watch for in the next weeks or months when it comes to emily see policy? guest: republicans will pass legislation that will have difficulty in the senate. they will focus deeply on how the clean energy industry is not as clean. they will deal with emerging issues like efg and whether folks are living up to their commitments. it will be a lot of messaging. if you are working at a company that's working with the biden administration and you are looking at will i be brought up in the new republican house is an oversight target. we had a story that outlined three companies, 20 companies that could be potential targets for oversight. it is more than two dozen before this new congress and the

current energy chair is already talking about the biden policy is solyndra on steroids. that could be a watch point for people looking at washington trying to look at the transition. host: jael holzman"washington j continues. host: we look at the commitment to america and how it will affect policy. joining us for that discussion is kent lassman president and ceo of competitive enterprise institute. what is cei and what is it mean for economic issues? guest: competitive enterprise institute is a think tank here in washington we think about economic regulatory issues and

the focus is on reforming what has become an unaccountable regulatory state where people can get out from under bureaucratic controls with freer, safer and healthier lives. host: can you change matters of inflation with regulatory efforts? guest: there are two levers available. the most important thing for inflation, his policy which is not focused on with regulations. tariffs operate as a tax on goods. the way we understand inflation as we measure things like pricing takes. secondly, there is a wide array of agencies in the cities that are trying to tell people how to

live their lives and run their businesses. when the sec, they get outside of their lane developing new workforce hours, that new work creates extra drag on the economy. just having congress focus those agencies on their core mission would do a great deal to help with inflation. host: when it comes to that commitment to america that we've been talking about, the economy and those related issues, some of the big tentpole goals needed to fight inftion, lower the cost of living, make america energy independent. strengthening the supply chain, independence from china, what are the lovers they can be pulled to achieve those?

-- levers that can be pulled to achieve those? guest: there is a reason this is called the master resource. we can't build things, move things or operate our lives without some form of energy. it is what we used to heat our homes, and run our businesses. energy infrastructure, we can't build, we can create new avenues for developing energy or transporting energy. that would be a good start. permitting reform has come up and we expect to see it. i would stress what i said earlier, keeping a focus on permitting itself. that is a way to move them forward. host: kent lassman is with us

and if you want to ask questions about the economy and inflation. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans and (202) 748-8002 for independents, if you wanted text us (202) 748-8003. speaking of inflation, do you think that needs congressional intervention on matters of inflation? guest: the most important lever for inflationary pressures is pending. there are three ways the government takes resources out of the economy. it can tax and spend, it can borrow and spend which we have seen a lot of in the past few years. so until congress gets its arms around how to live within its

means in a reasonable timeframe for borrowing, inflationary pressures will be maintained. what i would like to see is a commitment and that means giving up some of the easy political winds in order to do what is right for the medium and long term. the short term political hit they like to make for making an announcement, those things need to be set aside. host: when it comes to easy political winds, one of the discussions from last week is about the debt ceiling and republicans interested in using the debt ceiling to talk about these larger aspects of spending and calling for spending cuts is that the right approach? guest: the debt ceiling is something we don't want to take lightly but it is not the

biggest issue. if the debt ceiling approaches it's good that we have a rule that we don't borrow without permission from the congress. how and to what degree different factions negotiate for changes in operations but particularly, going forward, i think there is something to unfold and not be afraid of. it is something we should encourage like the last couple of weeks we saw a lot of drama in the capital and it was not necessarily a bad thing to watch democracy unfold that way. host: as far as using the debt ceiling to talk about mandatory spending and discretionary spending, should it use to dictate those? guest: i don't think you should dictate specific policy on spending and foreign policy.

those conversations have to be a part of what we are doing for the medium and long-term with borrowing in this country. borrowing will ultimately affect our inflationary pressures in our ability to operate internationally. host: one of the people who talked about it on the sunday shows was senator raphael warnock, he expressed his concern about how it may play out. let me play what he has to say. [video clip] >> house republicans are saying that they want something in return for raising the debt limit. there has to be some controls on spending in exchange for raising the debt limit. they say they will not negotiate. is that a mistake? you just said, the white house

should be open to negotiation? >> here's the thing we have to be careful of. we have to make sure we don't make the work in d.c. about ultimatums. the fact of the matter is, we can do deficit reduction. we can deal with our national debt but at the same time, the last thing we ought to be doing is playing chicken with the american economy. we have been through the onslaught of a long pandemic that has created a lot of challenges for the american family. they pay their bills and they expect the government to pay its bills. we can do this on a bipartisan basis we have done time and time again. but we lose our way when we make it about the politicians. i am focused on farmers who are

invested in trying to make their businesses work in this economy. i'm thinking about ordinary workers who deserve a livable wage. when we make it about politicians we lose our way. host: those of the comments from george's senator, your reaction? guest: i think the senator is onto something. i believe it is a mistake for the white house to say preemptively that we won't have conversations among talk about these things. clearly, it's the case that both parties have operated in the past that this is a foregone conclusion. today we see a different environment. there are stronger, more vocal and active factions within the congress and if you refuse to talk to them you work towards that cliff, that standoff.

do i think the white house will suffer? no. when we talk about the kind of borrowing and spending we have done in the past three years. senator warnock is onto something. this is not about certain politicians grabbing a headline for it to be done. host: this is david in ohio, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for taking michael. -- my call. i want to push back on the notion of fighting regulations and cloaking it as a commitment to america. it is more of a commitment to

corporate profits. i saw a wonderful show on c-span -- not c-span, but public tv, they were talking about the history of the meat packing. this was way back in the early 1900s, they had an ally in teddy roosevelt. he had been exposed to some terrible conditions packing meat. the corporations fought every step of the way to stop regulations to protect them. i think it is a necessary cause of production to have healthy foods and a healthy environment. host: thanks. guest: there is something really important raised by the caller. just like all democrats are not alike, all republicans are not alike and independents are all over the map, all regulation is

not the same. health and safety regulation is of a different kind. it goes by the same name, we call it regulation, as other forms of economic regulation. i am focused on things like what is happening at the federal trade commission. after a great trauma to the economy over the course of nearly three years, we have had all sorts of dislocation, movement of supply chains, difficulties with employment due to different restrictions on inflation, where people can be. there has to be a resettling of the american economy and businesses need to sort out, how my going to get the work done? what market will abn? -- i be in? what goods and services will i offer? they are steamrolling restrictions on how readjustment

can take place, so i take the point in safety. i would also point out that every single example of food poisoning, difficulty with meatpacking, every single one of those things that have happened in recent memory, those were all usda certified. government and government regulation creates balance and we need to be very careful about where we draw boundaries. host: give me an example. guest: about a year ago, we saw a move to block a merger. one developed a new cancer screening and the other had the ability to bring it to market. with fewer players in the marketplace for science the developed cancer screenings, we

are going to block the merger. that is the wrong direction to go. mergers and video games, supermarkets, pharmaceutical, all these things are a resettling of the economy. host: margaret in new york, democrats line. you are next. caller: hi, how are you? host: well, thank you. caller: i want to say something. the honest picture of the president -- not the president, martin luther king -- [indiscernible]

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host: jerry is in virginia, republican line. caller: good morning. every time joe biden makes a speech, it is lowering the deficit. every bill they pass. if that is the case, why would anyone want to raise the debt limit? guest: i think i missed the last part of the question, but something to keep in mind when we talk about deficits andguesth -- debt, deficits or how much we

overspend each year. from 2020 through 2022, the u.s. government was spending wildly. upwards of 40% more than what would have been the trendline for normal. today, we spend less than last year, it is less from extraordinarily high levels so the deficit is falling, but not falling from what would be a normal trendline or what we might expect to be fiscally responsible. host: the wall street journal has to take looks at the budget committee of the house and what faces them under republican leadership area -- leadership. they contend it was the agreement they got mr. mccarthy voted into office in the first place. the house budget committee must produce a resolution that balances the budget in no more than 10 years. the authors saying in theory, resetting fiscal spending to

2022 levels would result in about $130 billion cut and discretionary spending including about $75 billion cut to military spending, putting band-aids in. ultimately, what do they do and do they cause fiscal concerns for how a government operates? guest: there is an important idea baked into that that i think we should unpack, that is the notion of discretionary and nondiscretionary spending. all of it is discretionary. what we mean by nondiscretionary is in the past, it creates a promise. we set that aside, we say it is nondiscretionary. not available to be changed. those promises are renegotiated all the time. i am not here today to tell you we ought to go terrible of the entitlement programs. i am telling you there is no way

to take the budget of the federal government of the united states, $6 trillion, and manage it a responsible way without tackling both sides of that equation. we have to look deep into the future and understand our demographics and relationship, but we expect of the government, how it should provide or not provide, in order to do budget in a responsible way. host: people in the audience are saying cut social security. guest: they need to understand social security, medicare and medicaid, just as defense policy, just as other retirement goods and benefits, they all need to be looked at and they need to be understood and discussed openly with canned or and not behind -- candor and not behind veiled words of discretionary and nondiscretionary. it produces scare tactics.

members of the budget committee understand well that is not what it means. host: are you one that would advocate for things and changes like increasing the age of getting social security or increasing the amount certain people get? is that the way to go about it, as far as making changes? host: i will bring it back -- guest: i will bring it back to where we started. we produced an agenda for congress, focused on regulatory policy. these are the hidden taxes, hidden obligations for most of how we operate in this country. the regulatory burden, low-end estimates is about $2 trillion. $2 trillion is about 40% of all we tax and borrow and spend. getting a handle on the regulatory state is the first step so you are able to address these budgetary concerns. host: the framework is available online if you want to check it out on the website of our guest,

he is kent lassman of competitive enterprise institute. samantha is next on the independent line from new york, good morning. caller: thank you so much. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: thank you so much for all you do. i want to address with this gentleman was talking about, we do have a dilemma, a conversational dilemma. we are dancing around the word of asbestos. at this point, this conversation has to be up, because it is getting couched in climate change. the ftc, it fda have all found -- we need this product to insulate our power grids, to insulate our, whether lithium, cobol, etc.. those are hot middles when they have energy. the big issue becomes asbestos and its impurities in the consumer line, this is not been regulated.

this is beginning to go away from congress -- you are nodding your head, thank you. away from our economy. this is a big talk on our economy because we have to pay for people who have been harmed by the impurities of this pestis they get into their lungs, into their body. -- there you go, smile. we are not talking about protecting truckers carting the stuff across the borders, we are not talking about protecting our consumer line. host: i think we have got the point, we will let our guest respond. guest: there is something to the call that is really important about the way regulation operates in relation to industries. that is, there is a learning process.

this pestis, as she discussed, can cause great harm. for many decades, we have had an ongoing master settlement for those harmed by the development and production of asbestos. what regulation too often prevents as a learning process. it says as long as you meet our standard for how you ship it, how you cut it, how you package it, you will be held harmless. it turns out when you learn that it does cause real problems for people, including bodily harm, death, there is no way to fix that problem short of changing the regulations. one thing about regulations, especially economic regulations, is they are very sticky. it takes years to undo these things. that means, whether it is is pestis or other risks in the economy, we want people out there innovating, studying,

looking at entering to come up with a better way to develop insulation. once the standard has been set, you go forward and use it and it causes harm with recourse. there is no one to call at the fda. thousands of people work there, it is a faceless agency. host: let us hear from john in south carolina, democrats line. caller: good morning america, good morning c-span. listen carefully to this guy answer to my question. who in the world does the

government oh all this money to? -- owe all this money to? we take care of all these countries, with all these people into the country and take care of them. i will give you a fact. we print our own money if the government prints its own money, how in the world would we owe these people or whoever all of this? i will tell the people exactly who we owe. thank you. guest: we owe future americans, plain and simple. most of the debt is held in bonds, we owe the bondholders, that means in the future. host: what is the impact? guest: we are starting to see it now.

we have debt, we are carrying debt in the neighborhood of 107% of the size of our total economy, we have not seen debt loads like this since the end of world war ii. when you carry that sort of debt , it is not exactly the same, but it is similar in principle to a household. you are carrying more debt than the economy can spin off the goods and services to keep up with. it becomes a real problem. host: in wisconsin, hello. you are next. caller: good morning. when obama took over, it was $9 trillion. when trump took over, it was $19 trillion. when biden took over, it was $27 trillion. now we are at $32 trillion. all these years, we never fixed anything. nothing. roads, highways, schools, jails, nothing. if you spent $1 million a year

or $1 million an hour, every hour, 24/7, 306 to five days a year, it would take you 411 years to spend $1 trillion. what is with us? we are the stupidest country in the world. we are more runs. -- morons. we are all morons. guest: that comment reminds me of something once attributed to, if not set by winston churchill, when describing america and american democratic processes. we will eventually do the right thing after it has been tried, we are heading toward that point. the trajectory you described of debt, two points on that. one, it is horrific. it is a very bad indicator of

fiscal health. secondly, it is important to keep in mind the denominator. as the debt has grown, the total economic output has also grown. it is not as if from nine to 32 we are three and a half times more in debt. that is because the economy has grown since 2009. host: the chairmahe council of economic advisors and offers of management report the inflationary effects for an executive action with an estimated impact of at least one billion, thehite house would have to report findings to congress each year to increase transparency and accountability over executive actions. what do you think about that proposal, and what is your level of confidence in the white house buying into it? guest: i think it is a very good idea. the basic idea is, when you have

big regulatory proposals, congress should have something to say about them. we typically do not have -- the most regulatory legislation in history was doc frank, congress passed a big law and instructed agencies to come up with regulations. when they produced those regulations, i do not think it is a problem and i think it tends toward the good to have some measure of accountability, especially when they are so large. there upwards of half a dozen very promising regulatory accountability bills introduced or being reintroduced from previous congresses that show a lot of promise. host: in michigan, independent line. caller: hi, i've got a question. you touched on this a little earlier.

i've had an idea for green energy, 10 years ago, can you kind of point to the marketing side of spending and corporate and government grants? is that all taken in perspective for spending? how would you -- is that by the states, or does that go back to congress or what? i will take your answer off the air. thanks very much. guest: i will try to do a service for the audience here. i am not a very big fan of huge government pools made available for private development. it just tends not to work well.

we do have private equity markets where people can have an idea, go to the bank and borrow money. there is lots of ways to get that, you do not need the government, which means taxpayers, taking on the risk of a new venture. anyone venture might not be a problem, but when we are talking about many new ventures and hundreds of millions of dollars, then it becomes a problem for the taxpayer. the caller might be referring to massive amounts of money passed in the most recent omnibus legislation, including some detailed to the epa for distribution and has not yet determined whether that will be grants awarded through the epa, grants to the states, or some other mechanism. there is an active proposal that would fund these initiatives.

it is probably best to stop there. host: why do you think they do not work? guest: i think you need to align the risks of new ventures with people taking on the risks, the lender, with the people that are going to reap the benefits. when you do that through taxpayer funding, you have worse oversight. you have looser standards for where the money goes, you end up with what economists would call mall investment. -- malinvestment. money flows towards things that catch the eye of someone, not necessarily the most promising technologies or new developments that would enter the marketplace and improve distribution or manufacturing. host: a few more minutes with our guest, this is rick and pennsylvania, democrats line. caller: hello, i am glad he talked about services being cut. i often wondered -- i am on

unemployment and welfare. i got a plan have to stop that. they call you from the welfare office, unemployment office, we have a job that will pay $400. the person says i do not want that money, i make more on unemployment or welfare. . why do they -- don't they pass a law for a few turn it down it comes off your welfare check or unemployment check? i am not talking seasonal workers or people laid off for a month, i am talking about people that will not work. when that goes belly up after the 400 comes, we get the money back on unemployment. but i cannot see how the american people have to pay for people that will not work.

that is my statement about that. thank you. guest: the precise mechanism that the caller describes is something i would have to look into a little more. i do think there is an important point here about the economy and unemployment. we have near record lows of unemployment, but we've also seen -- i think the callers may be alluding to -- marked change in the labor market. something like 6.5 million people left the workforce, which means they are no longer looking for work, but they are out there. how we cope with them, how we get them back involved in meaningful work, is very important. not only economic objective, but social objective. people are more connected to the

community when they are working. i think any agent, any group of people with decision-making, it will influence politics. it is part of her nature and it is fiction to think -- our nature into his fiction to think -- not entirely removed. just a nature of being human. host: the role is to control inflation or introduce elements to control inflation. how do you think the track record is today? -- to date? guest: in some ways, they are responding -- it is responding to congress, as i mentioned the massive spending bills, relief bills, people do not know what

is in there, where the money is coming from. the fed, in reaction, is trying to use big levers, gross movement to fine-tune things. i think they overshot a little bit, but they are trying to stay step removed from politics. host: republican line from new jersey, go ahead. caller: hello, how are you? i was just listening to you guys. i had a question. if we show more products, would that help the economy in -- and the deficit go down more? we don't make anything here is much as we used to?

let me know how we could lower the deficit. thank you. guest: so i think we have largely to unrelated phenomena -- two unrelated phenomena. the deficit is related to the amount of income into the government and the promises that go out. it looks a lot like a ledger. the trade balance for where things are made and sourcing of things we consume is really unrelated to that. i would point out overall manufacturing probably is not the way the caller suspects. we have high levels of manufacturing, total output, total people employed. there is an awful lot of manufacturing happening in this country. it is the higher value

manufacturing. host: one more call, independent line in new jersey. caller: hi. sorry, i have not been listening all morning. i want to ask a question in regards to the contribution states give to other countries. all the money we give to other countries. california -- the entire country is in a whether influx -- weather influx. there is massive damage that has to be taken care of.

i guess my question is, why can't the united states take care of the united states before it takes care of everyone else? host: thank you. guest: a question about u.s. foreign aid, direct foreign aid to other countries. two points to be made. when it comes to the ledger of the u.s. federal government, understanding how much money, where it is going, how much is likely to come in from different activities, foreign aid is a minuscule amount of that. absolutely, congress and the white house can address or decrease -- that is where the money is, we need to look at the programs and delivered in the economy that will affect -- the

size of u.s. foreign aid is not enough that it will be top of the list. host: if you want to see the work of the competitive institute >> nebraska republican senator pete ricketts is expected to be sworn in replacing senator ben sasse who regn to become the president of the univeitof florida. the house is back tuesday. meerwill vote on legislation later in the week barring the presidtrom releasing oil from the strategic oil reserve for non-emergency purposes

without an approvepl to increase oil drilling on federal public land. watch coverage on the house on c-span, the center on c-span two, and watch on the free video app c-span now or online at c-span order. -- c-span.org. >> 10 days after 9/11, intelligence agency analyst alva montes was arrested by the fbi on sp unknowns charges -- on espionage charges, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. e was released in early january 2023 after serving 20 years. tonight on q and a, investigative journalist, author of "codename blue red," talks about the life and career of ana montes. >> she did not take documents out of the building. very rarely would she take a