spend as much money. it would lower the cost. but we have a problem with imports. that is the problem with everybody with the meat and everything like the guy was saying. we have a problem with getting people the goods. you know, it is a really mixed bag of bad stuff for president biden. host: the fed trying to get a handle on this with a half port interest rate hike now as they try to bring down the inflation rates that continue to be at near 40 year highs. we are asking if you are confident of can fix inflation. president biden released a plane yesterday on how to fight inflation in the pages of "the wall street journal," a three-point plan.

we are asking you whether you say yes, you are confident, no, you are not, or if you are unsure. for a more scientific look at those questions, here is some of the latest polling numbers courtesy of "the washington post" article. a nbc news polln found that 33% of americans approve of president biden's handling of the economy while 23% approve of his handling of the cost of living in this country. a washington post/abc news poll in may found nine in 10 americans are concerned at a minimum about the rate of inflation, which has been at a 40 year-month. that includes 44% who say they are upset about the problem. what might be worse for the president and his party, they write 60 8% said they disapprove of biden's handling on the issue of inflation compared with just 28% say they approve. carol, north palm beach, florida, good morning. what do you think? caller: good morning.

i am a first time caller. host: a lot of those today, and that is good. caller: i think we are all grappling with a lot of higher gas prices. i think that president biden should do something to the gasoline suppliers in terms of i think he wants to do price gouging -- do a price gouging investigation. my question is, was gasoline demand higher than it is now in 2019, before the pandemic? because i don't know the answer to that question. usually, inflation is driven by supply and demand. i would like to know why the supply today, if it is not the same as the supply before the pandemic, then i have to believe the price is either related to the pandemic or oil companies

gouging us because they can. and to some extent, they might be because of their tremendous profits and lack of reinvestment in oil-producing. and the fact that i understand, which has not been highly publicized, that we have four major refineries in this country and one of them is out of service. i wonder why we are getting a bottleneck in the pipeline and why the president does not engage the national defense act or whatever they call it in order to -- host: on the issue of price gouging, i can add a little something there. democrats and this from "the washington times" article today, opening up the legislation to address fuel costs, directing the federal trade commission to go after big oil for allegedly price gouging consumers. it will buy good graces with constituents as it makes its way through congress. the washington times notes the

legislation narrowly passed the democratic led house last week despite four democrats joining all republicans in opposing it. it is premature doomed in a split senate, which is why democratic leaders signal from the start this is more about a messaging opportunity. not a lot of optimism it will pass and get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. caller: right. if inflation is that important to us, meaning congress, it seems to me there is something they can do about it and they are choosing not to because typically it is my understanding that republicans favor large corporations and their monopolies and their price gouging and they will never do anything to fix it because that is where they get a lot of their money to help them stay in office. so that is the answer to that question. that is why it will never pass, and republicans should be voted out in the midterms locally,

state elections, and nationally. thanks. host: that it's carol in florida. this is gary in the constitution state. you are not confident in president biden's ability to fix this. why? caller: the first thing is very important about inflation. in order to correct this, president biden cannot do this. the fed has to raise interest rates above the inflation rate. and you know what that will do with a $30 trillion debt. we can never service that interest. the main thing is all he can do is small things. if he wants to open up the grounds and start pumping oil -- now, no one understands. no one is price gouging. oil companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to drill to find oil. that is it. and the different things that colorado needs, california needs, areas are all different, so that costs money.

why don't understand which is crazy because i know people in the oil business, diesel and home heating oil is the cheapest oil to produce. it is cheaper than gasoline. naturally, that fuel should be less than gasoline. why it is higher, i have no idea. but the president has nothing to do. he can't do anything basically. it is going to have to be on the fed, and they are going to have to invoke the local rule where the interest rate where we had it at 10%, 15% i remember in 19 625 where if you wanted to borrow money, it was 19%. mortgages were like 12%, 13%. basically, you have to let it run its course. that is all i can say. host: all this being on the fed, so yesterday in a conversation with "washington post live," lately summers talked about the historic inflation rate but also talked about how the fed misread

this, this inflation, how long it would last. here is a little bit of what larry summers had to say yesterday. >> i think there needs to be considerable soul-searching at the fed as to how they missed this as badly as they did. they were declaring that inflation would be transitory through most of 2021, even as it was becoming clearer and clearer to a growing number of observers that inflation was not a path to being purely transitory. so i did some review of the modeling and forecasting techniques that the fed uses, and i think it would give confidence that these kinds of mistakes are less likely to be

repeated in the future.former host: former treasury secretary lawrence summers yesterday with "washington post." republicans have honed in on president biden talking about transitory inflation as a reason why he has lost credibility on this issue, pointing to his many statements last year about inflation not lasting as long as it has. here is one of those statements. this from july 19 of last year. president biden on how long inflation will be around and the issues that he said were temporary. pres. biden: we also know that as our economy has come back, we have seen price increases. some folks have raised worry that this could be assigned a persistent inflation but that is not our review. our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price

increases we have seen were expected and expected to be temporary. the reality is you cannot flip the global economic light back on and not expect this to happen. as demand returns, there will be global supply chain challenges. we have seen semiconductors used in on mobiles. that has slowed production, creating a temporary spike and car prices. that is a real challenge. my administration is doing everything we can to address it. but again, these disruptions are temporary. host: that was president biden 11 months ago. this is jim in highland park, new jersey. good morning. you say you are confident present a bite and can fix this. why? caller: i am positive he will be able to correct what is happening, but it is also

upon congress to go along with what he is proposing. if congress does not go along with it, then naturally president biden would not be able to do it. it has to come from congress also. that is what i have to say. goodbye. host: in terms of some of the things that president biden is proposing, one of those issues would be a housing supply action plan to make housing more affordable by building millions more housing units across the country, closing the housing shortfall he says in five years if the plan is enacted. this plan would also reduce the deficit. deficit reduction a key part of this in the op-ed from "the wall street journal" yesterday by

making "commonsense reforms to the tax code. the internal revenue service should have resources to collect the taxes americans owe. we should level the taxation plainfield so it is no longer have incentive to shift jobs overseas, and we should end the outrageous unfairness in the tax code that allows a billionaire to pay lower taxes than a teacher or a firefighter." that was president biden from the op-ed yesterday. this is kevin in clearwater beach, florida. good morning. are you confident president biden can fix this? caller: no. i have no confidence in this administration. this administration has let us down. i did vote for joe. i was hoping a guy with maybe all of those years of politics, he would be honest. he is not. he has lied. he has created the world problem. if he pulled out of afghanistan correctly, it would never have led putin into taking over ukraine. this is his problem.

and him keep blaming everything else come everybody else. let's remember, in the primaries, he was the first want to say if trump had 100,000 americans die, he should resign. why isn't president biden resigning? why isn't the media going after him and his son hunter? we now know clinton is crooked. why can't you guys admit the truth and portray the truth? they are stopping fossil fuels. you will be sitting there in your underwear. you have a tie that is a plastic fossil fuel product. i have a retiree this year. i don't have another 20 years to make up joe's mistakes. i have zero. and he should be impeached. thank you. host: that is kevin in florida. he talked among those comments there about ukraine and russia. we have been talking a lot about that biden op-ed yesterday in the pages of "the wall street journal," inflation and the economy. there is also an op-ed from

president biden today in the pages of "the new york times," this one focusing on what america will and will not do in ukraine. here is part of what the president has to say. "as the war goes on to my want to be clear about the aims of the united states in these efforts in ukraine. america's goal is straightforward. we want to see a democratic independent sovereign and prosperous ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression. he says we do not seek war between nato and russia, as much as i disagree with mr. putin. i find his actions and outrage. the united states will not try to bring about his ouster in moscow. while the united states and allies are not attacked, we will not directly engage in this conflict either by sending american troops to fight in ukraine or by attacking russian forces. we are not encouraging or enabling ukrainian strikes beyond its borders. we do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on russia." president biden all the war in ukraine.

what america will and will not do is the headline on his essay today. that one from "the new york times." loretta and cleveland, ohio, you are next. caller: good morning, john. good morning, america. the questions that c-span asked, i do not agree with. they are radicalizing questions. the people call in, specially republicans come and they just complain, complain, complain. i have been trying to figure out how this all happened, and the most that i could see of it is that when obama left, the debt was $19 trillion. now, it is $30 trillion. now, who happened in between

obama and biden? trump. ok. so how much money did trump spend? they said that inflation comes from overheating spending money. so if we jumped from $19 trillion to $30 trillion, how much did trump spend? what did he spend it on? we know he did the pandemic thing and the shots, all of that. that was good. but a lot, a couple of trillions are missing and it is adding onto the inflation. and then, john, we don't make anything anymore. all of our products are made overseas. and when trump shut down america because people want to blame

that on america, too, biden never shut down america. trump shut down america during the pandemic. the shut down people did not take well. a bad reaction. people did not want to go to work. people did not want to take a shot. people did not want to wear a mask. and then there is the supply chain. trump did not say anything about supply chain when he shut down america. host: loretta, on the issue of debt and deficit, which is where it started, you probably want to stick around. in about a half-hour, we will be focusing a lot on that issue. maya macguineas will join us for the -- from the committee for a responsible budget. c-span viewers know her well. we will talk about the latest congressional budget office the next decade. stick around for that discussion. i think we will touch on some of the points that you were talking

about just there. frank, clear amount my california, is next. good morning. caller: good morning. ok. so biden can easily fix inflation but he won't. let's look at the facts. in december of 2020, gasoline prices were at $2.17 a gallon. 4.5 in the fourth quarter, 6.3 in the fourth quarter of 2020, and then we had the pandemic. all biden has to do to fix inflation is reverse his policies and go back to the trump policies. open up the priceline. approve the permits. open up alaska. and let's pump oil and gas. right now, we are pumping less

oil than we were in 2020. we were pumping 13 million, now 11 million barrels a day. that is affecting the world inflation because when you take oil out of the market, that causes every country to have inflation because the prices are going up. we should be pumping 15 million barrels a day right now if we just left the trump policies in place. people that blame oil companies, they are not going to invest money when the president said "i am going to get rid of fossil fuels." why would any oil company invest money? that does not make any sense. as far as what america really needs to worry about, biden will fix inflation but will do it through a great recession. that will drive inflation down because we will have everybody economy. and people have to be aware. i don't think people know the

trump tax cut expires in 2023. when that happens, everybody will be paying more in taxes. add that to the inflation problem. now biden is talking about raising taxes on corporations. multinationals should go back over to china. is that what we want? trump got the fleas -- economy booming. host: that is frank in california on why he is not confident president biden can fix inflation. this is republican senator kevin cramer on why he believes president biden had several missteps on this issue of inflation. this from a foxbusiness interview. [video clip] >> well, first thing he can do is lift all of his revelatory craziness. his first day in office, he

signed several executive orders, undid some of the good exit him orders president trump put in place. his op-ed said he inhibited a very bad economy but the reality is a he inhibited a robust economy built on a strong foundation, built on lower regulations, lower taxes, and the reason we were able to come back so quickly after covid was because of the foundation that was built by the trump administration and republicans in congress prior to the pandemic. he instead of seeing that, he doubled down, past the american rescue plan with just democratic support, adding to trillion dollars of fuel to the fires of inflation. he increased regulations, stopped oil development largely in the united states of america, or at least stop it where it was. worse than all of that, all of these things plus many more, sent bad signals to investors into the marketplace. he talked unwanted of his mouth about wanting to incentivize

energy development. he wants to have tax incentives for clean energy, electric vehicles, all the while, the world is crying for more of what we produce in oil and gas and other energy sources. everything he does it sends the wrong messages. host: republican senator kevin cramer, his interview on foxbusiness. talking this morning and the first hour of "washington journal" about your confidence in president biden's ability to fix the issue of inflation. if you are confident that he can do it, (202) 748-8000 is the number. if you are not confident, (202) 748-8001. if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. sharon in new jersey, good morning. you are next. caller: good morning, and thank you, c-span. it is great to have the opportunity to speak out to the americans in our country. the gas and oil companies have a

monopoly and lost a lot of their profits in 2020 and 2021. and now, they want to double their profits to make up for the losses that they had. the president cannot set the gas and oil company prices. besides, the gas and oil companies finance the republicans, and they want the president to look bad and to fail. so if we take the $1 trillion in tax breaks given to the wealthy people of america and apply it to the deficit, that would be six years times two, would be $12 trillion offer a deficit that would help get us back on track. all i want to say, america, god blessed as. god bless america. we are blessed to have a very experienced good man at the helm.

i trust him with integrity and with god's love. thank you. host: that is sharon in new jersey. here is what president biden had to say in the op-ed in "the wall street journal" yesterday about prices at the pump as part of his plan for lowering inflation. the price at the pump is elevated in large part because of inflation in oil and gas and capacity of the market. we cannot let up on our global effort to punish mr. putin for what he has done, and we must mitigate the effects for the american consumer. the largest release from the global oil reserve in history. congress can help by passing what i have proposed. a dozen ceo's told me earlier this year that my plane on that would reduce the average annual family's utility bill by $1000." president biden yesterday. all of this coming as the national average for the price

of a gallon of gasoline is $4.67. this is jerry in nevada. good morning. what do you think? caller: good morning. how are you today? host: doing well. caller: i am an older american. i was working age living through the 1970's, ridiculous inflation. president carter, with all due respect, had no chance at fixing the inflation problem. it required drastic measures by the federal reserve to raise interest rates. no one was investing in anything. no business would make an investment. they were just put their money in the bank and make that kind of a return on their investment. i am afraid we are heading in that direction again. the oil company's, i am old enough to know that 1941 to 1946, there was no cars made in america. coming out of the postwar, they had control of the oil

companies complete. the profits made by dealers and oil companies for the next six years were astronomical as they controlled the absolute flow of the cars, similar to the situation that happenstance by shortage of the chips. they now have control. they don't want to produce huge amount of cars in the near future. the price of cars will remain high. dealers will charge over the price. same thing will happen with the oil companies. the president can set the policy by opening the taps and the oil companies to add that they want to drill for oil. this administration is totally anti-fossil fuel, and that is going to remain. energy is the absolute core of all of this inflation. host: in maryland, good morning. caller: morning. people are talking about what is going on now versus what happened then, but let's talk about then.

first of all, we had a pandemic that the former guided not want anybody to know about. he handled it terribly. people not being able to go to work and stayed home. they were not making money. therefore, they hatch to spend less -- they had to spend last. he put money in the pockets of the people, which was well-deserved. now, next thing you know, in 2020, trump told the saudis and opec to stop oil production. people want driving their cars, paying for gas at the pump. then trump had his trade war with china.ok . supply and demand. supply was cut off. the demand was increased.

ok. host: you think there should have been less stimulus? you think we pumped too much stimulus into this country? caller: no, not at all, john. because people needed the money. people were not able to pay their rent because they were not able to go to work. so no, the stimulus had to be pumped into people's pockets. the rent moratorium, that helped them out. now, biden does not have any control over gas prices. opec and saudi, they control that. ok. oil production is just now building back up to of course there is demand but there is no supply.prices are going to go up . biden cannot do anything about prices, gas prices.

now they are talking about the keystone pipeline extension, which has never started. it was never under construction. also, they are talking about biden stopping the oil companies from producing. not true. the oil companies have gas that they have not touched. host: this is brent in michigan. good morning. you are next. caller: yeah, good morning. a lot of good comments. what i have to say, this will be repetitious. but we have inflation because the fed wanted inflation and they told us they wanted inflation. historically, they are the institution that controls inflation. anybody who lived through the late 1970's, early 1980's remembers interest rates as high as 20% with the chairman of the fed. that was back when the fed chairman were frightened of disturbing the purchasing power of the dollar. inflation was 8% or 9% annually.

since 2008, powell's decisions are supposed to be free by intimidation or politics. you might remember when he resisted granting trump's wish with interest rates. at jackson hole, i think it was in august of 2020 or 2021, with interest rates already at historic lows at 2%, powell announced that the united states economy needed more inflation. you can google it. he said many find it counterintuitive that the fed would want to push up inflation. however, inflation that is persistently too low can pose serious risks to the economy. to that end, the fed started buying $120 billion in treasuries and mortgage bank securities every month, increasing the money supply. surprise, we get inflation. commodities and stock market bubble. stock market prices are still too low even with the corrections.

too high, i'm sorry. host: brent, if there is not much president biden himself can do about this, should he then take the blame, say, of the house and senate and midterm elections? should he take the blame if there is not much he can do himself? caller: well, obviously, the opposition republicans are going to use this as a bludgeon to defeat the democrats. it has always been that way. it is expected. that is what happened to carter. as far as the oil prices, an oil tycoon once said the cure furlough oil prices is low oil prices because when the economy shut down because of the pandemic, oil prices crated. oil was so wonderful that there was no place to store it. as a result, the more costly

drilling operations like fracking were too expensive to be profitable and were shut down , mothballed from you now that the economy is returning, oil companies are keeping production low and using profits to reward shareholders. host: that was brent. yesterday to add to the questions from the white house press corps, the white house brought the white house national economic council director to the white house briefing room to take questions from reporters. one of those questions was how long this period of high inflation is going to continue. [video clip] >> what is the expectation? do you advise the president about how long prices will be at a 40 year level, how long inflation will be here? >> there is uncertainty. and i will leave the predictions to forecasters. i think you and others have seen most major forecasters out there

and their projections. most projecting we will see moderation in inflation over the course of the year. what i can say and is important with respect to the op-ed the president wrote today is that the president has a clear approach and priorities with respect to tackling inflation. the more progress we can make on that plan, the more progress we can make in lowering costs and making things more affordable for families right now, the more progress we can make and building on the historic deficit reduction we have already seen this year. then we better off we will be, the better positioned we will be to actually see that moderation happened more quickly. that is our focus. our focus, we were thinking about policy, particularly fiscal policy how can we make progress on that front? understanding there are a lot of predictions out there. host: the director of the white house national economic council

in the briefing room yesterday. about 10 minutes left in this discussion this morning, asking the question, are you confident president biden can fix this issue of inflation? if you say yes, (202) 748-8000 is the number. if you say no, (202) 748-8001. if you are unsure, (202) 748-8002. a couple of tweaks from viewers -- tweets from viewers as they have been watching this discussion. one saying, i am confident and know president's ability to fix inflation. they don't have the power. chris saying people need to realize this is global. a lot of factors to consider here. there is very little that can be done. the republicans want naive people to think biden is the reason. dan with this text to us from tennessee. biden will find a way to fix inflation when he gets china to pay him to do it. this is david in denison, texas. the morning. caller: good morning. first, somebody answered about a

10 year cycle. there is no such thing in economics. you got the business cycle, but there is no such thing as a regular tenure cycle. milton friedman, nobel winning economist, whose theories are considered general theory these days, said that the fed has too much power to put in the hands of mere mortals. the biggest reason for inflation is the increases and changes in money supply. prefigured you would be a lot better off putting a computer in and having it gradually take care. the last two years, we have had an increase in money supply of 43% for discussion and references to the increasing balance sheet and printing money. the trump train work increased the problem of inflation --

trade war increased the problem of inflation. that is not so. we had 1.4 percent inflation under trump. even with the so-called trade wars. we were trying to get china to quit stealing, quick cheating, etc. host: if it is not this and it is not that, what is it? caller: the world banks, all of them printing money like crazy for over a decade. money is poured into the economies to stimulate. for example, the government took over the student loan program in order to be able to use the proceeds to help offset the costs. the cost of anything the government puts money into, whether it be health care, education, homebuilding, like the things that happened leading us to the 2007 crisis with the

mortgage securities exposure, the prices, they skyrocketed. the idea now that the energy aspect of this has exacerbated inflation everywhere. natural gas is a major component of fertilizer. fertilizer is double or more what it was a year or two ago. as a result of the energy. we are the producer for the world. yesterday, i was listening to a biden spokesman talk about how they are talking about they are trying to get 2 million barrels of iranian oil in the market. the saudis won't talk to biden because they don't like the iranian nuclear deal. nobody in the middle east likes the nuclear deal. that is a european and american driven thing. they won't talk to him. they won't cooperate. yes, the saudis reduced oil

production when trump asked them to when the price of a barrel of oil went because he was trying to save our oil industry, but they helped cooperate with him when he asked them to increase. he asked the russians and the saudis. because we got upset with the saudis with the incident with the reporter, we have driven them with the relationship with russia. the piece deals have all done away -- the piece deals -- the peace deals have all got away. the saudis are funding the rockets at yemen. this is what is the biden administers his response before. host: one of the issues you bring up his food prices, david. i point you to this story in "the wall street journal" on that front. pushing back from higher prices on food makers as more consumers

rethink their spending. the kroger company and other company chains are asking grams to prove why higher prices are necessary before they accept them and they are warning manufacturers they will stop carrying products if food companies will not negotiate their prices. some companies said they are moving to new meet suppliers and delaying price changes for items like canned goods. we don't just accept cost increases so the chief marketing officer of giant eagle. that is the pennsylvania-based grocery that has been warning some manufacturers about this issue. that is from the wall street journal today. this is john in the baystate. good morning. you are next. caller: yes, i would like to put a little military aspect into this. all wars go back to oil. the nazis were defeated because of running out of oil. i served my stuff in the military, 1975, 1976 in korea.

we were taught about the communist regime and how they kept religion away from the people and controlled them. i see it happening in this country. i stepped into the demilitarized zone in north korea and now am living in a communist country. that is all i have to say. host: alfred in california, good morning. you are next. alfred, are you there? go ahead, sir. caller: yes. yes. i am just -- republicans are controlling inflation. and here it is, a time where they can discredit president biden to make it seem like he is not doing his job. since he came into president in

2020, he has been battling several -- he is bringing folks from of get a stamp -- from afghanistan. host: how are republicans controlling inflation if they don't control the house or senate or white house? caller: no. no. no. they are investors. the investors control. they raise prices. they take things off of shelves. they make it seem that these items are not available. they are available. even with the baby cereal, that could have been prevented. risk analysis today, this is not acceptable. host: that is offered in california. this is rich in greensburg, pennsylvania. morning. you are next. caller: good morning to you. i want to shout out to dave in tennis who made a great -- in

texas who made a great case with milton friedman about what is going on. it is all about the money supply. we are seeing inflation at 8% now. i can only imagine what it would be if biden's $5 trillion bill back better went through. it never went through. it got cut down to $3.5 trillion. it still has not gone through. i heard so many times, whether it was jen psaki or someone else, saying how the program was vetted by 17 nobel laureates, including robert solow and even janet yellen's husband, who is a nobel laureate professor at georgetown. so everybody got it wrong. janet yellen just came out this week and said they swung and missed on this. no. host: do you think joe manchin helped save president biden from

even worse numbers right now? caller: joe manchin? host: you talk about the striking of the bill back better, the negotiation. he has been a voice in the democratic party to rein in some of that spending and has been successful in his efforts across the way. caller: yeah, that is a good question. but i think by mixing the build back better, it was a good thing. i can only imagine. if you dumped another $5 trillion into the economy and inflation rates at 16%, 17%. so i think mansion probably saved the day. back to the original question, can biden get it right? no, i don't think he can. but thank you very much. host: karl in michigan, you are next. caller: yeah, good morning. i saw a commercial that you may have seen it. you can either pay me now or you can pay me later.

the oil companies are going to get paid one way or another. everybody blames carter. we forget about jimmy ford. remember jerry ford from michigan? there was inflation during his administration. he had a good idea. it was a button for your lapel. whip inflation now. maybe we should get republicans back in office. they always have good ideas. host: kathleen in texas, good morning. you are next. caller: yes. this is kathleen colligan again. i don't think the president will fix it because he is surrounded by all of these people telling him to say this, say that, do this, do that. it is like he is a puppet. so everybody took control and told him what to do. you say this and you say that.

i will do this. and it is not right on the american people. we should not have to put up with that kind of stuff in this country. all the gas prices, it is ridiculous. me and sister make $1600 in social security, both of us together. and we still campaign bills. and i only pay $311 in texas -- taxes because my property is homestead and disabled, so that is why i pay less, but me and sister still can't hardly pay the groceries. they went up, tripled. you can't even walk into a decent grocery store because you will go right back out. nobody can afford that. i don't think he will fix it because there is too many people out with their heads wanting -- hands wanting money behind closed doors. you do this, i will do that. host: got your point, kathleen.

calvin, last color in this segment, out of california. caller: how are you doing today? host: doing well. turn your tv down and go ahead with your comment. caller: this is what i want to talk about, donald trump. host: yes, calvin, go ahead. caller: if you will want to find out about him, why don't you ticket back to do thousand seven when he was on -- take it back to 2007 when he was on "the apprentice?" do you know why he got fired? host: we are going to finish up the discussion on inflation today and president biden's plans. but we will have open phones a little bit later in our program where folks can call in anytime they want to talk -- calling on any topic they want to talk

about. up next, the congressional budget office came out with its forecast on the deficit with how rising inflation figures do that. we will dig into those numbers was maya macguineas. later we will be joined by hannah wesolowski from the national alliance on mental health. stick around. we will be right back. ♪ >> live sunday, journalist sam keen will talk about the drug camp and the vic in the united states. he's the author of several books, including "true tales from another mexico," and "the least of us, true tales of

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c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine. bring you the latest from the president and other officials, at willis congress. we have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders, all on the c-span networks. our web resource page where you can watch the latest videos on demand and follow tweets from journalists on the ground. go to c-span.org/ukraine. >> "washington journal" continues. host: always happy to welcome back to "washington journal" maya macguineas, joining us in the wake of the congressional budget office's budget and

economic outlook. why should viewers care about this particular federal document? guest: let me try to get people to care about. it is a weird story, but this is a document that changed my career path. i was working in the world of finance many decades ago and i picked up the cbo report which lays out the physical trajectory for the coming decade. i was engrossed with what i read. i was fascinated and i learned so much, and i really encourage people to actually read the document because it is impartial , numbers focused, and easy to follow. i'm not sure how many people are going to go read it. host: it is free to everybody at cbo.gov, the budget and economic outlook. guest: it is great because you see the numbers without the political spin. so we will take a little bit today to say why it matters so much, but through the process of how we do our federal budget, how we spend our money, what we

borrow, very little discussion goes to the overall macro big picture. this is kind of a reentering that happens every year that tells you what the physical trajectory the country is on is, and it is the context for how we should do all of our budgeting. the bottom line on this one is it tells us that we are in bad fiscal shape. our debt to gdp is headed towards record levels in this country over the coming decade. it is going to hit 110%. by our calculations, if we extend some of the expiring lessees, it could be as high as 120%. the average in this country has been below 40%. that's where we were when we went into the great recession in 2008. we could be above that come about where we are headed is certainly concerning. we are on track to borrow over

$15 trillion over the next 10 years if we do nothing else that increases borrowing, and lots of the policies being discussed would add to the debt be on that. one of the most troubling facts i have seen in this is what is happening to interest payments. interest payments would triple over the next decade from about $400 billion to weather over cash to well over $1 trillion. it would be -- to well over $1 trillion. this is warning lights all throughout the document reminding us that we are borrowing more than we can afford to and we don't have a plan for what to do about it. host: any good news in this document? guest: there is some good news, but it is kind of a two-edged sword. the first thing is that our deficits are going to be lower than they were the past couple of years. that is not surprising news because that is the result of the huge recession related to covid having improved and all of the bar urine -- all of the borrowing to fight covid, which

was the right thing to do. i think the last bill was too much and certainly lead to inflation, but much of the borrowing, the first responses to covid come over exactly when we should have borrowed. some of the reasons the deficit is improving so much is because inflation, which is clearly a big concern. we heard a lot about it from your callers before. inflation increases the revenues in the federal budget, so that can lead to smaller deficits in the short run and higher gdp. all those make the numbers look good in the short run, but the inflationary effects are also negative for making everything cost more for everybody. so i guess the good news is that the huge covid recession is over and we have incredible economic strength, but in this -- but it

is not improving the overall tenure picture. host: debt and deficits and this 10 year picture, that is our conversation with maya macguineas. you can join by calling in. it is (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, independents (202) 748-8002. what is cbo's track record in getting these projections right? guest: cbo is never going to get spot on. they don't try to assume exact where the economy is going. they don't try to predict there is going to be an invasion by another country or a huge recession or a massive, unprecedented global pandemic get they don't even pretend to try to calculate when they will be the normal recessions we see. so certainly cbo is never going to get year-by-year numbers right. but what they do in addition to

looking at the overall projections for the 10 year, which are directionally correct, they also look at the cost of a lot of different legislation proposed by congress. if you don't have a price tag attached to it, you think it is free, so those numbers tend to be pretty good. their overall projections miss as anybody would, but they don't miss for political reasons, and in this town there's a lot of politics driving some of the estimates out there. host: that's the next question. what do you think numbers of congress should do with this document, and what do you think they will do? guest: what they should do is look at this and say our debt is going to levels higher than we have ever had in this country, including right after world war ii. that is not a smart policy. it means we are vulnerable to changes in the economy, changes overseas.

we depend on foreign countries for this borrowing. that is a dangerous situation to have. so they should say what we are going to do is put in place a plan that would gradually bring down this debt trajectory. though you do for that as you pay for all new legislation. that would be good for inflation as well. you come up with a plan that would actually reduce the long-term deficit. you try to think about what revenues would you raise, what spending would you cut. that is what you do when you have a huge fiscal imbalance. what will they do? pretty much the opposite. unfortunately, we all know how polarized everything is right now, but the democrats and republicans will have complete the ups it takes on what this says. on the democrat side you will have people focusing on the deficit has come down since the multitrillion dollars a borrowing during covid. they will try to imply that the deficit has come down for policy reasons, when all of the

policies and the recent years have added to the debt. republicans will cry about how dangerous this is an we have to do something, but the issue is when they were the majority, they also ignored the huge warning signals coming out of congressional budget office. politics and physical response ability don't often align, and that is pretty much the problem -- and fiscal responsibility don't often align, and that is pretty much the problem. host: do you think you used to be more of an optimist about what congress would do, that second question on what they would do with these kinds of stark black-and-white, no spin numbers from a nonpartisan group what the cbo? guest: it is a sad question for me because i have become much more discouraged. when i started this because i read a cbo document, people

would disagree sometimes more of an act so the two parties could show their differences, but they would get together and hammer out the details and do the heavy lifts, and there were budget deals that brought the deficits down and they were bipartisan, and in the end they could cooperate on hard policy. i think the political environment we live in right now is dangerous for so many reasons. i don't even put fiscal policy is the major one. if you think about what it takes to bring reasonable debt package and get it across the finish line, get something done, you have to be willing to favor policy over politics. but does not happen very often. you have to be willing to look at the short-term benefits -- sorry, the long-term benefits of something, not just the short-term gains. that is not happen. i feel like the long-term has been cast aside and that is why we are borrowing so much from our kids. you have to be willing to make difficult choices. nobody does that. you will hear so many different argument for why debt doesn't

matter, and it is just not realistic. in many corners there is an unwillingness to compromise. those are the things you need to do to have sound fiscal policy. they are the opposite of what dangerous polarization leads to, so i worry for our country tremendously because of the state of how polarized we are. we are divided, we are dysfunctional, we are distrustful. we are really not able to act on the level you want a leading country to be able to in terms of governing ourselves, and that has led to really being discouraged and pessimistic. we have some great cochairs, mitch daniels, leon panetta. leon panetta often says this issue will be addressed either through leadership or crisis. i remember he said that when i first took this job, and i thought clearly it will be leadership, and i think it is more and more likely that it is a crisis. host: some of the numbers from that cbo report, just put them on screen before we get to your cause.

after 2022, economic growth slows, inflationary pressures expected to ease, federal deficits will shrink to $1 trillion in 2021 and average 1.6 trillion dollars annually over the next 10 years. the annual deficit as a share of the economy will grow from 4.2% in 2022 to 6.1% in 2032. public debt increases from its current 98% of gdp to 110% by 2032. those are some of the numbers the cbo put out there. maya macguineas here to break them down for you. peter in new york, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. nice to speak with you again, maya. host: can't hear you. guest: i could hear him. host: i apologize.

maybe it is my audio. we will get to tim. caller: where does this come from? are they just pulling it out of their hat? must have got the wrong hat. ,, where is this money coming from? guest: right, it is not actually easy to understand what can make trillions of dollars come out of thin air. the way that the government borrows money is by issuing treasuries, bills, bonds, and notes. it auctions off these treasuries which people by, and that lends money to the government. so how much they are borrowing is deficit each year, and then overall, the a chameleon of that tends to be the debt. what happens is they have regular government treasury auctions and they are bit on by financial institutions, often the central bank will absorbency, that money both domestically and central bank's around the world want to own u.s. treasuries, and a lot of the money we borrow comes from overseas. one of the issues is that in

america we don't save as much as other countries, and other countries have a high demand for our debt because we are considered a stable, safe economy. so we borrow that from all sorts of people who are saving and want to treasuries as part of their portfolio, whether it is individuals or big asset funds or central banks. there is sufficient demand for treasuries. that is why the interest rate has stayed relatively low. they are coming up right now. that could be very costly for the country, but that is the process of how it works. host: peter, if you're still out there, all back and we will give you rueful time. sorry -- give you your full. sorry about that. this is julie. caller: basically everything you are saying is spot on. they spent up so much money for the pandemic relief. two of my kids make six figures and they didn't even need the

money. it is great that biden wants to promote women, but jenny yellen is not up to the job -- but janet yellen is not up to the job. obama's economist did a great job. lastly, this $30 trillion spent, it is going to crush us. any time play with the numbers and say we are paying down the deficit, it is not true at all. so i agree with everything you say, and i am so afraid for our country. guest: thank you for the call. i'm afraid for our country, too, and that is why i focus on this issue so much. it is a thankless issue in many ways because most politicians don't want to hear that we need to take tough measures and control our spending, raise our revenues. those are hard things to do. it really is important, and as we say to our kids, it certainly is. i agree the last of the covid bills was excessive. what happened is that as it was being planned, first off, we had just passed the previous bill,

so there was a lot of money that was just coming into the economy, and then as it was being discussed and debated, the economic conditions continue to improve, particularly state and local governments were doing much better than we had thought a few months ago, and yet that bill did not get scaled back. i agree with you that throughout the pandemic we were unable to target the money that went directly nearly as well as we should have been. that kinda frustrates me generally that we should be able to be better at targeting, getting people money for people who really need it rather than having these checks go to people who clearly -- i like you have people who said i got a check and really needed that really didn't need it -- check and really didn't need it. so that got the inflation to where it is not easy to control. i will to say i think there are many great economists working in the administration, including

jenny yellen. i think the problem is that you always have -- including janet yellen. i think the problem is it is probably difficult to have anybody get the exact agenda that they think is right out of there. but what this administration needs to do, and i do think there are some people in the white house who understand that very well, is not exacerbate the inflationary situation. that means not adding to the debt any further. i think it is fair to say that as the biden administration and the president is talking about the importance of eating down the debt and controlling inflation, they should basically make a promise, we will not pass any further legislation that is not fully paid for because it is bad for the debt, and that is better in place. host: i don't know how much you can see behind the curtain, but are these debates on economics for his politics happening more in the biden administration then the trump or obama administration? is there more of that getting in the way of good economic policy? guest: great question that i

don't have the insight to say. we are a bipartisan organization. i am a political independent. we try to work with every white house. we always find that folks in the economics team understand the big challenges in the hard work you have to do a lot more than the folks in the politics team. that's kind of what i was saying before. this issue is good economics to do it well and not good politics unless you are really able to get the whole country on board. in a polarized time it is even more difficult to get people on board. so i think this is a tension that always exists, and i have no insight as to how it is compared to other administrations. i know this administration has inherited some very difficult challenges and has taken some actions, meaning that last covid bill, that made those challenges even more difficult. host: dallas, texas. matt come online for democrats. caller: i have a comment and a question. i think a lot of the challenge in revenues has to do with the

tax cut bill that congress passed in 2017, the massive tax decrease for corporations. i remember it so well because they were giving out on us is in 2018 to their workers, but i assume the cbo takes into account those tax increases and the rate of corporate taxes going out into the future, so i think a lot of the irresponsible budgeting has to do with that tax cut, and that is why we have massive budget deficits into the future. but my question is, why do presidents, democrats and republicans do it on both sides, their omd director comes out and puts out a 10 year window of where they think deficits will be when they are not even in office? there administration will not be there in 10 years. so how is it presidents and the administration can forecast 10 years out, like you said earlier, when you don't know

what the economy is going to be, we don't know what wars or instability will happen in the world, and we don't know when the next pandemic will happen? i am just curious, how does that work? host: and we see that a lot as well with making promises or setting goals for various reductions, whether it is gas mileage, the carbon footprint, and that sort of thing as well. guest: it is a great comment and a great question. certainly this 10 year budget window which has a lot of good reasons that we do it also opens up a lot of loopholes and creates a lot of gimmicks. let me just comment on your comment about the tax cuts as well. i'm with you, that was completely reckless. the economy was strong. there was a need for tax reform, but we should have denied that way we have done that in the past, where you bring rates down to make us more competitive and you offset that either by bringing other revenues up or by cutting spending. it was republicans only who did it. they could have cut spending,

which they also said was one of their mind objectives. instead, what we saw was tax cuts that added about $2 trillion to the national debt, followed by another $2 trillion in spending increases. so during the trump administration comedy three years before the pandemic hit, not counting the covid bills, there was borrowing of almost $5 trillion during a very strong economy when we should have been paying the debt down or bringing our deficits down, not borrowing more. so i think those tax cuts were really reckless in the way that they were crafted, and they did not have to be. there were good ideas out there to do procompetitive tax reform that would have not added so much to the debt. those numbers, the cbo does look at that, and they assume a lot of those tax cuts are going to expire, which is how they built them. that is a big question mark because often we see when things are put into the budget, whether it is tax cuts or spending increases, political pressure to increase them is huge you nobody

is willing to object to them. people vote to extend those tax cuts even if they objected to them in the first place, so there's numbers we look at just how big is the debt to gdp going to be if you extend expiring policies. it is why we think the debt to gdp could be 10% higher 10 years from now. now to your great question, why do we do 10 years? people can say this year i'm going to borrow another extra $1 trillion, but i promise to do all the hard work. i will be retired. i will be out of office. but i put in place a budget that nobody is ever going to look at again, and that is where all the heavy lifting will happen. that is what does happen, and that is the real problem. the reason it is good to look at those numbers is because you want to see the check therese of policies you put in place. if you only look at one year, there's gimmicks because you can write the law so they will have affect in the 10th year or 20th or 50th. so what we really need to do is

say what is your budget this year. that is the one that matters. that is the one that is actually going to happen. truth be told, when the white house puts out a budget, congress basically tosses it aside and gets to work, except, let me just say, not this year. has anybody noticed that the budget committees which are tasked with coming up with budgets have not done an iota of work in putting forth budgets? the chairman's have not even talked about putting forth their budgets for the year. we are well past the deadlines. so the white house put out a budget late. congress has done nothing. we know we are headed to one of these showdowns at the end of the fiscal year, and frankly, if you are not going to do the work of putting a budget in place, you should not be running the budget committee. i find this one of the biggest educations of response ability we see these days, when they don't even try to put budgets in place. so not only is 10 years kind of a space for gimmicks, there are not even any gimmicks yet because there are no budgets, and that is something people should be really upset about,

whether you like the budget or don't like the budget. if you run a company, you run a nonprofit organization, your board does not allow you to go forward without a budget in place, and yet that is what happens in our country, so that is a real problem. the bottom line, there's no easy solution. we should look very closely at what we are planning to spend this year and how we are planning to raise the revenues for it. the fickle year will start october 1. we should also look at the longer-term effects of 10 and even 20 years so we can gauge how those policies will play and how they will affect the economy, if they will have higher returns over time, a variety of things like that as well. host: let get your take on the house committee -- the house budget committee meeting about the effects of inflation on debt. as was the exchange. [video clip] >> let's ask this. your future year inflation projections are relatively mild compared to where we are currently with inflation.

8.3% in the most recent year to report and 11% since biden took office. but taking your projections for inflation, which assumes back to more normalized levels of 2% the next few years, what is the long-term damage to the u.s. budget and economic outlook of even the so-called short inflation if it is actually short-lived? >> inflation has a number of affect on the economy and of course on the fiscal outlook. the key risk is interest rates. high inflation leads to high interest rates. as the debt level has gone up, higher interest rates translate into higher net interest outlook. so you see that in our projection over 10 years. net interest outlays as a share of gdp or more than doubling, so that is the fiscal risk of high inflation. it comes to high interest rates and high payments to service the u.s. debt.

host: one of the reasons we love having you on is you can put that in plain english for us. guest: yes, i think the question was right in the pretense was right, which is inflation assumptions in the congressional budget office are rather conservative, and i think if you are betting, and is more likely that they will be too low on in place and than to high area so it is a moving playing field. things keep changing. so what this means is that inflation affects the budget in a number of ways. it increases revenues. it also increases gdp, so your deficit and debt numbers might look better in the short term, but what it really does is over time, it increases your cost of borrowing. we had that caller asked before how borrowing happens. it is when we issue the treasuries. they have to start paying more regularly. interest rates tend to go up when inflation is going up, so

as the federal government issues more treasuries to borrow more money, they end up paying higher interest rates on that. you also have the fed likely lifting interest rates, so the higher interest cost affects the federal budget because the cost of borrowing is higher. if interest rates go up by just 1% higher than what the congressional budget is already projecting, that will add as much as $200 billion a year to our borrowing costs. that is an astronomical difference or get it is because we have so much debt, the interest rates affect the overall cost of borrowing a lot, and the real problem with higher inflation and net interest rates is as our debt turns over, and it does regularly, 30% of our debt will turn over in one year. 2/3 will turn over in five years. as that turns over and you reissue new debt to pay for it, your interest costs become much greater, and that is why we see

our overall trajectory of interest payments going from about $400 billion to almost $1.2 trillion. that is one of the real vulnerabilities that comes when you borrow too much and you have too much debt. even when interest rates were low, you had also to people -- had all sorts of people calling for we should borrow more, interest rates are so low. when that happens and those interest rates go up and you have to change how much you are borrowing, suddenly all that debt has a true detrimental cost, and that is where we are. host: anthony, independent. good morning. caller: i would just like to see the pentagon cut. do you think that thing could withstand an audit? i don't. guest: yeah, the pentagon is a complicated situation because it cannot withstand an audit. they never get a clear audit. so they look at the government agencies and they do audits on them, and the defense department is very complicated, very hard to manage, and a lot of the resources are unclear, and there are clearly places for savings,

without question. there's many outdated weapons, structures, acquisitions, and there's also huge entitlement programs for retirement, pension, health care, different parts of the defense budget that really could be looked at and unquestionably, there could be savings. that said, i will say you don't want a budget wonk doing national security policy. as somebody who just kinda follows this like we all do, there's also a lot of very concerning threats around the world, and it is what we are going through in ukraine right now as a reminder that there will be national security costs that will come that are unexpected. certainly the world of cybersecurity is something we have to think about, that there will be real cost there in creating stronger, more resilient defenses. while at the same time i believe there are many savings to be had and it is very hard to get them, there also may well be more costs, and that is a problem.

you can't make any of these decisions just based on budget numbers. there are a lot of things out there that are worth doing, and the argument should not be if it is worth doing, we shouldn't pay for it. the argument is whether it is national security, helping children, who get the worst deal in the federal budget, were about eight of our dollars spent, kids are completely left out of the federal budget. a lot of people say these things are so important, we should not pay for them. i think we have to switch that and say these things are so important. if we are going to do them, we do have to pay for them, but we have to find savings everywhere we can. we need to look through every part of the budget, and there are honestly hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved with relative ease because of things that are mis-targeted, outdated, and ineffective. host: wanted to give you a chance to talk about the committee for responsible federal budget, what you do, but

also some of your interactive projects. the fix the national debt interacted that you have. guest: thank you. i would love to talk about those because those tools are one of the best things we offer. the committee for responsible federal budget has been around since the early 1980's, and i have run it for quite some time. what is really interesting is that our board of directors are people who have run the treasury, the fed, the budget committee, the congressional budget office, the office of management and budget, so they are people who have been in the trenches and they know the basic act that being fiscally responsible is really good not just for our economy, but the strength of our country, even in terms of national security. you can't be strong on the geopolitical stage if you are weak fiscally. they understand those issues, but they also know how difficult this really is to get done because many of them have come from congress. they know you can't just go home and say we are going to have a huge tax increase orphic social security and do all the things

we need to do without getting pushback. so they understand the political delicacies that surround this really tough issue. host: these are the much daniels, deleon -- the mitch daniels, the leon panettas. guest: the are really involved and have seen the big-budget deals of the past, so they know the pressures and they know how the negotiations can work. the way the committee works, we have a phenomenal policy team that dig through all the details of pretty much anything that comes out in the budget, and they will put out papers. please sign up for them at the committee website. they will put out papers that, much like the cbo, we try to be as politically impartial as possible. i'm really proud that we run an organization where the people who work there have supported everybody for president in the past election. there's a very broad spectrum of people, whether the donald trumps or bernie sanders, we

have supported everyone in between. i think that is a great environment or there's all of these echo chambers and people only on one point of view. so we have very diverse points of view on our board and our staff, and we have a very clear focus of trying to make allah more fiscally responsible. what that means is it does not mean you have to balance your budget every year. it does not mean borrowing is always bad. i guess i would describe it as it means you should borrow for economic reasons, not political reasons. it makes sense to borrow when there's a true emergency you did not anticipate any need to acting credit will quickly, and it deftly makes sense to borrow when you have a recession because you need to fill in the difference between what your economy could be or should be producing and what it actually is, but it makes no sense to borrow today. it made no sense to borrow for the trump tax cuts we were talking about. it makes no sense to borrow many and probably even most of the times we are borrowing right now. so the committee has this policy

team. they go through the numbers, they put out great analysis. we work with people on the hill, and we do work in bipartisan ways as strong as possible. there's a group right now called 30 in 30 run out of the house with a number of numbers who have recognized we did have to borrow during covid, we do have to turn our attention to how to bring these fickle situations front and center on the agenda and what we can do about them. they were together, they get policy briefings together. they are getting to know each other to build some trust across the aisle, which is very difficult to have these days, and i am proud of their work this group has been doing. other important initiatives we request, i think one of the best things out there right now is something called the trust act, a bipartisan, bicameral legislation, you don't get that very often. mitt romney and joe manchin spearheaded it in the senate. it says that there's a trust fund out there that will become insolvent within 15 years. we need to pay attention. we need to appointed task force

to try to fix those problems. it does not say how it is going to be done. it merely says we can't sweep it under the carpet, which we do with the social security trajectory. we know the program is going to be insolvent in just over a decade with medicare, which also has problems. so we focus on that. that is what our legislative group tries to bring people together to work on these issues. we also have members all around the country and people who care about this issue. that goes to the budget tools you brought up. not everybody loves to read a congressional budget office report. one way we try to expose people to this is through interactive tools and gains. on our website we have a number of tools that i think are really effective even for high school students. i tested them with my kids and they knowledged that they were ok, sometimes even good. host: your kids probably have a

little more exposure to these issues then others. guest: they would love to never talk about the federal budget again. one of them is the debt picture. you pick a physical goal and look at the policy initiatives out there and pick which things you would choose to get to get back down to a normal level. we have one a social security loan that -- social security alone that ready works well. a number of numbers of congress took this tool and came up with a social security solvency plan. so you can do this. in fact, if congress fails to pass a budget or go through the process of a budget, we ask citizens to go and look at these tools, figure out how they would allocate things in the budget. we have some great ones, which is paying the. do you think we should borrow or use taxes. how do you think those taxes should be allocated between the very wealthy, the wealthy, the middle class, the poor, sort of your distributional allocation. and other things about how would you actually spend the money.

how much on defense, how much on social security, how much on kids, looking at differences between the generations, talking about how much more you spend on seniors then kids. if people play these tools, and you don't have to give us your results, but if you share your results with us, we will share them with members of congress. we routinely collect this data and look at the crowdsourcing of the federal budget. what do voters think we should be doing? and by the way, if you are not going to do your job, we will show you there's a lot of people out there who are willing to try these. so i am biased, but i actually think they are fun. i think they are a great friday night party game. a little pizza, little try to balance the budget. i encourage people to take a look at these and send us your feedback of what you thing about these tools. host: about 10 minutes left. james, santa fe, democrat. good morning. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. i have a question for maya.

if our tax rates were the same as they were in the 1950's, where we had i think a 91% tax rate of the corporate tax rate, what do you think would be different today? guest: certainly things would be different today. to be able to say how they would be different, i don't know. the 90% rate was probably counterproductive in the effect that it had on incentives for work and a lot of different ways. what you want to do, if you want to tax the things you want less of come another things you want more of. so i think there was pretty widespread belief that that 90% rate had become problematic, and that is why it was a democratic administration that cut those tax rates lower. i am not someone who -- let me be very clear on this, cutting taxes does not pay for itself. there's a story you hear all the time the tax cuts pay for themselves. they do not. but there are rates that become so high that it can be a disincentive for what you want

more of, which is work. so we would probably be collecting more revenue, certainly collecting more revenue if we had that 90% tax rate, but we would probably also have a lot more tax evasion, people moving away, those kinds of things. so the tricky balancing act is to get your revenues as high as necessary to pay for the spending that you wanted in the way that is most efficient. when i think about how to do that, i think there's a lot of other taxes we should be looking at. for instance -- first and foremost, i put myself squarely in the camp of a carbon tax to help with climate, that could raise significant revenues, trillions of year if you want to put in a real carbon tax. you can use that money for a whole host of different things. you can also look at ways to tax some consumption. however, that can hit the low income higher, so i am a fan of a progressive consumption tax which were you tax the amount of spending once it is above a higher level. it is a little more complex to do, but it has a really

positive effect. one of the things we can do is thinking about how you tax some of the more well-off people. it may or may not have been. one of the things you can do is we have well over $1 trillion a year in tax breaks, credits, exemptions, deductions. they are very regressive. they tend to get bigger tax bricks to people who are well-off. thinking about how to reform those tax expenditures could generate a lot of revenues and make the tax code more progressive if that were somebody's goal. host: these are the ones we seek it usually very late in the year. guest: those of the tax extenders. there's toxic spend assures, which of the tax credits. most of them are more permanent. they are things that we love. the home mortgage interest deduction. everyone loves it. people who should not love it are the renters who are subsidizing those of us who own houses. those tend to be the more well-off.

there's also another thing, tax extenders, which are tax breaks, which are similar. there's a subset of those. the tax expenditures expire all the time. congress knows full well that they are going to extend them, but they go through this process of they are about to expire, what should we do, do we extend them retroactively? i thing it leads to a lot of political donations and politics. i think it is a bad system around. there should be none of these expiring policies in the tax code unless they seriously plan to have them expire. if they are going to extend them, you should pay for them. host: time for maybe one more colored. that's one more caller -- one more caller. caller: yes, i did not think you did a very good job in the first hour. there were many more people who voted yes then no command i think you should pay attention to that.

i tried to call in many times during that hour and was unsuccessful. host: thanks for the feedback. guest: as to your guest today, let's not do the filibustering. your job is to move people through the system to ask questions. she's very smart i guess, and she's on a lot, but you haven't gotten many calls in. guest: so greg -- host: so greg, what is your question? caller: you are just mesmerized by her brilliance. one, what do using about having a sunset provision on every piece of legislation in the congress? every piece, so that all of the policies -- this addresses the question of whether they are willing to support something more than the next quarter? the other question is how about this carbon tax that you mentioned? do you believe that allowing

drilling -- we've got an asset that is worth a lot of money right now. based on this administration, it will be worth nothing in 10 years. why don't you use that now? yes or no? guest: i'm going to enter the sunset one with a sort of, which is i think we should have a required review process for everything the program in the federal budget, and it should be taken seriously and be integrated into the overall budget process because right now there's a lot of assessment of programs that goes on and the nothing happens with it. so i don't know you want to sunset everything. for instance, social security, because it is an intergenerational program and would be vague -- and would be very difficult if that program were completed canceled. that would not be right with the intent of the program. but i think an absolute review process is critical. on your question about carbon tax, climate policy is like defense policy. we should leave it up to the experts. but it does bring me to what i

would like to end on, which is i think there's an important opportunity right now. in the previous hour some of the callers talked about build back better, which was a huge policy initiative that was put out there that would have increased the debt significantly. there were a lot of gimmicks and it was very expensive, and in the end, senator joe manchin was not one to go ahead because it had so many gimmicks and was so costly and it would balloon the deficit. but there's talk now of trying to do a policy like this, and from what it says, people are looking at things that would raise revenues, help with prescription drug costs, aggress climate policy, and a significant amount of the money going to deficit reduction. to me that is an incredible opportunity, and usually i see ideas floated in the press that i worry about because it is going to be a huge budget buster, but you want to do some thing that is going to address priorities on the overall energy and climate.

both of those is what i write about, and it is going to help move in the right direction on inflation. when it comes to inflation, the fed is where the action is, but governments have to work by moving in the right direction, reducing the deficit, not enlarging it, and overall improving the fiscal situation. that kind of a package would be an currently useful for the economy right now. you never know where good ideas will get momentum, but hopefully we can do something that would work in the way that people are starting to talk about. host: the committee for response of all budget can be found online. maya macguineas, the president, on twitter you can find them as well. always appreciate your time. coming up in a little bit, we will be joined by hannah wesolo wski with the national alliance on mental illness to talk about mental health and red flag laws.

first, some time for our open forum. any policy issue, political issue, state issue you want to talk about, you can do so. the phone lines are on your screen. go ahead and start calling in now. we will be right. -- we will be right back. ♪ >> be up to date in the latest in publishing with book tv's podcast about books, with current nonfiction book releases, plus bestseller lists, as well as industry news and trends through insider interviews. you can find "about books" on c-span now or wherever you get your podcasts. >> if you are enjoying american history tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on

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sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive updates. sign up on booktv.org. television for serious readers. >> "washington journal" continues. host: time for our open forum, will return it over to you to talk about any policy or political issue you want to talk about. republicans can: during this half hour, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. a look at what is happening today on the c-span networks. we will be covering the "washington post" conversation with ukraine's ambassador to the united nations today. the discussion of course on the russia-ukraine conflict. you can watch that live at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span

now, and online at c-span.org. at 11: 30 am, agricultural secretary tom vilsack will talk about u.s. food production at an event at georgetown university. that is also here on c-span, c-span.org, and the free video app. at 1:00 p.m. eastern today, secretary of state antony blinken talk about the evolution of american foreign policy, challenges facing the world today. that event hosted by foreign affairs magazine, on c-span, c-span.org, and the free c-span video app. stay with us all day long. in this half hour, you're going to be leading the discussion. we will start with deanna in west virginia, line for democrats. what is on your mind? caller: yes, sir. i had some comments about maya,

talking about lowering prescription costs. i live in rural west virginia, and it is really hard for me to pay for gas. to get into town to -- pay for gas to get into town to get my prescriptions. there's not enough police around to stop all these people who are stealing them out of my mailbox. so what are they going to do about that? host: what can be done? what do you want done? caller: well, i would like for the pipeline to be reopened, ok? and i would like to refund the police. don't make them out to be the bad guys. host: this is mary out of las vegas. good morning. caller: good morning. i think people have had their

head down the foxhole for too many years, being fed a steady diet of conspiracy theories and propaganda. the pipeline was not fully built. that was not coming to us. nobody has defunded the police. the rescue plan actually helped state governments who were on the verge of bankruptcy so that they could pay the police, so that they could pay the garbage men. the debt, the huge tax cut under trump, he went right afterward. the worker got just a small amount of that. that was the part that was going to expire, not the one to the corporations. that was made permanent. he went right to mar-a-lago and told all his billionaire friends , i just made you all very rich. i think it was ben sasse who

said he spent money like a drunken sailor. he fired at least five inspector generals, so we don't know how the money got doled out because this treasury secretary was the former bankruptcy king, who is flying around with kushner to the middle east on the taxpayers dime to get billions of dollars from the saudis. there's a lot of mismanagement going on. the senate is broken. mitch mcconnell never wanted to bring bills to the floor expect for -- except for tax cuts. bipartisan bills on emigration not brought to the floor. this current president, they had a hearing on inflation. not one republican showed up. this citizens united and all this dark money being funneled into these senators and stuff, like joe manchin, give me a break. can we possibly have somebody

like robert wright or i think his name is richard wolf instead of stephen moore, who doesn't even have an advanced degree in economics? i would appreciate that. host: this is rip in fredericksburg, virginia. good morning. line for republicans. caller: good morning. illegal immigration is the only really big problem in our whole nation. that's why we have inflation, because you have to pay for every illegal immigrant that comes in. i think they get $900 immediately per person. if you just google and find out, they get an inordinate amount of money constantly. they say there are 13 million americans -- 13 million illegal immigrants in america. the word on the street is that it is 110 million.

host: using the biggest cause of inflation in this country's immigration? guest: absolutely -- caller: absolutely. host:host: and you think there's 700 million in the country? caller: that's the word on the street, just because that's what i'm hearing people around the world say. that doesn't mean it is true. that means that that's what i am saying. our government is saying one thing. it doesn't mean it is true. that just appears to be what they are saying. host: ok. glenn, pennsylvania, and dependent. good morning. caller: good morning. you come on the tv on this program with this deflation situation with no comparison. you are not comparing it when the republican was in there. you are not comparing it with anybody. no comparison. you have to compare it when he republican was in there. what would the level of

inflation -- what was the level of inflation? host: the inflation is near a 40 year high, is where we are. we actually hit 40 year highs, and i think we are just a little bit down from that. so much so that president biden has put out a plan yesterday for fighting inflation. that is why we asked this. people were confident that he could do that. caller: ok, all right. when president bush was in there, the sun, we spent 8 -- the son, we spent $18 trillion on the war. and there was no inflation. explain to me how that works. $18 trillion on the war. gas prices were so high. the price of food was so high. and there was no inflation. host: connor, reston, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me?

host: yes sir. caller: ok. i like to avoid issues that are political kryptonite. why not have a little bipartisan momentum on things? a strange topic here, but rare minerals, there's a treasure trove of them in the pacific ocean between hawaii and mexico. as a major industrial country, it is rife for mining and harvesting. things you need for electric cars. the u.s. is sitting on the sidelines for this, and we need to rely on developing countries like the congo for minerals like countries for minerals like cobalt and copper. there is some congressional gridlock in ratifying us to actually

participate in this. we are sitting on the sidelines for it. this is something both sides could get on board with. it's a matter of economic security, national security, and it is not talked enough about here -- talked about enough here. people are going after political kryptonite. thanks. host: gary out of huntersville, indiana, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. you mentioned biden's plan for fighting inflation. this is one of my remain reasons for calling about the keystone pipeline and the fracking that joe biden did away with. i think that's contradictory between the two, you know? there would have been more jobs, gas prices would have been down at least a few cents if

he hadn't done that, and now he is coming up with a plan to create jobs and fight inflation? that's an interesting thing. and i want to say, there's too much, there's too much of people making wages in congress when they are running for office and things like that, pointing fingers at people and saying, here's what this guy did, this guy did. if i ran for office, i would run on the issues and that is it. if there is something to be found out about somebody, people will learn about it on their own anyway. host: ok, what are the top three issues you would run on? caller: the economy, foreign policy, and well, health care,

immigration are to -- two others that might go into it. host: that was gary. this is ray in napa valley, california. a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i tried to call earlier. if you can look up a chart on the national debt by party over the last four years, the republicans have run the debt up more than the democrats. we have to run the deficit down, but they always wind it up. and as far as the pipeline goes, that had nothing to do with oil prices. the republican party did 80% to 90%, all the fossil fuel compa nies go to the republican party.

and you will see every time the democrats go in power, the oil barons from the prices up. i have seen this for your. -- for years. i got out of oil, i bought an electric car. i'm done giving them my money. host: houston, texas, linda. good morning. caller: i want to applaud mary from nevada. she said everything that needed to be said and i want to give her a pat on the back. good morning. host: jack, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call and thank you for doing what you do. inflation, i believe we should help anyone throughout the world, any country, but we need to take care of our own. our cities that are starving, you know? these programs, they are having

summer programs for kids, which is great to do, but the food pantries are not getting donations. it should not be a red versus blue. we should come together when it comes to our own children. we have things going on in this nation where older people during the winter are freezing to death, moms cannot even fill up their gas tank to take their kids to school. i emma republican, but we are human beings. the first thing, we are american citizens. this pulling from each other and taking the blame, we have to be part of the solution, not the problem. i vote, but you know, every party is not always wrong, always right. but we have to look at what is going on within our nation, for our children and for our

elderly. people need to sit back and really put themselves in other people's shoes. i am not saying give money to people across the seas like ukraine and all, but we have to take care of our own nation before we can help somebody else. thank you. host: that's jack in georgia. in terms of what america will and will not do when it comes to the ongoing war in ukraine, the president of the united states with an op-ed on that front, laying out the parameters of the united states involvement -- this is what the president writes. as the war goes on, i want to be clear about the aims of the united states in this efforts. we want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous ukraine with the means to deterrent to defend itself against further aggression. we do not seek a war between

nato and russia. as much as i agree with mr. putin and deny his actions in outrage, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, by sending american troops to ukraine or attacking russian forces. we do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on russia. president biden, if you want to read his full op-ed, what america will and will not do in ukraine, in the new york times. mark in texas, independent. good morning. caller: yes, this is mark. first time caller. every time i hear about the keystone pipeline, the keystone pipeline was completed about five miles from my house in lower east texas. it goes from cushing, oklahoma, the fort auburn, texas. now they call it the gulf coast pipeline. it was completed and there are

700,000 barrels a day going down that line from cushing. i get people -- tired of people talking about, we could have had the keystone pipeline. google it. we have 700,000 barrels a day going down that line right now. host: you are talking about the difference between the keystone pipeline and the xl extension, different projects that would bring oil from the canadian areas down to cushing. caller: correct. that part was not completed, but there are other pipelines that go into canada. i am not sure if they are transporting tar sands oil or other types of oil, but it comes out of canada. oklahoma is also putting some oil in that line, but the line is flowing at maximum capacity.

host: that's mark in texas. chris in buffalo, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. my thing is the gun control, states that had strict regulations and the guns are coming in from out of state. i think they should do like texas, put people on the border of your state and start searching people's cars. for illegal guns. the same way they do it on the border. and i think that would get a lot of people really quick. that's all i have to say, thank you. host: chris in new york. this is a headline from washington times today, grieving and saying goodbye, it should have been the first day of a joyous week for robb elementary

school students, but the first two of 19 children slain inside that classroom were being remembered at funeral visitations yesterday, talking about the beginning of those funerals going on for the next couple weeks. it was yesterday, back here and washington, d.c., in the oval office, during a visit with new zealand's prime minister, that present it biden expressed -- president biden expressed his frustration with the pace of mass shootings in this country. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> there have been too many mass shootings. it has been mass shooting after mass shooting, and so much of it is preventable. the devastation is amazing. yesterday, the day before, i was down in texas.

people sat down in a room, 250 of them in a large room with me for almost four hours. nobody left. i spoke to every single person in that room. everything a person that waited until the very end. the pain is palpable. host: about five minutes left in our open forum, this is michael in new york, and independent. good morning. caller: hi, how are you today. if you are going to take away the rights of -- to have firearms, you have already taken away the right to drink, the right to smoke, now you are going to take away their right to own a firearm. when are you going to take away their right to vote? if they are so immature that they cannot own a firearm and understand what it can do to people, how can they deal with politics or understand anything that goes on in the world?

that's just my statement. you have a nice day. host: iowa, this is sherry, the line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. my issue is on guns as well. i don't see the purpose of having those high powered weapons they are selling to children at 18. i have had four or five family members of my family fall by gun death at a young age. i'm not a big fan of guns. i do own a handgun, which i have a permit to carry, and i had to take classes to own it. i don't quite understand how the regulations could be so lenient. it hurts my heart a lot to see this violence happening. host: i wonder, on those comments, your reaction to this

story, as a statement on where we are in this country -- companies that sell bulletproof backpacks and backpack armor inserts say they have seen record sales for their products in the wake of that shooting in texas. in less than 24 hours after the shooting, we have reached our highest sales record to date, the majority of which are for backpack armors, likely from concerned parents looking to secure and protect their children. that's the ceo of a lit proof zone, the 5 -- of bulletproof zone, the five-year-old company makes tactical body armor and bulletproof clothing, and other ballistical gear. your thoughts on that, sherry? caller: my thoughts on that, what is that going to accomplish? there should not be any guns available for the younger generation to acquire. it hurts my heart to see this.

host: sherry in iowa. this is rhonda in illinois, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i just have a comment about that -- i don't blame the guns. i kind of blame the parents. they are not seeing their kids in trouble. all this come together stuff all of a sudden, they wonder, they talk to us, we are still deplorable to them. it's either do it our way or get out of our way. it's the same thing they are doing with the electric cars now. i saw an article about a cemetery outside of paris, france that had all of these dead electric cars in them because it is more expensive for people to replace the batteries in them than it is to buy a new car. do you have any information on that? how many of these are getting junked and the batteries are

leaching into the ground because nobody is buying new batteries? these batteries are thousands and thousands of dollars. how does that save us? turning away from oil warily isn't going to clean that up. that's a whole other cleanup altogether. host: i'm not sure if this is what you saw, but the usa today, with a fact-check last year on electric car cemetery reported to be in france. the image shared on facebook shows several dozen seemingly abandoned cars in an open lot. independent fact checking organizations addressed a similar post on facebook and -- in may, claiming that image has gained traction on a number of platforms. the earliest version of the image, usa today found, was posted on instagram and taken in

china, according to their fact-check. the image was confirmed to be taken in china of may of last year, they did not share the exact location of the place. usa today getting in touch of the actual photographer. if you want to read more on their fact-check about where that came from, the usa fact-check rating that france cemetery electric car image as partly falls from their research. that's from usa today. caller: but what about the batteries? what about the battery issue? ok. but what about the battery issue? host: it's certainly a thing we have talked about, and we will probably talk about it again. we were trying to find information on that image you were talking about. caller: good morning.

my comment is on the gun issue. a lot of the republicans say that it is a mental health issue , but you see in a lot of the red states, they won't even expand medicare. they want expand the ada -- won't expand the ada. if this is about mental health issues, they are not providing citizens that can't afford mental health treatment to get the services. so it must not be a mental health issue. that's what i don't understand. if it's mental health, provide insurance. that's all i have to say. host: i think you will be interested in the next 45 minutes of our program. coming up next, we will be joined by hannah wesolowski from the national alliance on mental illness to talk about

guns, mental health care, and red flag laws in this country. stick around for this discussion. we will be right back after the break. ♪ >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington, live and on demand. keep up with live streams of hearings and floor proceedings from the u.s. congress, the courts, campaigns and more from the world's politics, and more at your fingertips. also, find the latest episodes of washington journal and scheduling information for c-span's tv networks and c-span radio. c-span now is available and the -- in the apple store and google play, download now. c-span now, your front ro w view to anytime, anywhere.

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will just stay behind these black gates. >> presidential recordings, on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> washington journal continues. host: a conversation on mental health, gun violence, and red flag laws with hannah wesolowski . before we get to those red flag laws, i wonder, your thoughts on how we are talking about mental health in this country in the wake of a shooting at the texas elementary school last week? texas governor greg abbott said after the shooting "we need to do a better job with mental health in this country." and "anyone who shoots somebody has a mental health challenge." guest: thank you for having me on, john. in the past weeks -- i am a

parents. it is heartbreaking, it is frustrating to see so many lives lost. i get it, it's hard to fathom that a person could do this to innocent lives, so mental illness often becomes a call to read. but it is written -- culprit. but it is rare that a shooter in this situation as a mental health diagnosis. honestly, a person with mental illness is more likely to be a victim of violence than a perpetrator, 23 more times likely to be a victim of violence than the general population. when we focus on mental illness, it distracts from the topic at hand on how to address this gun violence crisis in this country. it also adds to the stigma around mental health, which has

a tragic impact of discouraging people to go get the help that they need to get well and stay well. mental health is health and we should not be stigmatizing it in this way. we should be focused on solutions that really protect people. we don't want to send kids to school, where they are not safe, or grandparents sent to grocery stores where they are guns down. mental illness is not the culprit here. host: so in terms of solutions that could protect people, explain what a red flag law is? guest: red flag law, that term is often stigmatizing to people who fall under it, but extreme risk protection orders are a mechanism, a civil court order that would take guns away for a periods [video clip] --. -- period of time, when they

might be likely to do something to themselves or someone else. that's not based on a diagnosis of mental illness. a history of violence, abuse, trauma, substance use are a number of factors for violence. a person's behavior may indicate they are at immediate risk of committing a violent act towards themselves or someone else. in most cases, a family member or a law enforcement officer would go to the court to ask for this individual to have guns taken away for a period of time. if there is immediate risk, there could be a short hearing and a short-term, three weeks of taking those away, and a longer

hearing in the future. the subject of the hearing has an opportunity to present evidence and make a case that they should not have their guns taken away. depending on the outcome of that, typically, if someone is found at risk, their guns could be taken away for about a year. what we could see with these, it's a really important opportunity to reduce immediate risk to an individual or the community. but it should be based on what current behaviors that are being observed in the individual, not on stigmatizing assumptions on a community of people, but what's going on with that individual based on an individual assessment. host: so for these red flag laws, there is an idea that somebody has an undiagnosed mental illness and that's why some people think we need these red flag laws?

is that some of your concern about this? guest: you know, people with mental illness have rights as well. mental illness is not a risk factor for violence. taking away somebody's, you know, right based on their diagnosis of a mental illness is not going to be effective, nor is it right. any time these protection orders are utilized, they should be structured in a way where they are looking at, what is happening with the individual? what are the risk factors that are present, and what behaviors are they exhibiting at that point in time? it's rarely mental illness alone, it's the current risk factors and behaviors that might be happening. this should be based on looking at the individual. we think an extreme protection

order targeting a group of people with a diagnosis is both ineffective and violates individual rights. host: so let me back up a step. if you have a diagnosed mental illness in this country, what are the rules in the various states about being able to own a firearm? guest: the rules very state-by-state -- vary state-by-state. a diagnosis itself is not prohibitive of owning a firearm. a lot of laws in the states do rely on somebody who has had involuntary commitment to a hospital based on their mental health conditions or who has been found not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity. they will often look at those factors. a diagnosis alone does not predict whether a person has any violent tendencies. we believe it should not be based on that, and they are

often based on past incidents like i mentioned. host: mental illness, in the wake of that shooting, mental health and those red flags laws, this conversation with hannah wesolowski. (202) 748-8000 if you live in the eastern or central time zones. mountain or pacific time zones, it's (202) 748-8001. she will be with us for the next 35 minutes until the end of our program, so go ahead and start dialing in. hannah wesolowski, where are we on some national red flag law in the wake of the texas shooting? guest: i think it's important to note that 19 states and d.c. already have these types of laws on the books. last year, the department of justice put out legislation related to extreme risk protection orders, but there are

a number of efforts in congress right now to make these more prevalent across the country. there are some different bills, one that would create a federal extreme risk protection order law and another that would incentivize states to pass these laws by giving rent money consistent with these laws -- grant money consistent with these laws. host: this is lindsey graham, the republican, speaking about red flag laws in this country. this is monday of this week. [video clip] >> when it comes to what you can do with guns themselves, keep them out of the hands of people who should not have them to begin with, because they are mentally unstable. i would support a grant program to support states that choose a red flag law. i would not support a red flag flaw federally. these shooters have something in common. they are disturbed, they are

acting out, and we don't do anything until it's too late. let's create a system where they can do something before they use the guns. it's not the gun, if the person with the gun. it's our own gun responsibility. when we act irresponsibly, me or anybody else, we should have a system that intervenes before it's too late. that's what we are trying to do, intervene before it is too late. i am working with democrats and republicans to create a federal grant program to beef up red flag programs that exist at the state level. i am not for red flag laws that the federal level. those that choose to go down this road, we can help with more money for cops and mental health workers. host: your comments? guest: i believe we should intervene early before someone becomes violent, but conflating somebody who has extreme anger and hatred with mental illness

is not accurate. we cannot confuse those strong emotions with a mental health condition. these so-called red flag laws should not be based on that diagnosis. but we do support these, because it is important to note that nearly half of deaths by suicide are with firearms. suicide account for 60% of firearms deaths. when we look at the risk for suicides, there is a real need here to address the risk of hurting themselves or someone else, particularly when we look at those suicide rates. when we look at veterans, nearly two thirds of veteran suicides are with a firearm. firearms, unfortunately, are incredibly effective. 90% of suicide attempts with a

firearm are unfortunately successful. this is one way we can keep people safe, but we cannot conflate someone who has hatred, violence, and anger with the mental health condition. that does not get us closer to solving this problem, nor does it encourage people who are struggling with their mental health to get the help that they need and deserve. as we talk about this in the wake of these incidents, we are doing a lot of damage by focusing on the mental illness aspects. there are a lot of common sense solutions implemented to protect people, but if you soak -- focus solely on mental illness, it's a distraction from the efforts we need to undertake. we are very concerned that the conversation goes this way every time we have one of these horrific events, but we are no closer to solving the problem. host: this is may be a good time

to remind viewers of a couple of the headlines and life -- help lines and lifelines that are out there. the national suicide prevention line, and nami, the national association on mental illness has their own helpline. that's 1-800-950-6264. those services are out there. with that, time for some viewer calls. rich in trenton, new jersey. good morning. caller: hi. i have a comment or question. in 2000 14, george w. bush and the republican congress, the senate and the house, had a chance to extend the weapons,

the assault weapons ban, and did not expand the ban. how many lives would have been saved if we expanded that ban and prevented assault weapons? the other comment i would like to make, mothers of america, when you go to the polls, vote. guns or kids. guns or kids? when you go to the polls, please vote that and both the gop out of office. thank you. host: was there anything you wanted to jump in on there? guest: i am not an expert on the assault rifle ban, so i cannot comment on that, but i think there are a lot of things we need to look at to solve this problem. host: what about the state of

america's mental health in this epidemic of mass shootings? in the memorial day weekend holiday, there was an article that said there were a dozen more mass shooting events in this country, shootings that involve four or more victims. how are we as a country supposed to process this? how do we deal with our own mental health after the horrible images from last weekend the texas school? and then these things keep happening and happening and happening. guest: the things people are seeing as a result of these horrific act of violence are spreading rapidly. almost no one could be untouched by what happened last week. we look at the impact on not just individuals and families, but communities.

there are individuals who saw their classmates shot dead, parents who waited to see their kids come off the bus. people across the country who watched this unfold on the news. turning the news off a little bit and stepping away to protect your mental health is ok, and efforts that make you feel like you are doing your part are also important. this is something we all struggle with, and i appreciate you sharing the national suicide prevention hotline and nami's hotline. we need to take care of ourselves, our families, and our loved ones in these terrible times. we are in the middle of a mental health crisis in this country. when we have collective trauma, it only adds to that crisis. the mental health crisis and the

gun violence crisis are not one and the same. i think a lot of the solutions being looked at our conflating the two issues, but they are a different conversation. host: to washington, this is peggy. thanks for waiting. caller: i don't think these red flag laws are going to work. this guy had no history of mental illness, even though he showed them tems -- symptoms at home and at work, there was nothing out there to get a hold of and say yes, this guy had problems. but it would be a good idea, a two week waiting. and a quick psychological check. maybe a urine sample to check for drugs. this guy got really upset with his mom because she was going to turn off the wi-fi, so he moved in with his grandma and grandpa.

then he got angry with his grandma, who is going to disconnect his phone. he told his girlfriend in germany, i am going to shoot my grandmother, comes back, shot my grandmother. now i am going to shoot up a school. she was panicking trying to contact someone in america to tell them. red flag laws won't work. but a waiting. , and an explanation -- why do you want an assault rifle for self protection? host: hannah wesolowski, is there anything you wanted to pick up on that first? guest: i agree with peggy's point, these extreme risk protection orders are not a solution and end of themselves. they are part of the solution that needs to be thought through in this country. i would emphasize that mental

illness, it's not a predictor of violence. looking at some of the other incidents in this young man's life, perhaps this would have helped, perhaps it wouldn't. but it's one of a number of solutions that need to be addressed. host: let me come back to that final point -- sheila writes in on twitter with this question -- but can you name one mass shooter who is not ill and that there were absolutely no signs of it? she was saying, no sane person could perform such horrific acts. guest: i understand how people feel that way. that is a normal reaction. that being said, somebody who is troubled, doesn't mean somebody has a mental illness. it means they have been victims of abuse themselves, they are experiencing psychosis -- there are a number of things that may impact somebody to feel this

extreme anger and want to act out this way. but when we talk about mental illness, that is a health condition. too many people are bringing that into focus in this conversation and it is generally not the main predictor of someone being violent. less than 5% of violent acts are tribute it to someone with mental -- are attributed to someone with mental illness. host: so does the u.s. have more mental health issues than other countries around the world? guest: it does not have a discernible difference in mental health conditions than other countries around the world, but we are the only country in the world with this problem. we do not see substantially prevalent, different rates when we look at any other country. there is something that is not

connecting when we focus on mental illness, yet we are the only country with this problem, but not the only country with mental illness. host: washington, d.c., ralph, good morning. caller: good morning, great conversation. bear with me for a couple of seconds. are we giving over to the twitter crowd, where silence is violence and if you vote for trump, you are racist and we are going to take away your guns? it scares me where we are going with this, and i don't like trump. the vast majority of gun deaths, violent gun deaths after you get away from suicides is gang violence. gang violence are using pistols, not rifles. what are you going to do about that. there is also a strong correlation between drugs,

people who are taking medications -- i put my son on medications and we pulled him off because we saw a radical change in his personality, but we are not allowed to discuss that because it is affecting big pharma. i want you to address the fact that in england and london, they have more murders in london then in new york, and they were using knives because they banned guns. the mayors solution was to get a permit to buy a large, pointy knife. host: so when you say this scares me, you are talking about red flag laws? caller: i am scared about giving power to anybody to go in and say, i don't like what you are saying so i am going to take away your guns. i am scared of the new department of misinformation that's being proposed and pushed

by the democratic administration. you are talking about the first and second amendments. you've got to be very careful on how you approach this. host: hannah, what do you think? guest: i think extreme risk protection orders do approach this correctly. it gives the individual a right to due process, to present evidence and fight back against the petition. this is individual by individual. there is no buy spread action taken here and it is assessing individual risk factors. this is a way to do this in a meaningful way but given -- given individual due process. host: here's one of -- concerns with the process. the entire process puts judges

under constant pressure to authorize the seizure of the guns with the mindset of better safe than sorry, effectively creating a presumption that the subject of the hearing is dangerous and must be disarmed. in a sentence, you are guilty until proven innocent. guest: that's a strong assumption. we have not seen any evidence of that, that someone is guilty until proven innocent. i think that it is a stretch so jump that far. host: california, this is darrell. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to make a couple comments on something everyone has been talking about. first, i am an average gun owner. i do a lot of hunting. but i would be willing to take my guns and turn them in if it saves lives. that's the only way it's going to happen. if you look at the history, even

throughout life, human beings have been killing other human beings, whether it be with stones, knives, spears, whatever. the red flag law, i don't think it's going to do any good. they are putting all this on the people who have mental issues. but how many of these people lose their jobs, go home and kill themselves, or kill their whole family because they feel like they can't support themselves? it's not just mental illness, but the mindset of a person who has an opportunity to have a gun in his hand. it's more important to save lives by taking the guns away, if you are an average hunter, sign up, you can issue the gun to go hunting and return the gun after the season is over. all of this about we have the right to bear arms? what about the people who have the right to live? it's happening over and over again, where all these kids have been murdered.

host: back to the topic of mental health, debra lee with this question on twitter -- we are encouraged to have mental physicals -- annual physicals. we should be encouraging people have annual mental health checkups. your thoughts on that? guest: i completely agree with that. during your annual checkup, there should be a mental health screening. unfortunately, there are a shortage of mental health professionals in this country. it is tough to get that health care. that said, fixing that problem is not going to fix our gun violence problem. every ounce of mental health funding that we could get to address the crisis in this country will not solve the issue that we are here to discuss. gun violence is a public issue, and we need to end gun violence

in this country. focusing solely on mental health is not going to get us there. host: does nami have suggestions on what that could be? guest: we support all the stakeholders that are part of this conversation and policymakers to talk about, what could actually meaningfully reduce mass violence as well as self-directed violence with suicides. firearm storage helps greatly with suicides, there are a lot of solutions being discussed. i cannot say i am an expert in all of them. host: what about increasing the numbers of mental health professionals, filling that need and reducing the gap? guest: well over one third of

americans live in a mental health provider shortage area, meaning there are too few health professionals to meet the needs. and it's hard to get into work mental health care, because they are professionals who take insurance. we hear from people every single day here at nami trying to find a mental health provider, someone in their insurance network, someone to help talk to their kids, and there is not a corner of this country where that isn't a struggle. there are a lot of great proposals out there right now to address the workforce shortage. some of those are to increase the pipeline for -- for recruiting individuals, payment programs, there are a lot of ways to address this. it will take time,

unfortunately, it's not something that we can flip a switch and fixed today. this is a long-term need and we urgently need investments in mental health care to address that. host: florida, this is ashley. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a mental illness and i am for the red flag project. i don't think that people with mental illnesses should have guns. it causes problems with everything in society and i believe, you know, there needs to be stricter regulations on guns, may be an ip address or something like that for them so they can track the gun where it sat. now, i don't know why, but i feel like there needs to be more of a combination of people reaching out for this matter -- i don't know if this -- needs to

go on or what, but something needs to happen with this mental health catastrophe. thank you very much. host: hannah wesolowski? guest: thank you for sharing your diagnosis and your perspective. people have different perspectives on this, but we do know that somebody with a mental illness is more like gay victim of violence in the general population. if we look at mental illness alone, it will not address the challenges we have as a nation. we need more early intervention, and president mind has proposed $1 billion to increase the number of child workers, social workers in the nation.

if we focus on that, we will still have a gun violence issue in this country. host: ashley, are you still on the line? caller: yes. host: if you don't mind talking about it, when were you diagnosed and how did you know you needed help? go ahead. caller: i got diagnosed in 2009, and my disorder has progressed. i have been doing really good on taking my medicine, keeping track of it, but the problem is that those thoughts are still there, you know? those thoughts of harming yourself -- i have never tried

to harm myself, but those thoughts are there and they are scary. why would i want to gun in my house or anything like that? it doesn't make sense to me, because there are so many people who are struggling with this right now that have this condition and they just blow their brains out, and it is ridiculous. i think they should just switch their gun laws. if you do have mental illness, you shouldn't have a gun. host: thanks for sharing that. hannah wesolowski, back to you. guest: i am glad to hear you are doing well and better now, and i hope you continue to get help that supports you and helps you be in the community and stay connected to your network. i respect what you think. not everyone has the same thoughts and experiences, and focusing on taking guns away

from every person with a mental illness, unfortunately, i do not believe it is going to solve this problem. i believe it will also largely stigmatize a group that is largely nonviolent towards themselves or other people. that is often lost in conversation, you are heavily focusing on a propensity towards violence in people with mental illness, and that's not the case. that's not what we see or the primary driver of these horrific events. focusing on mental illness alone is not the solution. let's look at what is going on with an individual, happening in their lives, what haber's are they -- what behaviors are they exhibiting? we can do a lot of good and these extremist protect -- extreme risk protection orders

can help, but a diagnosis does not solve this or really address individuals who we need to protect and help in an extreme condition. again, these are rare using these and you need to make sure your person is exhibiting behaviors that show that they may have a propensity towards violence. host: less than 10 minutes left in our program today. let me give those numbers one more time. the national suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-2855. nami's helpline is 1-800-950-6264. caller: good morning, how are you?

the first thing i want to say, i am a nami facilitator and have done "in our own voice," and listening to everyone this morning, one thing i am learning at hearing is that we need to find a way to have a whole different conversation about mental health and mental illness. unfortunately, the day after the shooting in texas, i am a federal employee, we were scheduled to have active shooter training. one of the things that kept coming across during the active shooter training was mental health, that the person was suffering from a mental health issue and no matter how hard i tried to push back and say, that's not always the predicate,

that was the tone that kept coming through. it was very, very hard for me to listen to that, because i agree with what hannah is saying. i understand what hannah is saying, because of learning through nami. i don't really have a question other than just listening to everybody this morning on the diagnoses -- the diagnoses comes through the dsm, which is a billing mechanism in most instances. the medications -- medications work differently for everyone. we have to learn how to advocate for ourselves. i would like to thank you for being on this morning.

i can't say enough about nami and my peers at nami new jersey. host: can i ask what a nami facilitator does and what is "in our own voice?" caller: i facilitate nami's support group meetings every week, where we have our principle of support, our guidelines, and we basically talk to each other about the issues and problems and conflicts and everything we are going through in regards to mental health. it's confidential and we actually learn from each other. the experience in those rooms, the way everyone talks about

their diagnoses -- i do this every week. on wednesday, i attended meeting for myself. "in my own voice" is basically, i explained to everyone through a presentation what my mental health journey has been and has looked like, the good and the bad, how i was diagnosed and the issues i had obtaining care. how i got myself -- i was on social security/disability for 10 years, now i work with the federal government full-time and i am a gs 12. i say these things are possible, but it is not -- an issue is not always mental health. it's not that simple.

in a weird way, i kind of take offense that everyone says oh my gosh, this crazy person has a gun -- no. that's not it -- that's not it at all. that's my $.20 worth. everyone have a great day. host: thank you for sharing your story, sharon. hannah wesolowski? guest: sharon, i can't thank you enough for sharing your experience and your story and for your comments. i will say nami is in over 600 communities across the country and amazing people like sharon are there to help and help you find a community that cares, so you can go to nami.org/social for more. when we focus on mental illness and these conversations, people with mental illness have

historically been victimized by stigma and prejudice. when we have these conversations, it perpetuates that idea that people with mental illness are violent. that often discourages people from getting the help they need. they don't want to be deemed crazy. when we talk about it in these stigmatizing terms, we are doing our entire country a disservice from encouraging people to getting help, the earlier caller's comment, it should be normal in taking care of ourselves. we need to take care of our mental health like our physical health. it's for all of us in the mental health community that we need to be having this conversations to make sure we are focusing on the right solution here and not something that is a distraction. host: this is joan out of

rochester, minnesota. good morning. caller: good morning. i believe the gun lobby has found a new target to get people's minds off our gun issue in this country. people start turning towards looking at mentally ill people instead of looking at the problems that are going on in this country with guns, with the young people who are subject to tv shows and the little boys -- the first toys they are given when they are born is a gun.we need to change our palazzo -- our philosophy on match. we need to get guns where they belong and the pentagon needs to cap about the guns that our military -- speak up about the guns that our military has -- it's not the right letters, but we need to get to the issues

that are causing the problems, not looking for someone to blame and take their mind off what the main issue is. the main issue is too many guns. we need to get that controlled. host: hannah wesolowski, i will give you the final minute here. guest: joan, thank you for calling in. i agree mental illness is used as a scapegoat in these conversations rather than doing the hard work of figuring out solutions we can pass in a bipartisan way that will really address this. it is incredibly damaging when we focus on mental illness and it takes away from a real conversation we need to have about mental health, and the crisis that our country is in in regards to mental health. it's important we have those conversations about mental health, but not as part of the conversation of gun violence. when we are focusing on mental health, we are not addressing the root cause of gun violence

in this country and hurting all people -- one in five people in this country have a mental mental health condition. that does not make them violent and focusing on that is a distraction and it is dangerous. host: the national alliance for mental illness can be found online. we always appreciate your time. guest: thank you so much. host: that is going to do it for our program today. we will be back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific. in the meantime, have a great wednesday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: coming up today, the ukrainian ambassador to the u.n. talked about the ongoing russian-ukrainian war. he is being interviewed by the washington post. you can see that live starting at 11:00 p.m. eastern. 11: 30, tom vilsack talked about u.s. food production and remarks at georgetown university. at 1:00 p.m. eastern, we will hear from antony blinken on u.s. diplomacy and current global security challenges. you can see all of these events live on c-span and you can also watch full coverage on c-span now, our free video app, or anytime online at c-span.org. c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington, live and on-demand.

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and the white house press secretary answer reporters questions during the white house briefing beginning at 3:30 p.m. eastern. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. download today. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more including charter communications. broadband is a force for empowerment. that is why charter has invested millions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. charter communications supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. the secretary of the army talked about u.s. national defense strategy and the army