corp. -- capital police said. the problem with this issue is that the president is going to create this massive entitlement for folks@@@@@@ >> how're you board to cover 40 million more people and reduce the cost of the system at the same time. the biggest crisis we have at this time is medical care. it is three trillion dollars in debt. we should be addressing that issue of how we are going to make the system affordable for the future. what do you want to speak to the cost issue? >> one way you dress in cutting costs are those 46 million people that do not have health insurance do not have to do that. that is one of the things that drives up costs. medicare, for whatever problems it has, as a much smaller

deficit that is much less expensive. a huge amount is spent trying to deny claims. it worsens everybody's health insurance. >> next call, apple valley minnesota. bucs how were you? >> i am a eric. about the press and what they have been saying about racism and everything. it was the white people that voted for robaracko halfin. i am from a by racial family. that hit me really hard when

they said that theory got i have so many white friends, black, american, vietnamese, i have lived in japan and saudi arabia, if it is not like i have not been out of the united states or anything. a person is a person in this racial thing that is being stirred up, it would not be hard for braracko to come out to say that it was the white voters had voted me in. no, there is no comment coming from the white house to stop this. you know what i am saying? op-e host: thank you for the call. guess how the president has said that he did nothing to there is

racism. there is a racial component to this. when you have protesters holding signs about africans in the white house, let's face it, there is a racial component. host: is there a racial component? guest: by m aid -- at -- i am at a disadvantage against kevin, i have met these folks. covering these town hall meetings. the idea that these are manufactured or trumped up by industry, that is crazy. the american people are extremely angry and the polls show this. they are angry about the out of control government in washington. on the issue of race, i am a conservative. i have spoken to many conservatives.

we are proud of the fact we have a black president. it is a great moment for america. i was on chris matthews a few weeks ago, the idea that conservatives do not want a black president to succeed, that is insulting. jimmy carter was a bigger dingbat and the people in the white house now, and he was white. how can this be racial issue? guest: i think that there is something well beyond race going on here. something more disturbing, the refusal of the right in this country to accept the legitimacy of any elected democratic president. that is a very disturbing thing.

constant, well funded attempts, well documented by industry and various lobbying groups. attempts to take away the legitimacy of this president by insisting he was not born in this country, etc., etc. guest: because a democrat would never claim that a republican president was not legally voted in. you made my point. [laughter] guest: let's identify some of that mob in miami and talk about grassroots, 2001, people that broke up the ballot recount. it was decided by the republican dominated supreme court, democrats went ahead and accepted that george w. bush was

the president. there were no disputes as to who won the last election, republicans have refused to accept the legitimacy of this president. guest: it is more the ideas. there are some people on the fringe that believe that barack obama was not born in the united states, i do not believe that. a vast majority of conservatives do not believe that. this is a policy dispute. do we want the government to run out of control as it has under george bush and barack obama? bush economic policies have been a disaster for this country, $9 trillion we cannot pay back. host: the jimmy carter speech will be running tonight on c- span. eleanor, democratic line.

caller: i am a dentist here in tennessee. thank you for this program, it has been very interesting. one of the issues we are facing in this state and across the country, there has been a great deal of talk about medical issues in this country, but very little talk of the dental care costs in this country. i am the founder of the dental aid society in chattanooga. one of the reasons why this organization was founded was because there has been a great deal of staff in the united states -- death in the united states due to lack of coverage for dental. when will we be talking about these issues? we have invited the president to come to chattanooga to address the issue of access to care in the area of dental.

all over the country we have seen deplorable health [no audio] host: are you still there? we got the point. comments? guest: if you look at the condition of america's dental health, there is no question that we have much improved over the last century, but to the greater point, do you want health insurance? what is insurance? many conservatives believe that insurance should cover catastrophic events. cancer, you break your leg, and expensive procedure. one of the problems with the direction we're going is that we are covering things that are not expensive. things like going for a dental checkup, that should be paid out of pocket. if you do that you could cover a

huge number of people and we could reduce by half the number of people without insurance coverage. host: kevin baker, from your piece you write "every instinct that the president uses in washington, every inclination of the political culture urges the liberation. if any significant change is to be brought about, we are at a rare moment in history where the radicals have become pragmatic. these emergencies have not been confronted more than a handful of times in our history." guest: change is incremental. lasting change comes incrementally and is done through compromise, worked out over a certain length of time. however, there are times where you are headed towards a cliff and you have got to dramatically turn the wheel. that is what he has failed to do

here. mr. obama and his aides seem to have felt that the hundred days scenario was a kind of fetish of the media and in this case it was not. it was a very good time in which to do things in any administration, particularly at the moment of crisis that he was blessed with when he came in. trying to get done as much as you possibly can with your narrative, he made a major mistake in not doing that. guest: my goodness, out of the gate he passed the biggest spending bill in this country. we have the bailout of the car companies, a bailout for people that cannot buy their homes. what is going on right now for the left, there is a massive movement against big government. there is a gallup poll from last week asking americans how much of every dollar that you spend to what -- that you send to

washington is wasted? the average answer was 50 out of every dollar. people do not want this agenda. that is the problem they're having, in revolt against the government. guest of you keep mentioning these bailouts, you never mentioned the bailout of wall street, something lots of people were very upset about. somehow the right wing was not really that opposed to it. letting it go where it would, allowing things to fall apart. if you think that that would have been a good idea, letting the world financial market go down without intervening, i suggest you all should have spoken up louder the time. guest: i did. many conservatives did. you remember the vote that we had on the big bailout bill, and

you remember, all, that republicans -- you remember it. guest: anyway, they took a political posture that defines the republicans today. guest: it was democrats and bush that passed the bailout. conservatives were against it. how can you say that that -- you are against wall street bailout when you say that you thought it was the right thing to do. guest: i said that it was one of the things that people are very upset about. you keep not mentioning it. guest: i was against it. guest: the total irresponsibility of your party goes on and on. same thing with health care.

an attempt to block something that every other western country has, half the idea that everything would be all right this kind of amazing. guest: kevin, the american people do not want a government takeover of the health-care system. they do not want a system like france or canada because it does not work. guest: that is not what the president is proposing. >> yes, he is. >>guest: and, by the way, it wos pretty well. this is something that a lot of businesses are laboring under, this burden. host: we want to get some more calls in. we have about half an hour left with our guests. "harper's" magazine, kevin

baker, a bit more on this hoover comparison. stephen moore, herbert hoover, you wrote about him as a protectionist president. speak to him about trade policy -- speak to the issue of trade policy. .

american public. host: what do you think of that comparison?

guest: i think it's funny, trying to distance himself from presidents who does seem to be rather conservative at heart and quite incremental. yes, jimmy carter, that terrible radical who passed all those socialist policies. this is ridiculous. and as far as all the terrible things hoover did with protectionism, it was overwhelmingly the policy of the united states for decades throughout the 19th century. and under it, we used it to build up quite a few of our industries at home and quite effectively. as for the tire dispute, this is called negotiating. you try to get the best deal for us in the world. that's one of the things you try to do. you rattle sabers. other countries do it as well. to pretend that say china doesn't have a nationalist economic policy or that france doesn't or anybody doesn't is kind of ridiculous. host: next call, florida.

the republican line. hi, tom. caller: good morning. i was going to ask a question earlier but these guys got me interested in another question. the trade issue is very, very interesting. we've got three trade agreements that obama has squellched with colombia and a few others. poland. he stabbed them in the back. they won't return hillary's calls. you know, people tend to forget, the real war in world war ii with japan started out with a trade war. there was protectionism, and it did nobody any good. and when it turned into a hot war we lost a lot of people defending our interesting. and i see the same weaks in. in jimmy carter. what a loser. and i see the same mistakes that hoover made and jimmy carter made. host: for the last roughly 40 years, we've had a pretty free trade policy in the united states and we haven't had

dramatic trade protectionism. we've opened up trade in north america and with europe. and it is true that we are more free trade than other countries like china and especially like europe. what's interesting is that over the last 30 years as we've moved toward free trade, the united states created 46 million new jobs. europe, which is much more trade protectionist than we are, they keep out imported goods, they created 1/6th as many jobs as we did. so this idea that trade loses jobs in america, it just isn't proven. guest: during that same period, we've had that going back to 1980, we've had serious stag nation and reduction in buying power and wages in this country. so the question in part is what kind of jobs. just to speak to the caller. our war with japan didn't start over a trade war. it started over the fact that

we were boycotting certain goods to japan in protest of their imperialist policy attacking nations like china and trying to expand their territory. the japanese took exception to this. so just to put that right. guest: consumer protection, that was the topic of the president's weekly address yesterday. here's a short piece. >> central to these reforms is a new consumer financial protection agency. part of what led to this crisis were not just decisions made on wall street but also unsustainable mortgage loans made across the country. while many folks took on more than they knew they could afford, too often foiks signed  contracts they didn't understand. that's why we need clear rules, clearly enforced. and that's what this agency will do. consumers shouldn't have to worry about loan contracts written to confuse, hidden fees attached to their mortgages and financial penalties whether

through a credit card or debt card that appear without a warning on their statements. and responsible lenders like community banks trying to do the right thing shouldn't have to worry about ruinous competition by unregulated competitors. not surprisingly lobbyists are for big ranks are trying to keep thing it is way they are. but we can't let politics as usual triumph of so business as usual can rein. host: even more the politico writes those comments as part of in advance of the g-20. what are your thoughts? guest: well, look, i'm certainly for a lot of the thing that is barack obama talked about. more transparency so you demow what you're signing up for is pro consumer and it will lead to less defaults. but what's interesting is when the president went to wall street this week, i think

monday or tuesday, he gave a lot about a return to financial responsibility on wall street. there were some snickers in the audience, and the reason for that is, my goodness, who in the world is washington to tell wall street to be financially responsible? folks, we have a $6 trillion national debt that the president wants to take the national debt up another $9 trillion. we're going to see the bankrupting of this country if we stay on this path. we can't do this. we have to start slashing government so that we can pay our bills. and so i just thought it was ironic when the president said wall street should be financially responsible when washington isn't. guest: well, i think it's telling wall street is one of the foundations of our prosperity in the 20th century. before the 1930s, before the new deal reforms, most people did not invest in wall street. they stayed far away from it even if they had the money because it was considered an

inherently unsafe place full of bucket shops, et cetera. one of the things that was done by regulating this is to make wall street a place that a lot of people wanted to invest in. and i think that's something that's got to be address ds now. i think wall street doesn't quite understand how much they've endangered their brand here. if you have another one of these debalkles as we did last fall, you're going to have it be the thing with with where for generations people will be afraid to put their money there. guest: i agree with that. host: there was this story in the "new york times," leading senator pushing nuss plan to oversee banks.

guest: it's interesting. i just heard about this. but it is true that we have unbelievable numbers of agencies that oversee wall street and banks. we have the fdic, the s.e.c., the federal reserve bank, the federal home loan bank. so we have all these multiple agencies that are supposed to be guarding wall street against these financial crisis and to some extent they fell asleep at the switch. i have some skepticism as to whether new financial regulation is going to prohibit the kind of thing from happening again. i think share holders need to be more vigilant about how they're investing their money. and i think that we saw with the sarbanes oxley bill, remember that one that passed in the wake of the scandals, the accounting scandals we had with enron. that was supposed to be the end of scandals and then we had another one. so i'm not entirely convince that had more regulation is the

solution. host: gregory on the independent line. caller: well, you know, first tonight say to them, i generally support our president. but i do have concerns about the cap and trade legislation for congress. it's my understanding that that's going to cost like each taxpayer, american taxpayer like $1,700. so i would like to see that our government goes a lot slower on that. also, on the health care issue, i think that going and making health care available to every american is going to make this country more competitive in the end. my understanding of economics is that through the circle of spending and expenditure, we will get an expansion in the general economy. host: why don't you take the cap and trade part of that, the climate change legislation. as you said up in new york, we're reading about the largest pending meeting ever on this

topic in new york, and some of the headlines suggest somebody from somewhere in the world has to step forward and lead this charge. what are you anticipating up in the u.n. and elsewhere this week? guest: what i'm anticipating is nobody will step forward and lead the charge. but, again, i think it's one of these issues that has to be addressed because it won't go away. i don't know if cap and trade is necessarily the best way to deal with it. some people think a straight carbon tax will be better. but i think this is a problem and it's going to be a costly problem. here in new york, you'll look at how much of the land here is quite low. to keep that from going underwater as sea levels rise in the next 20, 30, 40 years you're going to have to build about the world's biggest complex of locks and dikes and levies. this is going to have to happen around the united states. you're going to have huge problems created in other

countries. so this is nothing that's going to go away. and the cost down the road will be beyond anything that's being contemplated through cap and trade. but i think also things like cap and trade and addressing the issue present an opportunity. this is an opportunity for us to get ahead of things and to push right into the technology of the 20th century. i think green technology presents all kinds of opportunities and i think we should look at them as opportunities and seize control of that. host: we have 15 million people unemployed in this country, 10% unemployment rate. it's now 16 or 17% who can't find full time jobs. it's almost an obsent to be talking about this massive tax. i call cap and trade the china and india full employment act because we know what will happen if we do this. we will move much of our

manufacturing industry out of the united states to countries like china and india. so it is a job killer. this is the absolutely worst time to be talking about it. and if we had a carbon tax and we used that tax money to reduce taxes on business investment and things like that, i wouldn't be so opposed to this. but to put a trillion dollar new tax on the american people right now is economic suicide. guest: i don't know if you've noticed, we've already moved a large number of our economic base overseas. and i find it interesting that china and europe are rushing into these technologies. they're going to eat our lunch on this unless we start to act on it. buveragetsdz they've made it very, very clear, as you know, that they will never, ever agree to a cap and trade. they want the united states to do -- the rest of the world wants the united states to do cap and trade so we lose our jobs to the rest of the world. that's why they want the united states to go first.

guest: it has to be a negotiated thing, of course. but we also have to lead and they won't have cap and trade. what they will have is all the new technology coming up if we're not careful. host: our guests, kevin baker up in new york city, contributing editor to "harper's magazine." he has written sever books. and here in washington, steven moore, editorial board member for the "wall street journal," educated at the university of illinois. also, george mason, also has written several books. founder and president of the club for growth. next call. caller: hi. good morning. this is directed to moore. you say you went to some of the tea parties. it's just disingenuine for you to say that you are for the health care.

you know, your people are against obama because he's not black? i'm a black woman. i've never been embarrassed by the tea party and the way they've treated our president. we never did this to george bush. yes, we were against the war. yes, we were against george bush spending the money that we had. but we never disrespected the office. and for you to sit there and say that there is not racism in america when it boils over and we have a war in this country, then what do you say? guest: well, as i said i've been to these tea parties all across the country. they are multiracial, people of all ages, young people, senior citizens, they were republicans, there are a lot of independents, a lot of perot voters that revoted.

and, look, there is racism in america. but a vast majority of these people are people who love their country, they think their government is out of control. and god bless them for coming out. there are people who traveled 12, 13 hours on buses to come to washington. now, you may not agree with what these folks are protesting against, but i think it's great citizen involvement. and we say people are not paying enough attention to politics. this is@@@@@@"rz

health insurance. otherwise, you're going to have mother teresa take care of it. because when you lose jobs, you lose medicare. you lose social security. guest: i think the caller makes a great point. i think the history of the nation going through the -- right through the internet is that government often supported great industrial leaps forward

by different policy. and i think providing health care is one of those things. i don't think everything has to be on a pay as you go basis. i don't think everything is a marketplace or should be a marketplace. there are thing that is support markplaces. such as infrastructure, such as a good universal health care policy. guest: there are three thing that is we could do to reform the insurance system, the health system in america that would make such a huge difference. swun to do medical mall practice reform which would save about $100 billion. and the 1100 page bill the senate reported out, not one page goes after dealing with the lawyers. the second big reform is have high policies going out. and the third and maybe the most important is let people buy insurance in any state that they want to. you can buy an insurance policy in new hampshire for one third

as much as it costs if you live in a state like massachusetts or california. so let californians and people in massachusetts buy a policy in new hampshire and they will have much lower cost and you'll be able to have people who are uninsured afford health insurance. host: let me get your thought on that. guest: you could speak about the other thing. the value voters summit we've been covering. what are your thoughts? guest: well, i thought it was interesting that president obama did support reform in medical mall practice. it's certainly an issue. i would think one possible way to deal with it would be for the government to pay for mall practice insurance. meaning that you could have the lawyer you want and the doctor you want. listen, you know, certainly there are lawyers who abuse this. on the other hand, i like having that legal protection. you know? if i go into a hospital and a doctor does something outrageously wrong, i want to have a chance of that

protection. i think it's interesting the republican enthusiasm for buying across states. you know. what this is is more i feel a republican cartel capitalism. the road to having one or two or maybe three huge private health insurers and then calling this choice, calling this capitalism. this is sort of the problem, constant favoring of the biggest industries over smaller industries, over private entrepreneurs such as lawyers, guest: i don't get that. i think the whole idea behind allowing people to buy insurance across lines, right now it's true in a lot of states you can only buy insurance from one or two companies, if you allow people to buy insurance across lines they can buy from any of a hundred companies. i think we all agree, choice is the key thing here, consumer power. and if you move towards a government system or towards a system where only two or three insurance companies run the pool of insurance, i think it

leads to higher costs and worst quality of care. guest: i don't know if choice is the question. i think health care is fundamentally not a marketplace and that some choice is already eliminated. you go to the hospital with a broken leg, you can't choose instead to have a corn removed because you don't have the money for the broken leg. that choice is already removed from health care and i think that that's one of the things that's got to be addressed here. host: let's hear from fort lauderdale. caller: hi. i have a couple of small comments for steven moore. he bragged about the 45 million or so jobs that were created in the last 30 years. may i remind you, mr. moore, that slaves had jobs. and the second comment is we should have had a little moderation about shipping all these jobs overseas.

i mean, we just keep buying stuff? we have to borrow money to buy it? it doesn't make snens to me. guest: if you look at the census bureau just came out with new stats tiss ticks on this, the average compensation to workers, when you adjust for inflation is up about 25 or 30%. so it's not true that we're creating less, lower paying jobs. the good news is, though, that if you look at how we get out of this crisis, i think it's pretty clear. we've got to get government under control. we can't pass the cap and trade bill. i agree with you, we don't want to create incentives for american ind stroy move somewhere else. cap and trade taxes, higher taxes do that. we have the second highest corporate income tax in the world. even countries like sweden and germany are cutting theirs while we're raising our rates. it makes absolutely no sense.

host: we have ann on the line. democrats line. caller: hello, and thank you for taking my call. i'm a 71-year-old white senior citizen and i can tell you they drained us off when they signed dick army. he is behind. you can tell by the professionally made science. he's against medicare, against social security. as most of these people on the right are. they still believe all of these off the wall things. so senior citizens, watch out who you line up behind, because these people don't have you in mind. you talked a little bit about the comparison.

to herbert hoover. how can you change the direction? what's the prescription in your view? guest: i think among other things, i feel much more corporate sponsor i think there's millions who would love to be out continuing to work for president obama's agenda, continuing to protest for that, to put pressure on their congressman.

instead it's been damped down most of the time by the president. an occasional rally here and there. but we would love to get into the town halls more. we kind of need that sort of organization here to go at this in the public square. i think that's one of the things he's got to do. that was something that fdr was very, very good at was throughout his administration. this whole kind of persona that president obama seems to want to take on, the no drama obama thing,. he's very nice for the most part. you want a cool headed leader. but the leader has to wear many hats. he has to be the impassioned advocate as well. and i don't know that president obama is yet comfortable with those other parts of the role. and i think he had better get comfortable with them or he's not going to get a thing done. host: how about the role of the opposition in this as well? guest: this is a president who

came into office with about a 75% approval rating. the american people really wanted this president to succeed. and he has an incredible dropoff in susm six months. i think his first six months in office have been a big, big mistake. the stimulus bill, all of this spending has americans up in arms. so the question is how does barack obama salvage his presidency. i think he has to do what bill clinton did. bill clinton started out, his first years were a failure. you had the massive 1994 revolt. and then he moved to the middle and then he was a very successful president. he governed from the middle. we did well with the reform, we did balanced budget, we did free trade agreement. if barack obama were listening right now, i would say, sir, with all due respect, do something about this mass yi public debt.

make america more competitive by bringing taxes down. if we huzzf does those things, i think he will have massive numbers of americans behind him. host: one last call. caller: hello. wonderful. i'm glad i'm the last caller. i just find it very ironic, because the anger that throughout this country is because of the honest, good hard working people that are being called tea baggers and astro turf after mr. baker has been constantly condescending in his comment. so i ask mr. baker, with everything that's going on in this country and especially living here in new york city area with the queens raid from the fdi, i don't want to follow someone who is as whimsy as you

are. we need strong people, and you obviously aren't one of them. host: kevin baker, wimpy. what a guest: what a way to talk. come on. you know,. you know, i wish the president would be less wismy on these things. i'm for going out into these town halls. and, by the way, they called themselves tea baggers originally. but i'm for taking them on mano y mano. as long as they don't bring their automatic weapons this time. i think we should go right at them here. and i'm sorry you feel that different points of views are wimpy but that's how. guest: they call these folks tea baggers because in fact the people who go out do call themselves tea baggers, because this was basically moddled

after the boston tea party, which is something that this country was founded on a tax revolt and you've got a big revolt against high taxes and big government right now. we know from the pundit polls that there's a lot of unrest in this country. i think president obama has a responsibility to stop polarizing this country right now, try to pull us back together. and by continuing to talk about government run health care, cap and trade, you're going to have massive amounts of protest until that kind of behavior in washington stops. guest: i don't think anything justifies showing up with automatic weapons and with signs saying that the tree of liberty needs to be watered with blood. talk about importantlyizing. guest: i was out there. i didn't see -- with all due respect, all the events i've been to, i've never seen anybody with a swastika, with a gun, and these people are not

anti-american. host: got to wrap it up. kevin, thank you.