up next. "q&a" with melvin urofsky and next, washington journal. . . .

guest: it is a memory that is well-suited to memory. i was a graduate student at columbia and 1950's and the biography of woodrow wilson had written in one of his books that louis brandeis was one of the architectural founders of the freedom. i went to my mentor and i said there might be a doctoral

dissertation here. he said writing so too. i did all the paperwork and research and a little bit. i got it approved. in the fall of 1964, i moved to columbus, ohio for my first teaching job at ohio state. a few months later i went into louisville or the brenda's papers are. and the two discoveries -- there was not enough information on that particular topic to support a dissertation the brandeis' letters were a gold mine of information. david levy, a colleague of mine, and i began work to get permission to edit the brenda's letters. as my wife says, lewis has been living with us ever since. host: how to get permission and from whom? and guest: the letters are in possession of the library.

after a series of phone calls to ask if these people are ok, we got permission. the following summer we were interviewed by the brenda's daughters who gave their blessing to us to go ahead. we started what ultimately would be seven volumes of letters. on my part, as some other books that were related. and and host: midlife crisis what year? guest: i was 40. çói bought a sports car and got contact lenses and went to law school. host: why? guest: brandeis. i discovered that in editing the letters -- what -- while he was a justice, a case like erie

which was not john -- done justice to, i became fascinated. i went to law school, had a wonderful, because i was not looking for a job or to make the law review. mcgruff reducing but not spectacular. i have may have been the only person who really enjoy themselves host: where did you go to law school? men and guest: university of virginia. my first a full-time teaching job was at ohio state. i went to the state university of new york at albany after that. the bulkñr of my teaching was in the commonwealth of virginia in richmond. i am now a professor of history at american university in washington. host: what you like about louis brandeis the most? guest: his integrity. he did not have his head in the

sky and some notion of a grand scale. he was very much grounded in reality of where we lived in what is wrong and how we have to try to make it better. he said he did not believe in isms, they do not work. guest: he died in 1941. host: he was born in louisville? guest: he lived there until 1873. his father, sensing the panic that was coming, closed down his business and took the family for three years to europe and to teach their children about their lives there. when brenda's came back, he entered harvard law school -- when brandeis came back, he entered harvard law school. he practiced law in boston until his appointment to the court in

1960. he then lived in washington the rest of his life with a summer home on cape cod. host: to the actually get an undergraduate degree anywhere? guest: he didn't and you didn't need one to get into harvard in those days. and and he went to a german scht was in between high-school and college. he got some post-high school train but he'd never had an undergraduate degree. guest: i met his daughters in the 1960's. we went up to cape cod to their summer home which is still in the family. we met susan and elisabeth. susan's husband was already dead at that time but we met e.eb.'s

husband. the mosquitoes were eating us up. she was quite a character. both daughters made good records for4 x themselves. one is a lawyer and one is an economist. guest: from the time brandeis and alice or marriage, and he had a place of the zone where he could and by people, was always inviting people who came to town. reporters, politicians, reformers, too, have dinner with them.

when they moved to washington, he and ellis had a monday afternoon tea. they would in by people working in the government, other members of the court, reporters going through town, people from louisville who happened to be coming through, professors from harvard were always welcome. during the new deal, this became a very important place to go to. many of the young new dealers who came to washington to work for the roosevelt administration had been sent there, some of them by felix frankfurter. he would question them. on what they were doing and why they were doing this and what problems they were facing. it was not so much advising them but i interviewed some of them later on and they said he would talk to them and ask them questions and a problem that had

been bothering us would go away. one example was there was a woman who was heading a brent, the peter branch of the works prussia of the administration. she had this problem. undouble lot they could not pay royalties to the offers -- offers a place. -- authors of place. -- plays. she went to brandeis and said she had a problem. she said she cannot pay royalties. he said to rent the place. that was the ideal solution because they could pay the authors. it was not royalties so they paid a weekly rental per it he did that hundreds of thousands of tons.

host: were there many accountings you could find of those wants? who wrote them down? guest: the courts were pressed into service to serve tea and make sure no one monopolized brandeises time. alice kept a close eye and when she told one person had enough time to tap the clerk and send them over with the next person to introduce and the clerks have spoken about this. a number of other people in in their oral biographies talked about this. william o. douglas talked about this. brandeis called him a hell of a fellow. host: you say that palace at brandeis only served tea and cookies, gingersnaps. guest: yes. they were not cheap.

they were a static. -- there a static. aesthetic. judge julian mac was a gourmet and said that if you ate at brandeis, you had to be twice. once we went there and afterwards to get a good meal. one of his clerks have grown up on a farm and was there for dinner and they were passing asparagus around so he took a farm portion of guerrillas began -- not realizing that that was all there was. he did not make that mistake again. host: he told his wife that they would live well but simply? guest: yes, they bought from goods stores in boston and kept them.

he was not a slave to fashion. when his suit wore out, he would replace it with essentially the same 1 per they bought in good furniture stores. he told his brother not to buy any furniture that your grandchildren cannot use. they never owned a car. he finally had to give up his horse and made an arrangement with a limousine service for an individual driver who owned a packard to come get him. he gave up his horse only one car traffic in washington made it dangerous. there's a picture in the book of him and alice in 81 horse buggy in 1921. he only owns one house, two houses. he bought the place and cape cod because the owner wanted to celebrate brenda's liked it too much. he felt that new or would not read to him.

he did not believe in owning things. things had no appeal to him at all. host: how much money did he make? guest: a lot, he was successful from the time he opened his business in boston. the best numbers and give you -- in 1990, when most lawyers were making less than $5,000 per year, he was making over $50,000 per year. that would be the equivalent of $900,000 today with no taxes. he was a millionaire by 1907. 21 on the court, he was worth over two million and when he died he was worth over $5 million. his conservative investments did well. he had the money. he gave very generously to relatives and causes he believed in. he said that once he had enough money to take care of his

family, he wanted to go do more public service. host: you say he was a republican but he was a democrat. guest: he was always a small d democrat. he was in the republican party for a long time because the democrats were the party of rum, romanism, and rebellion. he was opposed to william jennings bryant. he broke with the republican party when woodrow wilson came in. from that time on, he is a member of the democratic party but was always a small "d" democrat. he always described himself as conservative. one of the paradox is that i tried to explore is how the man that saw himself as conservative saw himself as a liberal icon.

he appears liberal in comparison to some of the rock- bound reactionaries. he was a burkian conservative, like roosevelt. he believed that if you wanted to keep the best of the past, you had to adopt it to current realities. that was what the liberals fashioned. during his dissent in the 1920's in which he is arguing that the court should exercise restraint but allow the legislature's to do what they are permitted to do, his opinions on privacy and free speech, this is what the liberals made of him. host: you said he did not belong

to a synagogue but he was very active in the zionist movement. guest: there are two types of zionism. was religious and the other is secular. he was always a secular zionists. host: defines zionism. guest: zionism was a movement started by theodor herzl to return the jews to a home run in palestine host: where was he at the time. guest: he was a viennese journalist who was a secular jew. he was a non-practicing jew but a reporter. his jewish sensibilities were awakened. at first, he was willing to have the jewish state anyplace. the more religious jews convinced him that the only place they could go to was the

land of the bible. brandeis' uncle was a zionist but he did not know at the time. he first become aware of zionism in 1910 when a reporter interviews him. brenda's than studies and eventually becomes to the conclusion that zionism is an idealistic reform that he can support whomever was religious. he said his mother did not believe that anyone should be bound to any one religion, rather they should be aware of other religions and treat them with respect. he never denied his judea's. considering he was one of the most successful lawyers in boston, he had little to do with the jewish community in boston he made donations to various jewish charities but they were for the nominal amount compared to what he put into other reforms.

host: tells about the dreyfus trial. guest: he was a captain in the french army. there was a scandal in which it was determined that a spy had sold military secrets to the germans, france's age-old enemies. dreyfus was blamed for it and it was not that he was a spy but he was the only jewish officer. it was the real anti-semitism. a number of people accused france of a mock trial the most important result was theodor herzl's book. eventually dreyfus is exonerated. the real culprits, the french officers, were found. host: later in his life, he got

involved in the sacco and vanzetti case. guest: sacco and vanzetti were two italian immigrants who were tried on a payroll robbery and murder in south braintree, massachusetts. their trial was a farce. evidence that might have exonerated them was kept their and the judge was prejudiced. he referred to them as " anarchist bastards." after the trial, a number of people, like felix frankfurter, because -- began a long test to show that the trial was not fair and there was no justice and tried to get a new trial. frankfurter was a professor of orgel at the time and brenda's provided him with an annual stipend. that later raised eyebrows but

was neither illegal or immoral at the time. brandeis was able to give some much of his time to reform or because he was wealthy. he made a lot of money as a lawyer. he invested it assembly and that a good return for it frankfurter was a professor at harvard law school at a time when the law school did not pay the high salaries they do today. he had a wife who was often sick. all of his salary was going to support his family. brandeis gave him an annual stipend which frank porter did not want to take. there were no strings attached to it. he told frank porter to do reform work and it cost money and you should be free to take on whatever causes you want without worrying about whether they can afford your services. when frank porter -- frankfurter became involved,

brenda's sent an extra money to defray expenses. brandeis had a rental property that could be used by the events of the family. -- by thevanzetti family which became a safe house. brandeis was aware of this. it made him unable to interfere in the case. host: what happened in the end? guest: sacco and vanzetti were executed. there are opinions that are still divided on the case.

host: have you read much about frankfurter? guest: i have. host: you "brandeis as calling him a half-brother and have signed? guest: they met when frank porter was relatively young. brandeis was already an established reformer, lawyer. they met at the house approved in washington which was a house which many young men shared. brenda's would stop by when you is in town. -- brandeis' would stop by when he was in town. he helped to arrange a professorship at harvard for him. he was only person to whom he would talk openly about the events on the court. there is a wonderful series of notes in which they would

discuss court cases, personalities -- it is one of the few points as we get into the inside of brandeis with what he really felt about his contemporaries on the court. frank corder had already gotten involved to some extent -- frank porter had already got involved. -- frank order frankfurter he did not have the cash to be able to lay out to have a brief done. that cost money. he did not have that. brandeis' wanted to make sure that he had that. 1917 on until late 1930's, when frankfurter himself on the court, brenda's gave him about $50,000 per year.

if you are talking about printing briefs and travel and hiring research assistants, none of it when it to frankfurters pocket. despite the scandal it created became known later, it was never secret at that time. i spoke to some people, the professors at harvard, and they knew that he was getting money from brandeis on the number of occasions. host: he was almost 85 when he died in 1941. how much money to the ebony died? guest: his total state was $3 million. after taxes which were heavy, it can get to $1.9 million. these are 1941 dollars.

today, it would be quite a bit more. he had invested very conservatively. he said he did not want to have to watch his investments. he had a woman who had come to him as a young girl in his law office in boston. she had a head for numbers which he recognized and he put her in charge of office finances and when he met on the court, she continued to handle his personal portfolio. he paid for a fee for that. host: you talk about getting involved in bignes. you say every problem we have today started in that era. guest: there was an insurance scandal. company executives buying money to buy persian rugs.

there were different names then today but the same situation. the policyholders in these companies were upset for many people, an insurance policy was their chief investment. the stock market had not become what it is today. if you were a doctor or lawyer around 1904 and 1905, your big investment, aside from a house, would have been an insurance policy which would have provided for your family had died or your home life policy which would have been your retirement if you lived long enough. they were extremely worried about the value of these investments. they hired brandeis to look into this for them. about the same time, charles evans hughes was conducting public investigations in new york into insurance.

he was coming up with one scandal after another. host: put him in context. guest: he was a lawyer in new york and eventually became governor of york, he was appointed to the supreme court by william howard taft, resigned and became secretary of state and was a chief justice assigned by herbert hoover. they did not agree on everything, and and brandeis. brandeis was an admirer of his. the hughes investigation into the insurance company is exactly the way he would've done it. he liked the way hughes ran the conference. he thought he was the best chief justice he ever met. host: you wrote that he had a strong aversion to the curse of bigness.

guest: in the chapter on reform, i tried to show brandeis what made him an effective reform. he was opposed to bigness in government and business. he said man as a weakling and has limited ability. while you recognize that you had to have delegation and one person could not do everything, the idea of the factory that hired 10,000 people, no one can have any idea of what their business is when it gets that baker there is an inefficiency of bigness. he opposed much of the new deal personally, not as a justice, but he was opposed to big government labor had a mixed reaction to him. on the one hand, he was a strong proponent of labor's right to

organize and bargain collectively. he also want to put limits on unions said they would be responsible. this was anathema to people like samuel gompers and others. host: who was samuel gompers? guest: he was the head of the american federation of labour at the time. labor lined up in back of brandeis in 1916 because they trusted him host: it took six months to get them approved. guest: he was a radical. as far as conservatives were concerned, this was a man who had attacked j.p. morgan. he had discovered that there was a big scandal involving conservation and the president had lied about what he had done.

this is a man who supported labor legislation which conservatives found anathema. this is a man who attacked banking practices. he had attacked the courts and said they were not in touch with current realities. he was a radical. he was not an iww radical but he was educated, trained, and he was affected. you could ignore thee!real radicals on the left but you could not ignore brandeis. host: 22 that voted against it, what party were they in? guest: only three republicans voted for him. host: if he were on the bench today, who would be on his side? guest: that is a hard question.

if you take today's court, a lot of what he preached is accepted by all members of the court. his dissents were in the 1920's and 1930's. we think of anthony scalia as a conservative, very conservative justice. a few years ago, scalia wrote a brandeis-type opinion for the case can about this way. police were cruising up and down in california with the electronic devices in their car to pick up heat sensors for their idea was they could pick up a heat signature and they would know who is growing marijuana because you have all that light that generates heat. they picked up a signature from my house and got a warrant and showed up and the guy was growing marijuana. they never had a warrant to use the thermal sensor. he is convicted in a lower court

and comes up and scalia wrote a brandeis-type opinion. he said you cannot just look into somebody's house because you have the technology to do so. you need to have a warrant. this is essentially what brandeisñi wrote in an old opinn on wiretapping. his jurisprudence of free-speech had been adopted by conservatives as well as liberals. his notion of judicial restraint to allow legislature to do what they are permitted to do than pay lip service by everybody. it would be hard to say where he would lie in the scheme of things. to take one specific case, the leadbetter case were a liberal view of law was taken and unless

he could file a complaint within 90 days of discrimination, she had no cause of action, is insane. she did not know she was being discriminated against for 20 some odd years. brandeis was of sided with her later ginsberg -- with ruth bader ginsburg and others on this. host: he was not active in civil rights or women's suffrage? guest: he was not an initially from women suburbs but he got married and had two daughters. he also associated with some very intelligent women. florence kelley, the national consumers league, his sister-in- law, he knew jane addams.

mural riley and boston. gradually, he came to the conclusion that his argument was fallacious. is what was a strong pursuit -- strong supporter of women's suffrage parade. in terms of civil rights, as historian, you have to be very careful to distinguish between what was going on in the 19 tens, 1920's, and 1930's in the civil rights movement and what happened later in the naacp at that time was a very small group. the jurisprudence of the time was different for its segregation was seen as state action. even the naacp did not know how you would attack state action in federal court.

it was not until the 19 50's that we got -- we got a supreme court that could react. the main charge against brandeis is that he was not a champion of the african-american. and and in all the cases that came up before the supreme court that the naacp brought and there were only a handful, in every one of them, he supports the naacp. i argue, yes, it would have been wonderful. host: what would you have thought of him as a personal friend? would you have liked him?

guest: if i were a casual acquaintance, i would've thought of him as cold, hard, all business, no nonsense. his good friends thought the world of him. he did not have a lot of close friends. he was a man who made use of every minute of his targets. he took one month off every year. he did 12 months of work in 11. when he could afford it, he started taking the month of august off. he took long weekends, too. he said the worst thing you could do is to retire because you make mistakes when you were tired. a lawyer had made a mistake because he was tired and he

vowed never to have that happen to him. host: i read about the 1914 book that brandeis wrote. i wrote an introduction to that book. guest: i had an op-ed book in may "new york times." everything he said in that book is still true today. the best thing we can do is learn from it. host: because i kept reading about it, i typed in louis brandeis and how the bankers use money and you can read that on the internet. what you think he would feel about that, concerning his feelings on copyright.

guest: i think he would have mixed reactions. it is a wonderful source of information, the internet. he believed that you could never know enough. one of his arguments for speech -- for free speech is that an educated system is essential for democracy. you do not center speech -- censure speech. on the other hand, it intrudes insomuch of our daily lives. you walk down the street and to see people talking to themselves with the earplugs in. cell phones are everywhere. he thought telephones were an intrusion to his privacy. i am sure he would object to

cell phones today. he would have mixed reactions. host: where did he live in washington? guest: he lived on california street. he is to walk to the court from there. host:"other people's money and how people use it "is still in print. let me show a you a clip of his grandson. do you know him? guest: i do. i have known him for a number of years. host: he is talking about the supreme court building in 1935. >> he had below books spread out on the floor of his office which was not a large room. that served him well. he saw no need for the marble

palace. he did not want to be ready part of it. he had good relations with his fellow justices. they all used the building. one of the law clerks told me many years later that one of his fellow justices raised objections about the building. grandfather turned to the law clerk and mentioned that he voted for it. guest: the modern supreme court building was a william howard taft initiative. they used to be located in the bottom of the senate building. william howard taft that as what the three main branches of government, the supreme court should have a building that was

comparable to the capital or the white house. he pushed it through. brandeis' always like the old corporate he liked the idea that the court was a small body, one man each with one court during the business of the government. he liked that. when the new building open, he refused to move into it. his wife was curious. they kept his chambers open to the public so that when they had tours through the building, this is where they could show what a chamber looked like because it was occupied. alice brandeis looked in -- she's not down there and when she came out, she said they have ice water and showers and might husband does not use either one of these. she thought this was to a lover and he never moved into the chambers. guest: our producer was worried

that brandeis did not abate. he liked the bathtub. he did not like the shower. if you get on the list of course, you will notice that all the clerks of brandeis came from harvard, unlike any other justice. host: oliver wendell holmes also did. he got them for the same source. but he was the only other one. it is not unusual for justices to say i only want clark's from a certain place. they have three or for a piece. in those days, sometimes clerks would stay more than one year. halran -- harlan stone had a

court that state for four years. brandeis had clerks that state for a couple of years. frankfurter chose them. one or two of them came down and met with brandeis. they showed up in august where the former clerk would teach them the ropes and they would be there. guest: today, if a supreme court justice was paying someone like frankfurter to do a project of any kind and that professor was providing the just as with all their course, do you think this would work today? host: we are in a much different environment after abe fortas and the scandals of the 1960's. i met with the office of judicial ethics. a sample chapters from the book. i wanted to know if there was

anything unethical about one brandeis was doing by the standards of his time or are tied. he said there is nothing unethical or illegal but because of the closer scrutiny of what justices have done since the a portis scandal -- the 8 portis scandal, brenda's probably would not have done these things. there would be no problem providing clark started providing a professor beebe engaging in reform activity, that would probably not fly. host: who was frank gilbert's mother? guest: susan was his mother. he worked for the historic trust. host: let's watch this.

>> when it came to his resignation from the supreme court in 1939, as is customary, the chief justice wrote a letter to the retiring justice, to praise him and indicate how much the court would miss him. after chief justice hughes drafted this letter, the senior associate justice declined to sign the letter. the other justices immediately signed a letter which was sent off to grandfather. it's dense to this day as an indication of how the senior associate justice felt about him. he did not need that signature.

it indicated their respect and affection for my grandfather. host: warrant justice brandeis and justice mcreynolds from kentucky? guest: i'm not sure about mcreynolds. host: what was the thinking back then? explain how far mcreynolds would go not to be around brandeises. guest: mcreynolds was wilson's attorney general. he worked closely with brandeis in 1913 and 1914 to draft legislation. we have a number of letters from brandeis saying that he met with mcreynolds and they spent several hours together. he wrote to his wife that mcremcreynolds is be seized by

office seekers. up until that time, their relations seemed cordial. once mcreynolds went on the bench, his anti-semitism flowed. during the time that brandeis was on the bench, mcreynolds would not talk to him. ñiduring their weekly conference when it went over cases, mcreynolds would go to a couch on the side and read his mail when brandeis was talking. there are a couple of years we do not official portraits of the court because mcreynolds would not pose with brandeis. after benjamin cardoza tim gaughn in 193came on the court,s

was horrified that he had two jews on the court. host: we have a more that was done by the clark. guest: it was never said why he felt this way. it was just anti-semitism, as far as we can tell. brenda's ignores mcreynolds for the most part. he does not have a great deal of respect for him, not because this prejudice, but mcreynolds was a poor justice. brandeis and shoes and taft were appalled at how sloppily mcreynolds did his work on the court. there was an interesting letter that for some reason or another, in a relatively minor case, brenda's and mcreynolds were in dissent against the majority. because brandeis was working on a larger dissent, he adds mcreynolds if he would write a

brief dissenting opinion. he said mcreynolds was so happy that i asked him to do that. it is a strange relationship there. if you look at the notes that brandeis wrote where mcreynold'' right back and does not say anything nasty, sometimes makes a suggestion, it is business as usual. then there are other times where you get the stories. mcreynolds was a strange person. host: why did justice brandeis spent so much time and money at the virginia law school? what about brandeis university? guest:óeñ he had nothing to do h university other than his name was used. one of his daughters thought that if he were alive, he would

never allowed his name to be used. his interest began to grow in the 1920's when harvard law school expanded under dean roscoe pound. he has been -- brandeis was a generous contributor to harvard law. he had been a founder of the harvard alumni association. he was a longtime secretary and was on the board of visitors. pound, in the 1920's, feels that harvard is a 19th century law school. he said they would have to expend the faculty. in order to do that, if they would have to expend the student days. brandeis is dead set against that. he turned to louisville because of business. harvard was now too big.

he did not want one big order. he bombed a lot of little harbour started the university of little -- louisville -- he wanted the university of louisville to be the start of that. he raised for his extensive library to be given to the university of louisville. he helped bring in a dynamic dean of law school there. he gave a lot of money but in small chunks agreed he was opposed to the idea of big dollar investments. he was constantly advising not to go after the big dollars. go after a lot of little dollars because that you get people involved. he would of all plotted obamas use of the internet to raise $25 contributions rabin and trying to get $250,000 investments. he wanted local people involved in the development of the

university of louisville. today, if you ask the dean at the university of louisville law school, they consider themselves a second tier law school but one of the best of the second tier. there also a law school that has required public service component to their curriculum. host: how much was he responsible for the pro bono section of law schools today? guest: he almost invented pro bono. he tells his fiancee, alice, when he is courting her, that he hopes that eventually he will do well in his law practice to give at least one hour per day of public service. he does well in his law practice. alice lincoln, one of his clients, came to him to represent her.

she is a reformer and is appalled by the conditions of the boston hospital for the insane which was out on an island in boston harbor. brandeis went out there and he said was one of the worst days of his life. he represented her and tries to get the city to adopt better conditions. they did little better. when mrs. lincoln sent him a check, he gave it to a charity. eventually, he stops taking fees for public service work completely. edward filene wanted to find out in much -- , she was charging, he came to the office and asked how much it would cost three brandeis said it would cost nothing.

said it was his obligation to do this. as a yacht and would not enjoy being out on the see if he were paid to do it, he would not enjoy doing this and being paid. there was one point during a fight with new haven where he was putting in some this time, he thought it was unfair to be partners and a law firm that he actually paid his law firm $25,000 out of his pocket for work they were doing to help him. his partner said they did this because brandeis insisted on it. host: this is 955 pages.

who do you want to read this? guest: everybody, but i would like people interested in public affairs to read this. i would like young lawyers to read this and see how low can be used in the service of the public. i would like people who won a better society to read it to see how it is not just that you have to have an ideal of what things ought to be but a sense of how you get there. i would like judges to read it, to remind them of how law has to be rooted in reality. there are many people i would hope would read this. host: where are you from, originally? guest: i am from liberty, new york, upstate new york. i have a ph.d. from columbia.

host: what impact did your law degree avenue? ñrguest: it opened up a new teaching career for me. i have taught a different law schools. it allowed me to start writing about legal affairs, especially on public policy. i have done books on affirmative action and the right to die and campaign finance. it gave me the confidence that when i was writing about legal issues that i did not understand it. prior to going to law school, i would score around the -- i would skirt around it because i was not quite sure about it. i did not have the confidence for the past 30 years, i have written about law and public affairs. host: there have been 111

ez history and he was the 67 peth. what can you point to that makes him the most famous and maybe two or three best in history? guest: i would say that his jurisprudence on free-speech and privacy, if nothing else, would mark him as a great and influential justice. there was more but we can go into all that. -- we cannot go into all that. there were one or two decisions that should be read in those decisions would be olmsted and whitney on free speech. host: was your favorite chapter in this book? guest: "getting started," when he developed a working habits he

had and his relationships with corporat his clerks. host: what didn't you like about it? guest: the fact that he burned so many of his papers. host: thank you very much for being with us. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> for a dvd copy of this program, called a number on your screen. for free transcripts or to give us your comments, this of us at q &a.org.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> up next, live, your phone calls and comments on "washington journal." at 1:30 eastern, live coverage of the ceremony in charity marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. nbc universal general counsel will be on copyright protection and copyright material and domestic and international piracy, tonight on "the communicators," on c-span 2. we'll talk about what is next for the health care bill.

later, the president of the national association of home care and hospice talks about the dead birds between home care and hospice care. "washington journal" is next. .

host: if you have called c-span in the last 30 days, give others a chance to phone in. the headlines this morning -- authorities scrutinize links between fort hood suspect. federal investigators are examining possible links between the shooting suspect and an american-born imam who authorities say has become a supporter and a leading promoter of al qaeda since leaving a northern virginia mosque. hasan attended that mosque in falls church in 2001 when its spiritual leader was al-aulaqi, a figure who crossed paths with the al qaeda associates including two 9/11 hijackers.

here it says that the operating theory remains that hasan acted alone, however, new leads in the story are being pursued based on information gleaned from a methodical review by investigators of his computer and multiple e-mail accounts including multiple visits to websites espousing radical islamist ideas. "the washington times" -- lieberman vows probe of fort hood rampage. he was on face the nation yesterday. >> i am intending to begin a congressional investigation into what were the motives of hasan in carrying out this brutal mass murder?

if it is the worst terrorist attacks since 9/11, and whether the army missed warning signs? this is not a matter of constitutional freedom of speech. . hasan were showing signs, saying that he had become an islamist extremist, then there should have been zero tolerance and he should have been gone. host: the army chief of staff was on this week with george stephanopoulos. he said, but the army chief of staff said sunday that he is concerned that speculation about hasan's muslim faith and the motives behind the shootings could spark retaliation against muslim soldiers and heard diversity within the branches ranks. he says "i think there's something else we should be very careful.. "

this is according to general george casey. good morning, memphis, and beverly. caller: good morning, i would like to look to the subject of bullying and harassment. when i saw that this man had "god is love" on the back of his car and someone toward often anddirty messages on to his car, they need to look at harassment of anyone in the military. because at columbine school the students were harassed and they shot up the school. i don't think that the lieberman preble good deeply enough to get toñr the root of y people will go off like that when they are being harassed. host: here is baltimore, frank.

what did you think? caller: good morning, this is my first time to call into the show. my thought is that senator lieberman should not be saying that. [inaudible] [inaudible] host: arlington, va., good morning to evelyn on the independent line. what you think about this idea of the investigation by lieberman? caller: i think lieberman should avoid making inflammatory statements. anytime someone whether civilian or in the military should step many people, obviously there is an investigation. but we have more skinheads in

the military than muslims. the oklahoma city bombing -- they were christian. to make it about whether it was politically correct or islamic is just wrong. let the military handle it. find out what steps to be taken to identify people who may possibly snap, regardless of their religious background. host: here is a comment by twitter. here is the newly times" this morning. -- "the new york times" this morning, a piece by andrea l. it who writes that the thousands of muslims have served in the u.s. military, some tracing back to the first world war.

pineries, n.c., is next up. good morning -- pine hurst. caller: i don't think it has anything to do the muslims, catholics -- i think that senator lieberman should have investigated it to. that is what is wrong with washington. many people who do need to get

investigated do not get to investigate. whether you are christian, muslim, whatever, you should not go in and kill what is the most sacred part of the u.s. -- they are out there to protect us and they need to be investigated. host: good morning, phoenix, ariz. -- your thoughts? caller: i think the only important thing to lieberman is lieberman -- he loves the headlines. in arizona in tempe when president obama came down here forñi a rally a man carrying and ak-47 who went to the baptist church where the rev. said that he wished that president obama, although he did not call him

president, would die of a brain hemorrhage like ted kennedy, and that he wished all gays and lesbians would die. now, i did not hear him call for an investigation of the that pastor. it is much more serious. if something happened to the president of this radical christian -- and i am a christian, but not radical christian. host: the president will be at fort hood tomorrow for the ceremony there. good morning, an independent caller. caller: this is a great tragedy. however, i believe senator lieberman lacks all credibility. i don't think this is an

unexpected and then to given the state of constant war we have been in since world war ii. the army is presently exhausted. psychological problems are overlooked and ignored. we have to stop waging war all over the world and bring our troops home. it they cannot take it anymore. host: tucson, ariz., on the republican line. caller: first of all, we have gone across the bend with all this political correctness and it is part of the reason why this has happened. people are afraid to say anything because they are afraid it will be called a bigot or racist. plus, you cannot be a christian, but you can be a muslim. people say that the armies are were not -- we have had record enlistment ever since may.

each month goes up because people are getting unemployed. when they say that the fbi had this guy on their radar a few months ago, didn't the fbi have some of the 9/11 hijackers on their radar? host: dean, you are skeptical of the whole idea of an investigation? caller: i think they need to do an investigation. there are too many people saying that everyone will go crazy if you say he was a muslim. people need to have a little more respect for everyone else. not everybody is going to go crazy. anyone who was going to go crazy was going to go crazy anyway. host: this morning in a future

peace about muslims in the military. a hard time to serve their country, especially after the shootings. further in this article, the reporter writes that muslim leaders, advocates, and military service members have taken pains to denounce the shooting and distance themselves from major hasan.

yet, also on sunday when we play this comments from senator lieberman on that program -- should there be an investigation on the shooting? caller: no, if he had been a catholic or a jewish person who was the walked in and said somen the jewish dialect, there would not be calling this a hate crime. because there is a certain amount of muslim hatred -- and i am not muslin, i am a christian. the guy was probably starting to go crazy anyway. there are a lot of people out there who really should not be

charged on what their religion or political background is, specifically on the crime. lieberman should stay away from the mic because he generally does go for headlines. he should also vote his caucus. there are a lot of insurance companies in connecticut and the man seems to be very anti- insurance rehabilitation. host: we'll talk more about the senate health debate in our next segment. good morning, a republican caller, hi. caller: i cannot believe what i'm hearing. we had one of the worst attacks on the military. these people don't want an investigation? political from arizona, my goodness.

that guy was carrying a gun. he was a left wing radical. you go, joe lieberman, get an investigation. they don't want to call it a terrorist no more? they don't want to stir the pot of the obama administration and want to keep everything calm. i cannot believe what i'm hearing here. host: about 50 more minutes of your calls until 7:30 a.m. eastern as to whether the senate should look into the fort hood shootings. here's the front page of the "houston chronicle" -- legally, we are in for a long haul. the case against the soldier accused and mass shooting faces many hurdles.

good morning to columbus, ga., on the independent line. caller: good morning, my name is raymond and i am in ex-military desert storm veteran. i have seen how the army behaves when soldiers who wish not to deploy to a combat area and in many cases soldiers are forced. regardless of the conflict you have to go look at his sentiment to go kill his own people. the army should have stepped up and released that guy and got him out of there before got too bad. host: what is that pressure like? there was a lot of talk about him not wanting to go. this would have been his first

deployment overseas. was it more of the motivation in this and other things, including whatever his muslim background or face might bring to it? caller: here is what i honestly think -- that man got all that education on on cool sam -- on uncle sam's dollar and he was finally asked to put himself in harm's way and pay back his obligation to the u.s. army. it is easy to do it when you are stateside and don't have to carry a weapon or worry about bombs hitting you, but when you have to go overseas and live there with no electricity, no real basic things -- i don't know how many people have lived in the desert for nine months, but it ain't no fun. it is not easy. what i really feel is that man started to send out messages at

least three years in advance host: why weren't those messages pick up? caller: they were not picked up and that is why we need an investigation. not to get someone in trouble, but let's start exercising better judgment. i mean that we need to analyze exactly what his job was and what he means to the mission. should we have let him out of his contract? many people say that he signed up and legally he is obligated. host: here is a message from twitter by joe. continuing this morning, since september 11, the nation's military has recruited muslim-

americans, a year to have people with linguistics skills and a cultural understanding of the middle east. next up, briarwood, new york, on the line for democrats. caller: i think the whole issue is that lieberman needs to stay out of it. if this unfortunate event is extended as far as they think so, the last thing you want to do is go on tv on box of all people.

host: he was on face the nation yesterday, on cbs. caller: i stand corrected, but let him stay out of it, don't talk about we can i get into a situation where we are tied casting people and saying that muslims want to serve this country. we're fighting two wars. we need these people. not all of them have these attitudes. we cannot go down this road. host: middletown, conn., laurie. caller: i'm from connecticut and i have a lot of insight on senator lieberman -- we call him senator aetna here. i'm not being sarcastic when i state that what needs to be investigated is senator lieberman.

there is a certain report -- host: that is sort of and ad hominem attack on that, so i will let you go. caller: good morning, c-span, and viewers. in my opinion senator lieberman is one of the biggest racist in the u.s. senate. i think he is doing this for the publicity. host: why do you think he is the biggest racist in the senate? caller: well, i think he is against muslims, partly because of his religious views. all muslims are not terrorists. there are bad guys all over the place. christians, jews, muslims --

there are bad guys everywhere. joe lieberman -- host: so, the issue falls under his committee in the senate. should he have not called for an investigation? caller: oh, yes, i do think it should be investigated. but also i think the democratic hierarchy should take him off his ahead of that committee because he is talking now about going out and campaigning for republicans and i think he should be removed. host: thanks for your call. he was on fox on sunday and i stand corrected on caller: those comments good morning, i don't know what senator lieberman

said, however, i have a comment to make. wendy's was murdered, it killed by a staff sergeant and marine in the 1980's. he was said to have had psychological problems. -- my niece was murdered by a staff sergeant and marine. my family and i live it over and over again. it was sort of covered up. he also had a two-year-old son who ran into a closet -- and my niece was shot multiple times. her hand was shot off and her side was blown off from a marine who had psychological problems that the military knew about. so, i really don't care about senator lieberman and what ever he said. however, i would like the military to investigate each and every soldier or military personnel to see if they are

actually able to be in the military. to see whether or not they need some help psychologically. because we cannot bring our niece back. host: president obama will be at fort hood for the memorial service. today he is with benjamin netanyahu. the arrangement comes amidst strained relationships. we will have the israeli prime minister live for you at 11:00 a.m. this morning. to north carolina, are republican caller -- a republican color. caller: a couple of weeks ago they said we want to investigate the death of michael jackson. we need to investigate that and nothing was said. it is all this left-wing smoking dope, hippies who only want to

argue about anything that the independents or republicans want to do. they want to say it is bad for --; all they want is publicity. ñiñc)óe1ñúóñrñiñyññ-3

why do we believe the mainstream media on everything? there were also stores about multiple shooters but you see how that got swept under the rug. host: here is a story from the baltimore paper concerning two former presidents. jfvirginia, your thoughts on the program called for by senator lieberman? caller: first of all, i like to give my condolences to the families of the victims. joe lieberman needs to be investigated himself. what he is doing, he is not for

anybody in the military. this is a political move on his own behalf. he is looking out for his own neck and will do anything and everything to get political attention. host: 2 jones bill, on the republican line. -- to jonesville. caller: i think joe lieberman is doing the right thing. this is one of the worst attacks since 9/11 we have had on our troops. these people who call in saying there questions and/or against this -- i think they're very wrong. the book for abortion and kill many babies and still claim to be christian. host: back to this piece from "the new york times."

too many americans overlook the heroic efforts of muslims in uniform said an army reservist. virginia, bob, on the independent line. caller: good morning, it should be investigated without any question. but joe lieberman needs to stay away from this.

he seems to be very unstable and jumps into anything that will place his name on the map. allow the military to handle this incident. we do not want to add to this problem. making a political score will add to it to. host: here is "the wall street journal" -- the sugar acted alone. fort hood prepares for a memorial service as 16 victims remained hospitalized sunday. -- does sthe shooter acted alon.

the last call on this issue, ohio, faith, the democratic caller. caller: thank you for c-span. my heart really goes out to all those families who were involved at fort hood. i think people should keep a little perspective in that these kinds of things happen all over the place for all kinds of reasons. and that we should let him our government and military handle this problem. it is what we have them for. host: things for the call.

we turn our attention to the healthcare bill that passed the house late saturday night. the next stop is the senate and we will talk with j. taylor rushing with "the hill" newspaper. >> c-span 2010 still cam contest is here. the top prize is $5,000. just greed of five to eight minutes of video. it must incorporate c-span

programming and show varying points of view. winning entrie'1]%11 be shown n c-span. good to the website for contest rules and info. >> rick cotton on copyright issues and international piracy. "washington journal" continues. host: j. taylor rushing covers the senate for the hill newspaper. this morning, the road ahead for u.s. healthcare reform -- the congressional budget office is the first stop. they have to score how much it the bill costs. is that the most important thing to begin the week with? guest: it has been with the cbo for several days. both sides will use whenever it

is for political reasons. it has to be done so that people know how much the bill is. the cbo and the score is very about double. it is really just a cost analysis. it gives both sides ammunition. host: speaker nancy pelosi and democratic leaders looked at three different versions of the bill. majority leader harry reid has two. what are the biggest stumbling blocks to putting them together into one package? guest: there are several and it will be a hard road in the senate. the issue of a buck option has taken center stage despite democratic leaders saying that it is only a piece of the larger program. it has dominated the discussion for several months. it will be the biggest sticking point. the house plan has won, but the

senate does not. senator harry reid it did put one in but it is unlikely to stay. the senate is much more conservative and will pull this if not to the right at least much more to the middle. host: what is your best sense of when the debate will get started and how long it will last guest: it is kind of a hurry up and wait process. that is one of the things that c-span viewers probably no, but maybe not everyone in the country who follows it so closely as we do realizes that this is far from over. it will be several months. senator harry reid, the majority leader in the senate, said last week that we may not get it done until next year. then he dialed the back a little. the president has said he wanted

by the end of the year. we have already gone through several situations where a bill was passed by certain date and it did not happen. host: during that long debate on saturday in the house john boehner questioned a number of members. he asked concerning the stupak amendment to remain once a goes into conference with the senate. what does that look like on the senate side? guest: it has not really surfaced in the senate. it has not been much source of discussion. the senate is focused on the public option. the finance committee version contained co-ops. senator harry reid had been wrestling with do or do not in

terms of putting in a public option. there has not been much talk about abortion over in the senate. you can tell it will be coming. host: j. taylor rushing will talk about the health care bill with us until 8:00 a.m. eastern. go ahead, patricia. turn down your television and go ahead. caller: good morning, i'm calling from georgia, and hello to everyone. what concerns me is how the whole debate obviously has something to do with the private sector or there would not be so much conflict for this bill to pass. how is all this going to affect

the private sector? guest: good to hear the caller from georgia. i used to live in the atlanta suburbs. it depends who you talk to. the democrats say will make the private-sector more accountable to the public. republicans will tell you it will force insurers out of the market. two things are said and it depends on who you believe. host: a republican caller is next from west palm beach in florida. caller: i cannot believe the lack of logical thinking most have on health care reform being shoved on americans. host: what do you mean? caller: obama and the democratic leadership is supposedly a lower in the cost to expand coverage, but recently

that ap ran a story that the average profit margins was only 2.2% for in jurors. that is correlated to the cost of services. none of the bills in congress relate to any reduction in cost of medical services. host: does the late support of groups latethe ama and aarp have any influence in the senate's right now? guest: yes, it was pretty late in the process. it will have an impact. i believe that this is the largest seniors' lobby out th ere. sure, anytime you have a lobby

coming out in support that is that powerful -- and we powerful that'sseniors are powerful, reliable voters. they have a stake in this. there were on the front lines of the medicare bill about six years ago. host: this is the richmond times dispatch. i will also show the boston -glig hurdles for the senate on health bill. we spent the last segment talking about senator lieberman on a different issue. what is the threat of filibuster here? guest: he is against the public option. if you are harry reid aside from the president you probably have the worst job in washington. lieberman still considers himself a democrat and votes

mostly on domestic affairs for the party. he has threatened to filibuster against a public option. it is one of many problems that harry reid has. as you know, you need 60 votes to get anything done in the senate. in the democrat he loses he will have to make up with a republican. that is even tougher. host: is the issue with the public option the cost of the program? guest: yes. it is not just the public option. he believes the bill in total will add to the deficit. he is a very conservative fiscal hawk. when you talk to him face to face he says his biggest problem with it is adding to the deficit. host: republicans have a chance for a vote on their mmm. will there be a similar senate republican chance for that? guest: harry reid has said he will offer them a chance to

offer whatever chance they want to vote on them. republicans say they are not being listened to because there amendments are not being adopted. does it mean you have not been listened to? i can see both sides. host: good morning, louisiana. caller: i think instead of looking at the whole health course and as a financial person and i think we should be looking at it like a moral question. health care should be right in this country for everyone. it has been proven and tested in germany, england, france,ñr jap. all the negative these about waiting list and socialized

medicine is a lot of hogwash. both the democrats, blue dogs, and republicans that are trying to keep something that is beneficial to all americans is wrong. it is wrong. it is wrong not to include people who come over to this country and work. in england if you are not a citizen and have to go to the hospital they do not ask if you are a citizen there. guest: i used to live in baton rouge, louisiana, too.

the argument is one that democratic leaders are also making -- framing it in moral and historic terms. this is social security, medicare. i don't think they have used the phrase civil-rights, but they have come close. they see this in historic terms and are pulling out all the stops. it is almost like they're trying out different arguments at different times. host: making that case passionately for the bill saturday night was john lewis of georgia. in the senate they have lost their passionate support of health care. they lost in ted kennedy. who picks that up? guest: there really is not anyone. this was your biggest champion. he was on the cover in july with the phrase he used often.

i interviewed him a handful of times before he was diagnosed. he spoke very passionately. if you read his book, he believes this to his core. he was chairman of the health committee until his illness forced him to step aside. there are couple of people who are well-respected, but no one who can fill his shoes. host: president obama made it two statements this weekend. he talked about what is ahead in the senate. >> for years we have been told this cannot be done. after all, in either chamber of commerce has been able to pass a comprehensive reform bill for generations, but last night the house prove differently. the affordable health care for america act is a piece of legislation that will provide security and stability for americans who have insurance,

affordable options for those who do not, and bring down costs while strengthening the financial health of medicare. it is legislation that is fully paid for and will reduce the long-term federal deficit. given the heated and often misleading rhetoric surrounding this legislation i know this was a courageous vote for many members of congress. i am grateful to them and to the rest of their colleagues for taking us this far. more importantly, so are many millions of americans whose lives will change when we achieve insurance reform. host: the president was on capitol hill prior to the passage. how active a role has he taken on the senate side, or his close advisers liked rahm emanuel guest: emanuel has been more in the forefront in will go to the hill. he knows a lot of the names and

faces. my sense is that the president did not realize, as many from both parties did not, how big a fight this would be. earlier in the year they set the deadline for mid-summer. once all the rhetoric began to fly republicans dug in their heels. the sparks started to fly and it has been pushed back continually. that tells me they did not realize it would be this big a fight. he has been more engaged since august. you saw him do a big push after he returned from martha's vineyard in august. he realized it would be a street fight. host: in the and we go back to the five bills. we're bringing it down to one to pass the house and one likely to move ford in the senate. this bill is it? guest: it is hard to tell where it will go.

the senate could take up the house bill, but is more likely to pass its own committee the right before christmas or early in 2010. then, you will see a game of pingpong. the house will not like the other bill and will pass their own, and the senate will not like that and pulling rightward. it is hard to know where it will end up. the firbe careful to watch the c option which will be telltale for how they crafted. host: here is a chart. you took nine months to get to this vote in the house, or more. what is the toughest piece of the process along the way?

guest: it will be the senate. if you think about it the house but will pass with two votes to spare. harry reid has no votes to spare. he has 60 members. senator lieberman does not like a lot of it and we have many moderates like indiana and nebraska. the senate will be where this really gets squeezed. host: what about senator landrieu from louisiana? she also does not like the public option guest: know that is true. she is very skeptical of a public option. those are the things to watch. the headlines in the papers today struck the same thing. this is far from finished. host: here is the york, ted, a democratic caller. caller: good morning. al franken gave a great speech

last week from the floor. i'm surprised c-span has not played it. host: which one was that? caller: on health care. he nailed it. single-payer medicare -- we have the system in place. the objection was have to pay for it. single-payer medicare, europeans have different taxes. there was no backbone to these democrats. i am a democrat. we should pay for it with taxes and should not be afraid of republicans. i know they will rip us apart if we dare to talk about pain for help. medicare should be protected under the law with criminal penalties for companies to take advantage and rep off the system. host: there is a tax in the senate bill? the cadillac tax-guest: there

are so many things cobbled together by senator reid. it is difficult to tell the fate. we are so far from the finish line. it is not even worth discussing whether it will last. i remember the speech that caller is talking about. he spoke passionately about diabetes. he is a senator that harry reid does not have to worry about. he has a picture of the center he replaced. he is a reliable liberal and will support the caucus. but there are many more problems. host: here is a comment by twitter.

peter, on the republican line. caller: good morning, here is a question -- that no one has ever discussed. it began in the 1960's with the war on poverty with president johnson. should then all mothers and women go up to work used to raise the families. today i work in public housing. the people who live and work and pay by the rules have to support those who do not. you have a middle income people today can afford maybe one, maybe two the people who are having all the children do not pay for them, do not raise them, do not support or nurture them. yet we the people who live by the rules and play by them have to support all these programs where no one is accountable.

there is not one tenant in the apartments i manage that has -- that does not have a 60-inch tv. i have one to be that is 12 years old, another that is 18 years old. not one politician discusses this that the people who carry this country and pay for everything -- we have to pay for those who do not take responsibility to care for themselves. guest: that is the argument many conservative leaders are using. this gives responsibility to the country that we don't necessarily sense. they zero in on things like the individual mandate. there is a clause that would require everyone to get insurance. we should not pay for people who are uninsured and drive up the costs for everyone. host: does the senate also have one-guest: it does, and it is

difficult to say whether it will stay in. host: here is mary in north carolina. caller: banks for c-span. you still cannot get past first base with me. it is totally unconstitutional. my main question is, does the gentleman sitting there with you know the answer to a question i have asked so many representatives? what is this truly going to cost for federal employees? is there any vision yet on the number of federal employees

around the country, new federal offices, testing, federal purchases for materials and computers and real-estate to run this program in the future? if no one has numbers they voted for the bill without this additional cost in mind. guest: i don't have the answer. it might be one of the things that the cbo is looking at it, but i don't know for sure. there is a number out there. host: the size of government and how many offices. guest: that is easy to google. host: the congressional budget office estimated the cost of the house bill at about $890 billion. there were some reports that it was over $1 trillion. why the discrepancy?

guest: i don't remember that as much. it is one of the problems for democrats. the closer it gets to $1 trillion, the republicans start to use it and just round up. i think it has something to do with the length of time. host: how much over finance? guest: i believe over 800. they were fairly close. host: good morning, a democratic caller. caller: thank you for c-span. i find that the debate controversial. i think the united states of america has a moral obligation that every citizen is able to get affordable health care. i don't understand -- the

republicans are conscientiously opposing this bill because they really care about american people? they want to stop this bill. it is something so important and crucial for the people. i don't have a question. if the american people pay attention carefully and find out that republicans are not really concerned about health care, but just want to stall this bill, they will be penalized down the line. i want to thank c-span for this opportunity. guest: the republicans look at what they are doing as exactly what the democrats are. and they look at themselves as saving the country's finances. that is their refrain when they step to the microphone. this will wreck our deficit, we

don't want our grandchildren to pay for this. host: let me ask you about a specific issue in the senate bill. this is senator leahy looking at a partial repeal. there has been sentiment among some that a broader repeal of the exemption for health and medical malpractice insurers has gained momentum recently as democrats sought to from the debate as a much-needed reining in of profits and practices. guest: that is one of the side stories. the democrats have used the insurance companies' as the bad guy. they are not terribly popular with the american public.

democrats have made it easy to go after them. that is one of the things in the bill now. they are talking about it, but it may not stay in. the meerkats are not thrilled at all with insurance companies. they blame them for the town halls in august. there were reports that insurers were sending people to disrupt the town halls. it might be unfair, but we will never really know. that is part of the demagoguery going on. host: j. taylor rushing covering the senate for "the hill with the newspaper. the newspaper does not publish on mondays. will you file it on line-guest: yes, tomorrow. host: one more call here for j. taylor rushing. caller: good morning, i had a

couple of comments. to meet it sounds like it is very discriminatory in relation to poor people who are getting a bailout for living in illicit life, not taking care of their business. i don't really hear a lot of things about the premiums, but it feels like the people who have insurance feel slighted. but what if they were unemployed or lost their jobs? so, i would kind of put that out there for people to look at both sides of the picture. i am a republican and believe we need some sort of reform.

most legislation we have -- most people don't agree to every tenet of it. host: thank you, any final comments? guest: one thing i find interesting is that many people wonder where the biggest problem will be. the democrats have the votes, 60 seats. the problem for harry reid is the republicans in the public relations war. on paper he has the votes to pass this. it is the democrats' own party that is being stubborn and skeptical. . .

we've got thanksgiving, chris, of course, democrats can do a lot, but the holidays are out of their hands. host: j.t. rushing, thanks for the update on the senate side of things. we are going to take a short break. when we come back, we'll speak with the auth of a new book, "the new american economy," bruce bartlett with us for 45 minutes. first, a news update from c-span radio. >> it's 8:01 eastern time. president obama signs an executive order today establishing a counsel on veterans employment. mideast issues also on the president's agenda. he meets in the oval office today with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. and as mentioned earlier, the israeli leader speaks this morning to a gathering of north american jewish leaders.

hear live coverage at 11:00 a.m. on c-span radio. chairman of the house education and labor committee says he wants an investigation into the risk of e. coli getting into school lunches. this after a recent outbreak that killed at least two people and sickened about two dozen others in 11 states. and until democratic senator chuck schumer democrats the associated press that today he plans to ask the federal trade commission and the f.d.a. to act immediately on what he says are huckser its and scam artists preying on the fear of the h1n1 virus by selling phony products like pills inhalers, and even air fresheners on the internet as remedies for swine flu. he says consumers who buy the items are less likely to get the vaccine and more likely to catch and spread the swine flu. and those are some of the latest headlines on c-span room >> al gorks taylor branch,

tracy kidder and ralph nader all headline this weekend as book tv heads to the 26th annual miami book fair international. follow the authors and panel discussions and join in with your calls, emails and tweets, live this weekend on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we're joined by bruce bartlett, whose new book, you call yourself many times throughout the book and elsewhere as a supply sider, a reformer supply sider. what is supply side economics? >> well, supply side economics is sort of a euphemism for an economic viewpoint that developed in the late 1970's where we had a problem of stagflation, rising unemployment and rising inflation. the three riis were developed in the 1930's, and those

policies presupposed a demration air situation. so when you use them in an inflationary situation, all they did was make inflation worse, and the inflation eventually made the unemployment worse. so the supply siders look around for a different way, and their philosophy was to tighten the money supply severely to reduce inflation, and at the same time, cut tax rates in order to increase the incentive to work, save, and invest, and almost all conventional economists of the times, thought this was insane, that it was like putting your foot on the brake and on the gas pedal at the same time. but we thought it would work and it did, because ronald rage and an paul volcker implemented it, and by the middle of the 1980's, inflation was down very substantially and growth had been restored, and this was viewed as a success for the supply side model.

host: as a former proponent of reagan economics, how difficult it was to write a book about its fame insure guest: well, the reason why it wasn't working in the 1970's is because it was misapplied in inappropriate circumstances. and i think the same thing happened with supply side economics in the 2000's. i think a lot of policies implemented by the george w. bush administration were said to be based on supply-side economics, but in fact, they were not. they were making ridiculous claims and implementing unwise policies. they said they were based on supply side economics, and they weren't. i think some of the problems we had were developed from that misunderstanding. host: i want to follow occupy that point, because in your introduction you write about what remains when people think of supply siders is a caricature, that there is no problem that more and bigger tax cuts won't solve. talk radio and groups such as

the club for growth and americans for tax reform ruth wasly enforce this view among republicans, even though it's obvious that the tax cuts of the george w. bush years not especially successful, that the economy's problems today are due primarily to lack of demand and not supply. why did the bush administration, in your view, get it wrong? reaganomics, that is, and supply side economics. guest: well, keep in mind, the president's father raised taxes in 1990, and for this he was very widely criticized, and it led to his defeat in 1992. and i think that his son was never going to make that same mistake, and i think he felt that as long as he just kept cutting taxes and cutting taxes and cutting taxes that a large element of the republican coalition would be with him. and no matter what else he did. and i think that as a political calculation, that worked. the problem is it was irresponsible. as was much of the policies of

administration. sh ]dj just for for example, i'm incredulous that so many republicans are complaining about the cost of the healthcare measure that's being considered, that at least is being paid for in one way or another, whereas they put forward a proposal to expand drug benefits for people on medicare and did not pay for it at all. it has a cost of like a trillion dollars over the next 10 years, the medicare drug benefit will, which is about the cost of a health benefit so. these people just have no credibility whatsoever when they complain about deficits. host: your book is about the failure of supply side economics, of reaganomics, as it's been known, but it starts with a look back to f.d.r. and in chapter two, the triumph of keynesian economics.

guest: well, i observed there was a real problem that the existing orthodoxy couldn't handle, the new philosophy, the supply side philosophy came into existence, was implemented, appeared to be successful, and then hence forth, it was applied in every circumstance, whether it was justified or not. so you had kind of a cycle of success and failure. and as i thought about it, i realized the keysnenian economics had gone through exactly the same cycle. it had been implemented in the 1930's, helped end the great depression, but then misapplied in the 1950's and 1960's and gave us inflation. so it seemed there was a similar tree that was interesting, and i tried to ask, what's coming next? host: well, that's what i'm going ask. what comes next? have we come full circle to its time for a keysnenian approach to our economy?

guest: it was quite clear to me that the economic conditions we were viewing were almost identical to the once that the keyns analyzed. so it was a useful exercise for me to have the background just as this happened. but i had to kind of short circuit my thoughts about what was coming next because i was overwhelmed by the economic crisis. host: and when folks say keysneian economics, they're talking about more government stimulus, stimulus spending to get the economy going, correct? guest: yeah. to me, the essential point -- you have to understand that what runs the macro economic is essentially federal reserve policy, monetary policy. but there are times when fed policy is impotent, when it can't do anything, economists say it's pushing on industry string. and these conditions come about when you have very, very low interest rates, as we have right now, and economists call this liquidity trap.

and when you have that situation, the fed is unable by itself to stimulate the economy. host: so keeping rates real low doesn't do it, as low as they are now, just not going to stimulate the economy? guest: no, it doesn't. you have to have some engine pull the economy along, and that engine that be fiscal policy, that is, government spending. and a lot of people think that, well, if you're going to do something on fiscal policy, we should just cut taxes. but the problem is that tax cuts i don't think are going to have any impact under the particular circumstances we have right now. and i think it's a mistake to have a one-size-fits-all policy that worked under completely different circumstances and to say, well, let's just do it again under completely different circumstances. it seems to me that the keysneian model fits current economic circumstances better than any other one that we know of. host: so some fiscal stimulus was necessary in passing -- in congress passing it earlier

this year? >> yeah, i did support the idea of fiscal stimulus, but i warned at the time that it was being gross willing oversold, which it clearly was. unemployment is vastly higher than the administration had predicted, and i also think that people don't understand the time tags involved. it was clear to me that it was going to take much, much longer than the administration thought before the spending actually impacted on the economy. and i think that's one reason why the unemployment rate has not fallen -- or why it's risen and not responded. host: we do have callers waiting for you. 202-737-0002 for democrats. 202-737-0001 for republicans. i understand fents and others, to 2-628-0205. first up is buffalo. good morning on our republican line. caller: how you doing? mr. bartlett, i'm going try to get ahold of the book and read it. i want to get more insight on

your opinions. but basically, what i wanted to address was, if we're dealing with a fiat currency, how can you stop inflation? what can do we do to stop inflation? that's what happens when your money is not backed by gold or tooken off the gold standard like the house joint resolution. host: thanks. we'll get a response. guest: well, it's clearly the responsibility of the federal reserve to maintain a stable price level, and although they have increased the money supply a great deal in response to the current economic crisis, the fed perfectly well understands that it has to reverse that policy or else we are going to be back into a 1970's hyper inflation situation, and they've already talked a lot about how to do this and when

to do this, but they have not yet decided to actually begin tightening, and my fear is that they will wait too long, and so i think a certain amount of inflation is almost inevitable, but hopefully the fed will not allow it to go too far. host: next, pennsylvania. greg, good morning, a democratic caller. erie, go ahead. playerstown, new jersey, mark on our independents line, go ahead. caller: hi. how are you doing? host: fine, thanks. caller: i think all these people got it wrong. they tried to push the democratic plan and the republican plan. the really plan that needs to happen here is they play the games with the fed and all the rest of it. they got to start placing value in america again. i mean, you sit down and look at, from illegal immigration devaluing our construction workers and everything else, everything is about being foreign. we got to start being americans again and start putting value in america again.

you guys think what you think, but the democrats are selling us out into socialism and republicans are basically robbing from the rich. host: what's been the impact of jobs going overseas? guest: there hasn't been a lot of that. in fact, there's a lot of evidence that a lot of illegal aliens would come to the country previously, now, in fact, leaving and going back home. i guess it's on the theory that if you're unemployed, you might as well be unemployed in mexico as be unemployed in california or something. but i don't think that that perspective is very useful in terms of trying to get the economy moving again because it's clear that our basic problems are macro economic. they're things that we have to deal with in terms of what goes on in the capital, in terms of stimulus spending, and mostly in terms of what goes on at the federal reserve. and i think you kind of lose your perspective and start

focusing on individual trees and miss the forest, which is really what we have to be thinking about. host: you write about some fiscal stimulus during the reagan administration. you write -- host: is there any evidence that this sort of experience may happen with the stimulus bill? guest: well, it clearly did. clearly a great deal of the money that was in the february stimulus package was just pork barrel stuff and things that members of congress have been wanting to get past and just needed some excuse, some

must-pass legislation to get enacted. but one of the things that i talk about a lot in the book is something i mentioned earlier, which is the implementation lag. i think that there was this somewhat romantic notion that there were just tons and tons of public works projects that really needed to be done, roads to build and bridges to build and things like that, and the plans were just sitting there, and everybody was just ready to go, and all they needed was a check from the federal government, and the next day, you know, workers would be out digging and building, and that wasn't true. it takes a long time to get these projects going, and as of this last time i checked the data, in august, only $16 billion out of all of the almost $800 billion in the stimulus package actually had gone to public works projects that had been -- there were already, you know, working. that's a very trivial amount of money, and a lot of rest of the money was just wasted. host: but by the same together

known your book, you're critical of the tax rebate that happened very end of the george w. bush administration, not very effective? guest: no, not effective at all. there's a lot of history on this. we tried a tax rebate in 1974, and all the studies afterwards showed that people didn't spend it, but they just saved it, which may sound like, well, saving is good, too, but the deficit increased in order to pay out the deficit -- or the rebate. so the higher deficit simply offset dollar for dollar the rebate, and nothing real was accomplished in terms of stimulating growth. and then we did another rebate in 2001, and all the studies after that shows exactly the same thing, everybody saved the money. and then despite all these failures, we had another rebate in 2008 that the same thing happened. and i argued at the time, i wrote a piece in the "new york times" saying this money is going to be wasted, we should take that you will money and tuesday to stabilize the

housing market. maybe a little bit of money upfront could have forestalled a collapse that cost a great deal nor take care of later on. host: you mean money to homeowners and such? >> i was not sure exactly what the right way to use the money -- my thought was give it to fannie mae and freddie mac and get them to start buying up some of this bad paper. i don't know. but the point, is it's an option that was never considered, so we'll never know whether things could have been done differently. but the within thing we do know is that the rebate didn't work at all. host: we next go to e ri e. greg, missed you earlier. caller: thanks. mr. bartlett, you just mentioned the bad paper. it really strikes me as sort of disingenuous of the right and the conservatives to complain about our deficit and the problems that the government's going through right now with financing all of these things, when you compare the deficit that the federal government has

with the obligations that business has due to all of that bad paper, all the debt that they created, the trillions of dollars. i mean, credit default swaups are like $43 trillion. i mean, it's unbelievable the insurance that the business took out on itself against its bad decisions. and now all of that's coming due. but when you compare -- could you compare the federal deficit versus the deficit of the big mistakes that everybody made or the illegalities that people snade and i'll take my answers off the tv. thank you for having my question. host: thank you. guest: well, i was a little unclear as to what the caller was asking, but i would certainly agree with one thing he mentioned at the beginning, which is that i think the republicans have -- are really off on the wrong track by trying to blame every single thing that's going on with obama. i mean, to listen to these guys, you'd think the budget would be balanced if we simple

elected john mccane. but i think it's important to remember that the c.b.o.'s deficit estimate for fiscal year 2009 that was made in january 2009 before obama even took office was $1.2 trillion for fiscal year 2009, and when it ended, it was $ 1.4 trillion, and of the $200 billion increase, $1 hundred billion of that was due to slower economic growth than the c.b.o. had anticipated, leading to lower revenues. so there was exactly $1 hundred billion of additional spending that was not projected in january, and i think it's worth keeping that in mind, because it shows, really, that the administration has done very, very little in terms of stimulus for the economy. which a big deal of the problem republicans complain about is because of their policies, which obama inherited. host: here's san francisco. good morning, susan, democratic

caller. caller: yeah, i have sort of a specific question that i can't figure out when i try to think about where the mortgages, what money to who, and that is on the one hand, i've heard people say that one of the -- one of the things that pushed people to make all these loans is that there was such a market for asset-based investment. so these mortgages were turned around and then people bought them as investments, i guess presumably balls they pay interest back and they'd make a profit, and that wall street, you know, was just turning these over so fast that people were looking to make more and more mortgage loans. on the other hand, when the banks had problems, one of the things they said is they're broke because all these

foreclosed homes and the decreasing, you know, are prices that homes cost, which are i guess the tax is assets that are on their books, you know, they have all these losses, and it seems to contradict. they seem to contradict each other. it would seem that they had already turned these mortgages around and been paid for by the investors, and i just -- it's seems to contradict itself. host: thank you, susan. guest: well, historically banks would make a loan to a homeowner to buy a house. they would give them the mortgage, and the bank would hold the mortgage until it was paid off. but over the years, people concluded that you could take these mortgages that were sitting in these various banks and bundle them together and have a new type of investment vehicle that people were

willing to buy because you can get a higher interest rate on mortgages that you can on many other kinds of investments, and in theory, these were all backed by real estate, and so therefore, you had, at least in theory, very low risk. and so, for a long time, it was a good deal because the banks in the past, when they'd make a mortgage, they might not have any more money available to make additional mortgages, but now they can sell the mortgage and get money back, that they can then republican lend to someone else so. for a long time, it was really a good deesm the problem was that the people -- the real problem was the people whose job it was, places like moody's and standard & poor's, to go through these packages of mortgages and try to figure out what is the risk in these mortgages, what is the likelihood that some percentage of them are going to go bad, and they did a very, very poor job of making that -- making

those estimates, and we also had some just, you know, unexpected events that that just -- it was a good idea, but it just didn't work. i don't know what else to say. host: you raise a red warning flag your book about a second fiscal crisis. you write that the second -- when the second fiscal crisis hits, sometime in the next few years, it is inevitable that higher revenues will be needed to plug much that have fiscal hole. unfortunately, both parties are in denial about this. republicans still delude themselves that tax cuts starve the beast and tax increases feed it, while democrats are so afraid of being seen as tax increasers that they -- so afraid that they simply refuse to acknowledge reality. what is this second fiscal crisis you're talking about? guest: well, i started writing this book long before the current fiscal sexrice before the massive deficit that is we've seen, and i was just looking at the projections from last year and earlier made by

the congressional budget office and the social security trustees and the government accounting office and places like that of the long-term fiscal trends, and in particular, what's going happen to programs like social security and medicare and medicaid when the jeent baby boom generation begins to republican tire, and the youngest one has already turned 62 and qualifies for early retirement, and over the next three years, more and more of any generation are going to be drawing social security and medicare. and when that happens, the spending for those programs is going to explode. and we've done nothing, absolutely nothing reform them in such a way as to make them sustainable. and i'm afraid that as time goes by, the deficits were look agent now that we think are one-time-only events are liable to become regular events that we have year after year after year that are inevitably going to have a very negative

consequence for interest rates and inflation, and at some point, we're going to have to do something about it, but i think doing something sooner is going to be a lot less painful than waiting until the last possible moment. host: one of your solutions is a value-added tax. how would that work? guest: well, my observation of the analysis of the situation is that it's simply impossible, certain unlikely in the extreme that we could cut enough spending out of these entitlement programs to avoid the necessity of a very large tax increase r. and so the question becomes how will those taxes be raised? if we try to get more revenue out of our current income tax system, which is essentially dysfunctional, and we can barely get money out of that now. i think it will just collapse of its own weight, and therefore, we have to look at a new revenue source, and this value-added tax is one that every other major country has used to finance its entitlement

programs and it's a kind of sales tax, but instead of being collected all at checkout, it's collected a little bit at a time in the whole production distribution stream. and it's proven in other countries to be a very, very effective tax, raise as lot of revenue at very little economic decision portion, and i think we're going to have to do it whether we like it or not. host: any supporters of that on capitol hill? guest: none, none. at least none publicly. i periodically meet with members of congress who say, i'm absolutely right, but but if you go around and say that i agreed with you, i'll call you a liar to your face. so there's a deep, deep fear about saying anything about these things that i think is very, very harmful because we need to at least have open debate and not have certain subjects that were -- that we're not allowed to discuss because it upsets somebody or

another. i think the policy community in this city has really fallen down on the job by pandering to crackpot ideas like, you know, all tax cuts raise revenue and silly things like that or that tax cuts will starve the beast and automatically bring about -- host: what does that term mean, starve the beast? guest: well, the idea was that if if you tried to cut spending by itself, you were never going to get anywhere because the people who like spending will be too powerful. so the trick was, well, let's just cut spending and not worry about spending, and when the revenues are reduced and the deficit is increased, then all the people who worry about deficits will have no choice except to put their efforts into cutting spending. and that was a theory that made a sense amount of sense in the 1970's, but clearly makes no sense whatsoever today. there's simple knoll evidence that that theory works, and yet

a lot of people on the republican side are just absolutely convinced that this is the key to, you know, financial, you know, bliss or whatever. it's just stupid, really. host: robert is next. rockville, maryland, good morning, go ahead. caller: hi there. since jobs are the big issue, what would be the problem with the tax cuts on businesses, like newt gingrich has been talking about, knocking down the corporate tax, go as low as any other country in the world, eliminating capital gains taxes and at least eliminating for a while payroll taxes? the businesses would be wooed back into the country who have left, and then, of course, avoid the upcoming and a half trade, which was really --

which would really make it kind of stifling for businesses. so what do you think about that as an alternative right now to really stimulate and get jobs back? guest: well, i don't think any of those proposals will work, because i think the basic problem we have in our economy today isn't that costs are rising, but rather, that there's no demand. a great many companies are losing money. tax cuts are not going to do them any good. what they really need is an increase in people buying their products, and i don't see how tax cuts on business are going to do any good. i don't see how any tax cuts are going to do any good under current economic circumstances. keep in mind that in the fiscal year that just ended, fiscal year 2009, federal revenues were 14.9% of g.d.p. that he wants the lowest level since 1950 that the historical post-war level of taxes is 18%

of g.d.p. so we've already had a three percentage point cut in taxes assist a share of g.d.p. that has clearly not done any good to revive the economy. and just throwing more tax cuts out there that have -- we have no reason whatsoever to think we'll have any impact, is just dogma. it doesn't have any relationship to reality, in my opinion. host: about 15 more minutes with bruce bartlett. next up is detroit. this is john on our republican line. good morning. caller: hi, good morning, mr. bartlett. infrastructure is something that i can't quite understand, i can't wrap my mind around why people seem to oppose or think that it's going to go poorly. i'm in scrurks a civil engineer, and we've been talking about the deficiencies in the f.a.a. and the tracking

of aircraft flights in this country. we've been talking about bridges. near detroit, we just found out recently that m-dot found out there's a over the water bridges that have not been looked at as they were supposed 2006, 2007, and 2008, and all the bridge that goes over to winds sore, maybe you bheard that, i don't know, but it's in some questionable state. i looked at the number of bridges in this country, and i believe it's over 500,000, and you would think that if we only were to look at those bridges and investigate as to what state they're in, except for the one who are receiving routine maintenance, just the bridges alone, if you were to initiate engineering contracts to have them investigated, looked at, you know, that's going to -- it would have to spread out into heavy equipment

and other contracts, which would lead to, you know, suppliers. you know, it may be simplistic, but it seems to me that would be the case. and also separating sewer systems, improving waste treatment and water treatment plants and all the things here in this country, if we can put that much money into iraq that we've done that we've lost -- and we don't know, exxon mobil got something out of it -- host: and i'll add to his comment, this tweet from shawn, our economic future lies not in the real estate market, tpwhut decentralizing energy systems creating an explosion in employment. calling for government spending in this infrastructure area and the energy area. but in the end, you get back to your problem of the mounting debt that the country has. guest: well, yeah. you have to -- it's kind of a short run, long run problem. right at the moment, our problem is we have to stimulate growth and increase jobs. and i think the caller was exactly right that there's a great deal with the could have been done in terms of public

works spending. there's clearly a great need about fixing up the bridges and roads and things like that. my only point i was making is people underestimate the time laggeds, the time that it takes to let contracts and higher -- have plans drawn up and things of this sort before a meaningful amount of work is being done by the people in the construction industry, and that is being done. it's just being done much more slowly than people thought was necessary. i think they just had this notion, like i said earlier, that all you needed was to have a check and the next day people would be out, you know, with pick axes and things, and it just doesn't work like. that it's a very long, drawn-out process. but i think that going forward, i'm optimistic economically, because i think a lot of that money that was appropriated back in february will still be

coming online this year and will add some stimulate to growth. host: why did the fiscal stimulus work during the f.d.r. years and is slow to work now? guest: well, it really didn't work at all during the f.d.r. years. that's the problem. all the right-wingers were complaining about how big his deficits were, but the problem is they weren't nearly big enough. and then just at the points the deficits were starting to have a good economic, roosevelt got talked into balancing the budget. and the federal budget went from a deficit of 5.5% of g.d.p. in 1936 to a complete balanced budget in fiscal year 1938. so he took 5.5% of g.d.p. out of the economy that would have otherwise been stimulative, and really, as a result that really wasn't until world war ii that the depression really ended. host: to mesa, indiana. good morning to andy on our

democrats line. caller: good morning. i'm looking at the kind of economist that the republicans in washington and groups like the united states chamber of commerce are trotting out and supporting their laissez faire tax cuts and trying to say that tax cuts create jobs, and i've never seen any evidence of that in my lifetime. i'm also wondering what you think about increasing stimulus and actually going out and spending more money to try to create some more demand out there. guest: well, at this point, i think it would probably be not a good idea to have a second stimulus package for this reason. if you look at the economy, there's an awful lot of evidence that we've really turned the corner, that we're past the bottom, and that, at least in terms of g.d.p., things are turning upwards and the stock market's rise is evidence of that, because it tends to rise in advance of

changes in the real economy. and you've got a growing numbers of economists who are predicting what's called a v-shaped recovery, which would quite a rapid increase, and any number of economists are predicting 4% growth next year and things of that sort. the problem, is the real problem is that there's a disconnect between g.d.p. and jobs. we used to know that if g.d.p. went up x percent, then you'd get some other percentage increase in the number of jobs. they tended to be -- to move together. now it appears that they're not. instead, what businesses are doing is investing heavily in labor-saving equipment. they're doing whatever they can to get by with their existing labor force and avoid at all costs hiring new workers, and that's more of what economists call a microeconomic problem that i think we have to come up with creative solutions for

dealing with, because that's a problem that's going to be there even when we reached the point where g.d.p. growth is at the point where we all agree the recession's over with. host: how would you advise president obama on the unemployment problem? guest: boy, that's a very tough nut to crack. there's a lot of talk these days about some sort of tax credit for newly hired workers. host: that would go to businesses? guest: yeah. but the problem seths very hard to tell who's a new worker. and so you have a tendency to give rewards to businesses that just happened to be expanding for whatever reason, and you get people gaming the system. you lay off some guy one day, and then up hire the same guy back the next day. you get a tax credit, and these kinds of things have made it very hard. we tried this sort of thing in the past and at the present didn't work very well. i think we'll probably going to have to come up with a package

of things. i think it was a very beside idea to raise the minimum wage in july. it's quite clear that you had an almost instantaneous increase in the number of teenagers that were unemployed. we have to be more creative, and i haven't really murder any really ideas in that area. host: lansing, michigan, is with us. this is keith, good morning, i understand pen line. caller: i'd like to say john maynard cane discredited himself because he he endorsed the economic policy -- guest: that's not true. that's just not true. caller: listen to what i'm telling you. while he was trying to figure out the problems with unemployment, adolf hitler had solved had. so basically, we all know how the nazis policy ended, but our economy is so central islesed. our economy is centralized in the politicians have made it to where we're going to have a

service economy instead of an industrial economy. you can see that our tax code is set up to penalize industry so. what they want us to do is fix the problems in china and other countries make, while we are just not making anything. if we don't have an industrialized society and get all these environmentalists out of the way, we're going to really be hurt in this country host: i'll get a response from mr. bartlett. guest: well, i think it was clear that a lot of countries in the 1930's were experimenting with what we came to call keynsian ideas, government spending, public works, and things of that sort, and certainly the germans were among them. the swedes were doing a lot of this stuff as well. and i just think it's irresponsible to make it seem like keyns was some sort of nazi because some other countries implemented some of his policies. as far as china is concerned, the real problem there has

nothing to do with taxes t. has everything to do with the exchange rate. they simply refuse to allow their currency to rise, which gives them a competitive advantage that makes it cheaper for to us buy goods from them than to produce them ourselves. but nevertheless, the u.s. is still the largest manufacturing country in the world and the largest exporter, and i think sometimes we forget that. and we run ourselves down, when actually we're still in pretty good shape. host: there's a story in the "philadelphia inquirer" about china pledging more aid to african nations after a conference this weekend. what are the challenges of a country like china going into places like africa where the u.s. is already, but china becomes a competitor as a developer, a developing nation in this n those countries? guest: well, i think it's basically in everybody's interest certainly to see africa become more developed, and i think the chinese view africa as an untapped resource for raw materials that they

need to fuel their manufacturing sector, and so i think it's a challenge, but i don't think it's a problem. i think it really makes a lot of sense for everybody. host: kirby, good morning. georgia on our republican line, welcome. caller: hi. i wrned if our guest has ever read basic economics by either thomas or walter williams. as far as i'm concerned, the federal reserve is keynsian, and also the thing that he criticized about the drug deal, that's keynsian. and are i would like to ask a question. does he think economics is an art or a science? i think it's a science. the same way the corps of engineers can determine how water will flow when they determine where to put a dam, human nature is the absolute that can be used to determine what economics is.

host: in your all years in economics, have you figured out whether economics is an art or science? guest: it's clearly more of an art than a science. i think it's not really very scientific at all, except in its superstructure. you've got a lot of mathematics that looks very scientific. but when you peel away all the layers like on an onion and get down to the middle, lot of it is just pure judgment calls, people make their theories fit whatever they believe for whatever philosophical reasons, neble big government, small government, they're libertarians, socialists, whatever, and they cook up theories that support where they're already coming from. but i certainly don't think that a naive, knee-jerk free-market point of view such as tom sexowl walter williams represent tells us very much useful, if anything, at this moment in time. host: how much is your new book a followup to your previous book, how george w. bush

bankrupted america and betrayed the reagan legacy? guest: that's a bit of a followup. that was more narrowly focused, but there was a lot in there that got me thinking about some of these issues, such as, you know, why is it that we had all these tax cuts during the 2000's and they didn't do any good at all? i think it's because they were misdesigned and because, for partisan reasons ark lot of people talked themselves into believing that tax credits, which were essential the same thing as government spending, were somehow or another different and it was ok to have tax credits and not have tax rate reductions, and they just talked themselves into believing that whatever the white house wanted was good for the economy and it was just all, you know, i'd say -- i'd use the b.s. word if we weren't on tv. host: one for email. pat writes in, isn't a v.a.t. a tax on manufacturing? didn't it also make more sense in the 1970's when we had a

much larger manufacturing sector? guest: no, it's a tax on sales, on consumption. and ideally, you'd want it to be as broad as possible to include services as well as manufactured. one of the virtues of a v.a.t. is that it applies equally to imports and is rebated at the border on exports. so actually, it gives you a benefit in terms of international trade. so it's really a very good tax from a narrow technical point of view, and i really think that the people who oppose it are just dogmaticing opposed to all taxes and don't really know what they're talking about in most cases. host: one nor call for you. this is st. louis. good morning to william on our democrats line. caller: good morning. i have several questions. hope i can get it all in. first of all, i find it hard to believe that most people saved their tax rebate the last time we had it.

only people that would seem like to me that would save the tax rebate would be the wealthy. the other thing i want to mention was, do people really believe this economic problem that we have at the present time can be solved in nine months? and the third question, the last question, was the stimulus -- was that supposed to make things better over a period of time, let's say four years, of the obama administration? host: thank you, william. we'll get a response. guest: well, it is true that the wealthy were certainly much more likely to save their rebates than the poor, and some 30% or so of the rebate was, in fact, spent. the point is that it was very poorly targeted. the money went to everybody.

perhaps if they had some sort of targeted rebate that went to the poor, to people who were living from hand to mouth, that they would have been forced to go south and spend more money. but you probably couldn't have passed something like that through the congress. the main thing to me is that republicans are just so dogmatic about tax cuts that anything that's called a tax cut they support whether it's really a tax cut or not. and in case of the rebate, they call it a tax rebate, but actually, it's just government money. it's just a economic that they mailed out. so i don't really see how that has anything to do with taxes. certainly i think the administration was expecting to see some impact, some more impact from the stimulus than they have seen, but i think they always understood that it was going take years before we got back to where we were before the recession. i don't remember what his last question was. host: he asked about tax rebates, but you addressed that, and also he tacked about bad mortgages, but we'll let

did you here. bruce bartlett, thanks for joining us this morning, qupt the new american economy: the fame you're of rage no, ma'am sexicks a new way forward." thanks for being with us. we'll be back in just a moment on this 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. we'll talk about that with you right after this. >> nbc universal general counsel rick to the county ton on copyright protection of broadcast material and domestic and international piracy, tonight on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> c-span's documentary of one of the most stunning buildings in washington is now available on d.v.d. the supreme court, home to america's highest court, takes you inside the court and into places only accessible to the justices and their staffs.

hear about the court's history and traditions, from the justices themselves. own your own d.v.d. copy of "the supreme court: home to america's highest court." it's $9.95. order at c-span.org/store. host: 20 years ago today marked the fall of the berlin wall. 20 years later, germans marking the fall of the berlin wall is the headline today in "the philadelphia inquirer." we are joined on the phone from berlin, i believe, george washington professor of history, hope harrison. professor harrison, thank you for being with us this morning. guest: my pleasure. greetings from a very happy berlin. host: can you tell us why in your berlin? you're there for an extended period of time. why is that? guest: yerks i'm writing a book on the 20 years since the wall fell,&what remains of the wall to be seen in berlin and why

there is increasingly more to be seen. whereas at the beginning, the point was tear it down, nobody wanted to think about the wall, they wanted to move on. but after about 15 years, they realized that the wall's a very important part of berlin and german history and world history, and so now they're making it a bit easier for people to find where it was and to see what remains of the wall. host: what's the general consensus of the people you're speaking with about where germany is now and whether folks envisioned it would make such progress 20 years ago? guest: yes, well, it's a complicated story. 20 years later, it's still an ongoing process of the eastern part of germany developing the way the western part of germany has. and it's been a bit of a tough transition. there are places in the eastern part of germany where there's 30% unemployment. so it's been rocky for a lot of

people from the east who fought for the wall to come down and took to the streets peacefully and called for the end of the east regime, the communist regime, and wanted to join with western germany. but some of them, sadly, aren't celebrating today because they're frustrated with how difficult it's been. but, of course, many others are celebrating the freedom and the end of the communist regime and east germany. host: president reagan is credited by a lot of people with started the whole impetus toward tearing down the wall. his famous statement in june of 1987, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. our viewers getting a picture of president reagan at the brandenburg gate. how is his view -- how is his roam viewed by germans today? guest: well, for most germans, reagan played no role. it's gorbachev who is to thank.

in fact, gorbachev is here in berlin. else the one who started the policies of reform and openness with glasnost and per strike i can't. and -- and perestroika. the number one person for german toss thank is mikhail gorbachev, because he let it happen, he didn't stop it with violent, even though there were 500,000 soviet troops in east germany t. he made them stay in their barracks and not stop the peaceful demonstrations. so it's mikhail gorbachev they thank and lech walesa is also here, who had been the head of the solidarity trade union in poland and went on to be the first democratic president of poland after the fall of communism. he is in berlin today, too. and people are very thankful to him. host: professor hope harrison, a george washington university associate professor of history

in berlin today for the commemoration of the 20th anniversary. thanks for joining us this morning. guest: thank you. host: we're going to take your phone calls on this 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. 202-737-0002 for democrats. 202-737-0001 for republicans. independents and others, it's 202-628-0205. this is a report, an associated press report in the "philadelphia inquirer." they write, it all began -- this is how the fall of the wall happened, reporting in the associated press -- it all began with a routine late-afternoon news conference that november 9. a member of the east germans' rule politburo, casually declared that east germans would be free to travel to the west immediately. later he tried to clarify his comments and said the new rules would take effect at midnight, but events moved faster as word spread. that night, around mitt night, border guards swung open the gates. through check point charlie,

down through of the invalidenstrasse, across the bridge, scores of people streamed into west berlin unabated, unif thered, eyes agog. at a ceremony in berlin last month, helmut kohl, the german chancellor who preside over the opening of the wall, stood with george h.w. bush and mikhail gorbachev. kohl suggested the collapse of the berlin wall and the reunification of their countries 11 months later gave germans pride. so we're interesting your thoughts, your memories about the anniversary of the collapse of the berlin wall. this is a piece in sunday's "new york times" where they had a breakdown of what that wall looked like. through this series, we'll show some photos as well, and you saw some video of the wall today. this is the berlin wall as laid out in the "new york times" yesterday. the reality of germany today, wrilets the "new york times," makes it difficult to remember

the immediate concerns in europe after the wall fall. leaders like president mitt errand of france in particular, prime minister margaret thatcher of britain worried aloud that a reunified germany was likely to drift away from the nato alliance and the structures of the european union, and at worst, might return to the path of extreme nationalism. first up, detroit, donald, good morning. go ahead on our democrats line. caller: yes, what i was calling about, up made a statement that the festival in germany right now said reagan didn't really have any cause to make the wall come down. it was gorbachev. and after seeing it myself a lot of times, because there was a lot of people before him that was trying to get that wall down and everything, and it's nice to see that talking to other leaders to make things happen and everything, and i think some people didn't really get the credit that they should

have got to have that wall brought down. host: here's washington, d.c. mark, a republican caller, welcome. caller: yes, good morning. i can tell you honestly that i heard that professor from george washington university describe the lack of thanks that the germans have or supposedly have about who to thank for the wall falling down. i mean, i can say for one, i was there in germany probably two years later in 1991, and the load -- he is the expression of thanks by the germans to the americans was absolutely overwhelming. host: were include in the military, mark? caller: no, no,, no i was there as a civilian. but i can say that no one, no one thanks gorbachev, and i can say that honestly, because the russians had held the germans in a prison, and frankly, you

know, this revisionist history which looks on the prisoner -- or i should say, the prison guard as the savior of letting people out, instead of those people outside who've been protecting them on and on, frank willing, i find that astounding. i find that an astounding reinterpret station of the history. host: thanks for the call. next up, arlington, virginia. caller: i've written for francis gary power jr.'s "new york times," i attended a conference at george washington university last week. i think one of the results of the fall of the berlin wall and the end of the cold war was that armed forces veterans -- and i mean, i'm get a little bit away into the military history -- the armed forces veterans in the u.s. after vietnam, the image was really tarnished very, very badly. i think that's improved quite a bit. i'd say understand between the end of the cold war and the service that was rendered

during the first gulf war, i think this is one of the things that should be looked at. and i think, you know, this should be -- i'd probably emphasize more, and i told the people at the conference about this particular issue, i think also the issue of public diplomacy, and i think g.e.'s fit into there, and i give you an example from world war ii. i know a drummer who played dixieland jazz down in florida. he's in his late 80's right now, and i'm trying to make him part of the veterans history project. now, before he went to the battle of the bulge, he saw a jazz guitarist play, and i think there's a lot of experiences like this that probably made better relations with europe and the u.s. i think it's probably underestimated, and i think we focus on a lot of the bad things that happen with veterans. i think the vast majority of veterans who served in the military, world war ii, and the cold war and vietnam and korea, probably may have done a lot of positive things, too, as well

as some of the negatives that are probably overreported in a way. guest: about 15 more minutes of your calls till 9:15 eastern on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. this is a full-page ad in the politoco today. this photo of president reagan, 1987, at the brandenburg gate. to his left, helmut kohl, the german chancellor. not long ago, wrilets the ad, a man of courage and conviction, a man who loved liberty and was certain all men and women deserved to be free, stepped forward and laid down a challenge. mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. ronald reagan not only helped bring down the berlin wall, he brought an end to the cold war. today countless people around the world enjoy greater freedom, more economic prosperity, and better lives as a result of his leadership. thank you, president reagan. this was an ad paid for by the ronald reagan presidential foundation. san antonio, texas, frank on our republican line. go ahead. caller: yes, this is frank. i'm 23.

a young republican. and i just want to say that that was polsed up there about mr. reagan because part of the reason that gorbachev implemented these policies that brought down the berlin wall was because ronald reagan actually set the standard in which the cold war would end, and that long-held republican belief that peace and strength brt results than just diplomacy itself and confession. i think it had a big part to do with how the outcome of what happened with the berlin wall. you know, had such a positive effect. .

>> also, caller: the big saying -- ronald reagan deserves some credit, but not a lot. what was the downfall of russia, what they're doing, spend all their money on the military, and nothing on the people -- ironic enough, this is what is happening in the u.s. today. we are heading down the same path. i am not saying the country will

totally break up, but we see everything going away, medicare, medicaid, all of that. social security -- we paid for that. the money was stolen to balance the budget for other pet projects. i think that is why it a lot of people know this is going to happen -- that's why there were no big celebrations in the u.s. when the berlin wall came down. host: you mean, when it actually happen? you said "there were no celebrations in the u.s." caller: not really. people were not celebrating like in world war ii. host: mike on the democrats' line. caller: thank god for c-span. i got upset with this guy who called in and said something to the effect that gorbachev did not have much to do with it and

if it was not for reagan, and so on and so forth. that was nonsense. i was in europe at the time, in the netherlands, and i made a special trip two days before pink floyd did a special concert, bringing down the wall. it was an excellent show. at any rate, i talked to more than a few germans, and you did not hear praise for reagan. no, it was all about gorbachev. people understood that he was the one who wrote under -- who implemented glasnost. if it was not for gorbachev, we would not be talking about reagan. he was the right man at the right time. are we still there? hello? host: you are on. go ahead. caller: reagan, with star wars and all the rest it -- ok, he was the last in a long succession of presidents who

were trying to bring down all. yes, he identified the right screws, if you want. but i would have to give at least 70, 75% of that to gorbachev. host: november 20, 1989, marks the official start of the downfall of the berlin wall, the first breach of the berlin wall. pieces of the wall all over the world. here is one in pennsylvania. the local news section of "the philadelphia inquirer." the section of the berlin wall stands on a pedestal, and it's countenance is marked with history. one said the concrete monolith is blank. between 1961 and 1999, barbwire, snarling dogs, armed guards kept east berliners from going" on the other side of pain scrawled in red, yellow, orange, black, made by those angry that the

wall separated them from their countrymen. the also right-handed article that the eastern german embassy gift commission -- write the article that the eastern german embassy -- it was displayed in a parade in 1990. it weighed five tons and was flown from philadelphia international airport for free. maryland. caller: good morning, everyone. i was a servicemen in germany from 1986 to 8nine to 89. host: were you there when the wall came down? caller: yes indeed. we had rts news and stuff like that. the big about was about people

coming over the embassy walls in hungary and czechoslovakia. what the people i know is that from a servicemen's point of view, we were on a -- the people might not have is that from a service man's point of view, we were on a hair trigger with the soviets for years. we were afraid that there would crush these people similar to what they had done in hungary years before. i think that ronald reagan's foreign policy has to be given credit, and no one should ever say that -- host: how did that -- caller: that mr. gorbachev was not responsible for making things happen in a humane way. host: how did the downfall will change your role in the u.s. military? caller: it changed its significantly. we look at ourselves and said, "mission accomplished, a job well done," but the immediate downsizing of the military and sued.

host: when you say immediate, how soon was that felt? caller: in the u.s., people were talking about a peace dividend that destroyed my military career. host: alan in columbia, thanks for your input pennsylvania, this is john on the independent line. caller: hello, bill. i lived in berlin in a couple of years and the 1970's. i stayed in touch with things there because i was interested since i've lived there. reagan does not deserve much credit. it was gorbachev, it was lech walesa, the price of oil going below $10 that the russian and soviet economy on the skids. they were building up their military where they could not even pay their soldiers. the whole place was crumbling from within. estonia, latvia, all those people were fighting against the soviet union for a long time.

host: it could be argued that they were building up the military in response to the president reagan's military buildup. caller: yes, that is the argument, but to give reagan all the credit -- if you ask europeans about it, they will tell you what the professor from gw told you. poland was a major factor in this whole deal, because it piggybacked with lech walesa and people were fed up with it. gorbachev saw the writing on the wall when the kingdom was falling, and he did the right thing. host: anne applebaum writes in "the washington post closed with this morning -- the washington post" this morning -- "the rise of verlaine, angry nationalism was forecast by more than one expert, and others foresaw the rise of anti-semitism and the

growth of neo-nazis and. germany was going to become the fourth reich. many in the west protested against the witch hunts that might be conducted against former communists. now that he is a revered symbol of freedom, nobody remembers that lech walesa was attacked as a right-wing demagogues, too. some truly awful things did happen -- in yugoslavia there was a bitter war. in russia, revenge is and has returned. authoritarian dictators -- revanchism has returned -- authoritarian dictators when several of the former soviet republics. the part of central europe is peaceful and democrat. more than that, the inhabitants of such or europe are healthier and more prosperous and more integrated with the rest of the continent than they had been for centuries." ted in boston, a democrat. caller: thank you for c-span. i want to make a comment.

i was with the solidarity movement and everybody takes credit for the fall of the berlin wall could sum rightfully so. i give credit to break and -- to reagan and a lot of credit to gorbachev. but it started with the visit from the pope. that was the start of the solidarity movement, which took a long time under martial law would finally lech walesa and solidarity movement coming down challenging the soviet union. that is where it started. the wall fell later. that was to come. you also have to give credit that the pope energized people about the freedom and their rights, and walesa and solidarity helped get this wall removed. gorbachev played a role because he was an intellectual that understood that this was going to be a war if this does not

happen. and reagan obviously was there and he had to do something. being on that side of there with the west, they had to act. but in 1956 with a hungry, 61968 and czechoslovakia -- this time they had to act. host: mclean, virginia, susan, good morning. republican color. caller: i am happy to hear these last people like the last tunnel men who called in and allen who called in to tell it straight the berlin wall coming down, and i'm a first-generation american of austrian and yugoslavian descent, and i visited yugoslavia when it was a communist country, every winter for a month. it did not take one person or one leader. to not give gorbachev or reagan or the pope, lech walesa -- not

giving anyone, trying to give the credit to one instead of to all is a big mistake. most americans do not understand because they have never visited a communist country, and never lived under it. i think it is important to remember that it does not take one bidder to make something that didn't happen -- what a leader to make something that big happened. host: a comment from twitter -- jean in chicago, go ahead. independent caller. caller: the war is worse off now than before, especially in america. american is in much worse condition now. we are much more likely to have

a bit more than if the status quo and sit like it was. people complained about, isn't it -- people complain about communism. it is only good if the whole world as communism. america is try to force the whole world to the capitalist and they are using the military and crime to impose capitalism around the world. this is going to cause more trouble. host: thanks for the input. the story in "the washington post" about secretary of state clinton. "secretary of state hillary rodham clinton urged europeans and americans to see the anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall, say call to action against new global threats could on the eve of celebrations marking 20 years since the collapse of the wall, clinton said the hard work that went into ending the cold war must be channeled to meet fresh

challenges, including extremism and climate change." she will be part of the celebration of the ceremony later today. we will, that on c-span this afternoon. marlene on the democrats' line. caller: hello. right after the wall went up, i went to germany. it was 20 miles of the border. i have been to germany twice. the second time i was over there, i was over there again within 20 miles of the border when kennedy was assassinated. at that time, my husband had put in the red tape to go into berlin. he got orders to go to vietnam before the paperwork came through. when the berlin wall came down, my son was in berlin, in the army. this has been very emotional for

me. thank you. host: marlene, thanks for your call. thanks for all your calls this hour. we turned our attention to health care, in particular home and hospice health care, with val halamandaris, president of the national association for health care and hospice. a news update from c-span radio. >> abc news reports that u.s. intelligence agencies knew months ago that army maj middle of some -- nidal hasan was trying to make contact with al qaeda. official says that the cia has refused to brief intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge that on hasan's efforts. cia had the at and and and director of national intelligence dennis blair have been passed by congress to preserve all files related to

mr. hasan. the iran and state news agency reports of the country as petard -- has detained three u.s. officials with an espionage. under sharia law, the espionage punishable by death. "politico" reports that with president obama traveling tomorrow to a memorial service, he has canceled an appearance before the jewish federation of north america conference and is sending chief of staff rahm emanuel in his place. this was to have been his first major address to a jewish- american group since becoming president. an update on tropical weather -- the national weather service says that hurricane ida is weakening this morning but could still pack hurricane-strength winds tonight. exxonmobil as considering evacuate personnel from its rigs

and the gulf. those are the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu speaks this morning to north american jewish leaders. we will have coverage of his remarks on 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this afternoon on c-span2, a forum looks back on the military surge in iraq. former military leaders will participate. today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. we will bring you ceremonies and the brandenburg gate. expected to speak -- german chancellor angela merkel, french president nicolas sarkozy, u.k. prime minister gordon brown, u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton, and russian president dmitry medvedev. this evening, a former u.s. ambassador to iraq and afghanistan, a khalilzad -- zalmay khalilzad, at 7:15

eastern on c-span. host: now halamandaris is president of the national association for health care and hospice, here to talk about this two types of health care as this debate on capitol hill continues over health care legislation. this hospice and health care and what are the differences? guest: the agents of hospice action health care take care of patients that have multiple health care problems. under medicare, they have to be so sick that they cannot leave home without assistance. we are talking about a very vulnerable situation what health care does is sustain them and keep them in their homes that did not want to the point where hospital or nursing is the only answer. hospice is the program where these same angels minister to individuals who were in the last six months of their lives. in this instance, it is not so much to live for medical care,

but palette of care. helping people become comfortable to live until the very end of their days. it is a wonderful service, just slightly different in their focus. host: who gets home care and who gets hospice care? guest: they are both defined by medicare. home care is very, very limited and restricted. you have to meet four major criteria to qualify. you ought to be so sick that the physician orders your care, qualify for skilled nursing care or physical therapy. in addition, you have to be confined to your home. if there are about 3 million people who are in that situation, and they received a medically prescribed health care services. they can be anything from help with congestive heart failure to diabetes, and in many cases, individuals have five or six medical conditions at one time. they are very sick and a vulnerable population, and the

fact that we can care for them in their own home makes a world of difference. host: how does it break down along race? is it primarily white americans that are receiving this type of care? guest: it is primarily white women. it is women in our society that are long lived. you have service being given to long lived and mostly white women, and caregivers themselves are women. that -- the nurses and aides in a home care and hospice and the women themselves. the longevity for men is starting to catch up and equalize. but predominantly women, predominantly poor, and they have multiple and complex problems. they are on a knife's edge much of the time. they could be back and the hospital again, to the detriment.

host: how much does it cost? guest: it is more expensive than the state and the hospital, generally less expenses that a cabinet the nursing home. -- than a care in the nursing home. not always. but the real issue is not just cost and cost savings to the federal government, which tends to become as i said, a 10-1 ratio hospitals, and usually three-one and the terms of savings over nursing homes. it is also quality of life and keeping families together. what americans wanted to -- what americans want is to stay in their own homes, desperately i call it the last great several -- i call that the last great civil rights battle. all of your freedoms and rights are taken away and you were told when to go to bed and when you bring give up and what you can eat, who you can see, as opposed

to what happens when we are in our own homes. host: how much do companies to provide hospice and home care -- what is their profit margin? guest: the profit margin varies. if you consider medicare and medicaid, the two primary funding sources for home care and hospice, the two together, the overall margins are about 2%. very, very low. whatever is left over from either program, medicare or medicaid, is used to reinforce the other. this population is desperately ill. host: you said that most of the costs for resources for paying for home and hospice care comes out of medicare. explain that a little bit more. guest: the federal government provides services. if you meet these five criteria, they would pay money for of the so, and the episode is a 60-debt perid -- 60-day

period. if i of congestive heart failure and diabetes and i come at a hospital, they were paid for a 60-day time to get me back on my feet. are often patients lapse into the same circumstances that got them into the hospital and emergency room in the first place. there is a very good case for expanding the home care to have something that is prevented and not just reactive. is a very important service and more -- one that we need more than the other good think of the 78 million baby boomers that are coming into the retirement years. but they want is to desperately stay at home. host: given the billions of baby boomers coming into older age, where you see the profit margins going, the expenditures on home and hospice care? where could it go to? guest: in terms of the amount of

money going into hospice and home care, the program is supposed to expand about a 11% every year, and that is just demographics. 78 million baby boomers all coming in and meeting the same service. the baby boom generation is trying to put the kids through college and take care of their mom and dad, and they found there is no system there. they want it fixed before their daughter has to take care of them and do for them what they did for their moms. the group that is most supportive of creating a system of long-term care is the baby boom generation. it is going to grow. there is no question that is going to grow, medicare and medicaid. you're starting to see the first time in the system that people are praying privately from their own pocket. as this service begins to be recognized, more and more payments forces are coming along, not just of the federal ones that can stand by for many years prepa.

host: you talked about home care and hospice care costing significantly less than other types of care. is it just that the overhead is less? guest: yes, you put your finger on it immediately. you are not paying for the hospital roof, and therefore the costs are very, very low. the costs in health care will lead to labor. 80% of the money goes to hiring nurses and aides and physical services. it is a very efficient service, because it uses the patient's home, where they want to be. host: let's bring this composition to today's debate on capitol hill. the house on saturday passed health care legislation and the senate has to pass its own and the two have to come together and to pass a bill all over again. how does the house legislation passed on saturday impact home and hospice care? guest: greta, life is about doing the right thing.

we believe all americans have to have access to health care. our organization has been supportive of health care for all. to the extent that the house bill takes a huge step in that direction, all of us are applauding that. we have also been supporting the president, who promised there would be no cuts to existing medicare beneficiaries. we take the gentleman at his word. i have never seen a president of the united states be so supportive of hospice and health care. anyone who heard him talk about his grandmother, who received a hospice care before her death, it knows that he is very sincere and is a strong advocate. having said that, we have to be watchful to make sure that the cuts in the house bill to not go too far so that it would affect the fall -- affect the quality of patient care. right now is $54 billion scheduled for home care to take as a cut. $54 billion over 10 years is a lot of money. we are worried about there being too much, well beyond what the

president asked for, and could result in people not having care. we are here to say that congress should tread very carefully and in this area. we all want to sacrifice and to our part and give money towards health care reform, but not to the point where it jeopardize his patients and our ability to care for people like -- you have an advertisement in front of you. we have been scrapping some dollars to get up and running advertisements in "roll call" at a couple of publications. she had one stroke and lost the ability to walk and home care and hospice restore her ability to walk, then she had a second stroke two lead -- two years later and lost the ability to speak, and they restored her ability to speak. she is functioning perfectly well at home, even though she has congestive heart failure and diabetes. if you look at the picture carefully, she has a nasal

cannula, indicating that she is relying on oxygen for every breath, and she has a necklace around her neck and if she should fall and require assistance, home care is there and would respond immediately. this is the kind of service that is crucially important, and it is very complex. telehealth and telemedicine to monitor care 24/7, and if something goes wrong, services can be there in a minute. host: what services are covered, and in the cuts in medicare were to be part of the final legislation, what services will be cut? guest: the services of the visiting nurses, number one, or therapists. i mentioned a situation where somebody with a stroke -- the ability to walk. nurses and therapists and physicians that provide care in the home setting. they tend to be for multiple chronic diseases like diabetes

and congestive heart failure. our problems of all kinds, way up high at the list. -- heart problems of all kinds, way up high on the list. home care is a safety net. we want to make sure that the safety net is not shredded. there is no way that these individuals can be cared for in another setting. what are they going to do? go without care, knock on the doors of the states with medicare problems and say, "take us in under medicaid." to add 1 million patients to the list would be devastating and would create a situation that is nothing less than a national crisis in every state of the union. we don't want to go there and there was no reason why we should go there. the president has given us a course of action. if we follow his guidance, we believe we can come out in the right place. host: we are talking about home and hospice care with val halamandaris, the president of the national association for home care and hospice.

mesa, arizona, republican line. caller: yes, my most important concern is the mandatory medical treatment of every man, woman, and child in the united states. the fact that we are forcing us to be a socialist form of government with regard to medical care seems to be very disturbing to me. guest: well, you make an excellent point, and i have a different point of view. it does not mean that you are wrong and i'm right. my point of view is that we are one nation and we have a moral obligation to have equality of opportunity for each and every american. we should make the opportunities available rather than having situations where people are discriminated against because of the various circumstances.

you are right to raise the point, and i know that congress is in the process of wrestling with that right now. host: 0 h, becky on the democrats' line. good morning. -- ohio, becky on the democrats' line. good morning. caller: my husband was on hospice and the last month. his pain got extremely bad and he had a tumor on his spine that had made him paralyzed. in the conversations, he had a call to the ambulance to taken the hospital and the nurse told us that because of his insurance, he cannot go to the hospital. when everybody talks about the government coming between the patient and the doctors, that is what they are worried about. we already have that system in this country, where the

insurance companies come between the patient and the doctor, where they decide what treatment they can get r. in your last weeks of life, i know there is a big debate about what we should pay for people and the last weeks of life, but this man took me and my six kids in and worked 12-hour days for years and not only raise my six kids but his two kids 3 and his insurance company is saying that he did not have a right to go to hospice to get pain under control? guest: thank you for raising that question. that should not have happened. if you elect hospice, you have the right to opt out of a hospice and go back and receive traditional care. the judgments you were given were just flat wrong and should not have happened. your husband should have had the right to go back and receive a very aggressive services in the hospital of that is what was his wish and yours. yes, we all make mistakes,

whether it is insurance companies or individuals. we ought to try to do our best. that is all we can expect from one another to care for one another and do our very best. host: becky brought up the cost of health care in the last days and weeks of one's life. talk about hospice care and how much it costs to take care of somebody in the last days of their life. guest: hospice is a huge cost saver. instead of her with care when it would not do any good -- the physician has to certify that you are in the last six months of life, something they are reluctant to do. but when the situation comes about, you can be cared for in your own home. the savings the government and medicare and insurance are very, very great and very significant. that is one of the reasons why hospice has been supported not only -- only the humanistic quality of it and reaching out to people -- not only the

humanistic quality of it and reaching out to people who are in sar in their final days, but this significant savings, as opposed to comfort to the states in the hospital. host: can you give us numbers? guest: on a percentage basis, the cost of hospice care as opposed to a stay in hospital might be 1/10 or even less of the cost of the hospital. we think that what to -- what we should do is use hospice more, home care more, and focus in the 5% of americans, the individuals with a multiple chronic diseases. if we watch that basket very carefully and put these people in the right spot and the right time, enormous savings can be achieved. it is not part of the problem, it is the answer. host: how has home hospice care grown over the years? guest: it has grown from the

benefit that started in 1982, some controversial. these days it is and the neighborhood of about $10 billion that a receipt for the medicare program to pay for hospice. that is a very steep growth, but it demonstrates the confidence in hospice that has been placed there, appropriately, by government, the general accounting office and others, that belief that this is a good thing. not only is it good for people, but it is a good thing in terms of american policy and cost effectiveness. host: next phone call, washington, new jersey, and jean on the independent line. caller: high. i would like to talk about my mother, which was 85, had a soldier -- had a shoulder replacement surgery, and then they told her she cannot go home again. she had to go to a rehab facility. what the rehab facility turned out to be -- i have heard this

from other people what aging parents -- have aging parents -- is that it is basically a nursing home and a lot of the people there are not getting out. after a week or so of this, she was climbing the walls. she was crying to me to please get her out of there. talk about, as you said, an institutional setting where they can tell you whether you can come or go. we are in new jersey and she is in massachusetts. we drove up there and it took us 24 hours to get a doctor to certify that she could come out to go pick strawberries and have dinner with us. and they had us give exact details. i talked to the therapist there, who she really liked, and i said, "what is my mother still in theihere?" it was a tremendous cost per

day. she said, "because medicare will not pay for physical therapy at home." i mean, that is just crazy. i don't know if that is a state thing. i doubt it, because you're in new jersey, i for the same thing. but once people get into this rehab facility, they are not let out. often they just kept their like in a nursing home situation. host: gene, let me jump in here. we are showing our viewers right now on the screen the medicare hospice rates. a routine on today is about $142, inpatient respite care day is $148. continuous home care is $834. do you know how much this therapy -- you said it was expensive, but you know the exact number? caller: i don't know the exact number, but it was definitely

comparable to a hospital stay. i see the general in patient care is 636. i would say at least for the basic care, then all the rehab nurses -- i even asked one rehab a person who she really liked if we could even just hire her privately to come to my mother's home. she had a garden and she loved to sit by the back door. we cannot even hire her privately to do that. guest: well, as a practical matter, she should have been able to receive this physical therapy at home. it is something that is of course allowed under the statute, if ordered by a physician. the psychic i react to is the hypocrisy. separate -- second thing i react to it is the hypocrisy if someone tells you are in a rehabilitation facility, you should have real politician. we need to make sure that is the

universal standard. we have this bad habit of saying something in meeting the opposite. i'm sorry for the situation your mother was in. she deserved better. host: texas, maggie on the republican line. caller: sir, my husband had alzheimer's for 10 years. he got when he was 58 years old. he was sick for 10 years. i kept him at home and took care of him for six years. then i had -- he got to where he could not walk or cannot feed himself or bathe himself. i had to try to help them in and out of the bathtub. then i finally had put him in an alzheimer's unit in amarillo, texas. i stayed with him practically every day. it was expensive. but finally, after the was no money, they put us on medicare

and medicaid. and then the hospice -- the last week he got to where he could not eat, he cannot even swallow. i called in a hospice. they were the most wonderful people. i have never seen anything like it. they took care of him, they took care of me. day and night they stayed with me. it was a wonderful thing. and i will never forget them. and my sister also passed away about five years ago, and in her last week, they had her in hospice and she had a great care, too. host: mr. halamandaris? guest: i'm sorry for your pain and journey at the same time. i am -- i use the term advisor.

many people know that mother teresa was a home care and hospice nurse. when i met her, she said we are in the same business. these are the values to which we should be held accountable. this is the last great civil rights battle. i truly believe that this president of the united states is destined to help us to this a very venal and serious problem in our society that is so important to a baby boom generation. 78 million-strong that needs help and assistance. host: a caller said that when the money ran out they went to medicare. what did she mean by that? guest: you are in a situation in most states where you have to spend down, after exhaust your own resources. she's dealing with a difficult situation where somebody has alzheimer's. nothing tougher in life than that want to have a loved one slip away from you. when you have exhausted your own money and that of your husband, you can qualify for the medicaid

program, which is sort of the welfare health care program in each of the states. you have to spend it down, and then you qualify, which in and of itself is a sad thing to do. why should you deprive people of every asset that and put them in a position where they have to take -- [unintelligible] as a precondition for service? host: is that the same thing with hospice and home care, that you have to exhaust your own resources before you can get -- guest: medicare pays for a limited amount of care c. no, you don't have to spend down to get the hospice benefit. she was talking about a situation that was protected, somebody with alzheimer's for a long time, and in a year or two that will deplete their assets. host: including selling your home? guest: some states protect the home from being seized, others don't with the asset and income rules vary.

from my point of view, we need one program across the country, because we are one nation. it is to be able to have one state provide great benefits and the other non -- does not make any sense to me. host: tom, new jersey, democrats line. caller: what i want to talk about his long-term home care. i had a spinal cord injury when i was 11 years old, in 1979. i was in an institution for a year and a half. my parents had enough strength and ability to get me home. my parents to care of me to they were drawn out and worn down. born out of resources, also quit -- worn out of resources, also. i went on medicaid. there were federal laws passed where individuals with long-term medicaid actually can get a job. it is limited revenue for the

workability program. in new jersey, you get a certain amount of dollars to get home care and higher whoever you want. whether it be your wife or girlfriend or siblings. there is such a shortage of workers for home care, because the reimbursement rate from the government is very, very low. on top of that, insurance companies do not want to pay for home care. consequently, there is a bit of a fine you come into print you exhaust all your resources. it is frustrating and challenging to live your life and still qualify for the program. home care is so important, and the quality is so much better, and it is so much cheaper. in 1979, 1980, it cost $150,000 for you to be a hospital for a

year that is ridiculous, in 1980. it would be $1 million now. it is just crazy. it is really important to understand that home care has evolved, but if it does not get the funds that it needs, it is going down the tubes. it is very difficult to find workers to reimburse the raite y the government, a very low. host: address that last point. guest: we can do better but we need to be able to pay the nurses and therapists to help you out. the last great civil rights battle -- weaken to a lot better, and it starts by paying -- we can do a lot better, and it starts by paying the nurses and aides. i know what choice you would

make. we can do better by you and we should. host: this medicare pay a different rate for a nurse who does home hospice care than understand the hospital? -- that a nurse in the hospital? guest: yes, there are specific rates paid by and large to home care agencies and they are the ones where the nurses and therapists to meet the needs of the individuals. basically, that is how the system works. in some states, they have a program or the individuals are hired directly. this is the last wish of senator ted kennedy. he introduced something called the class act, which would create a program cfor home care for all americans. i truly believe that one of the race -- the ways you can celebrate this great life is to make sure that the class act is included in the final health care bill.

host: is it part of the discussion, to include it? guest: it is. it is part of the house bill that passed, and we think it will be in the senate bill, not just because of senator kennedy, but because it addresses the needs of individuals like the caller who just called. the need is so great. this president will be known not only for enacting a national health plan, but for dealing with this last great civil rights battle. host: tennessee, terry on the independent line. caller: two short questions. i had an uncle on hospice and he was very afraid of the person that was sent out to take care of him. does hospice offer any kind of thing where a possible patient can check on the person that is going to be taking care of? my second question is, we had a neighbor that her husband was

dying of brain cancer, and over the time that he was at home with hospice coming in and taking care of him and stuff, the stress and the pain and agony of her having him home and having to see this on and on and on until he finally passed drove her to taking an overdose of morphine and trying to give him an overdose of morphine. does hospice offer any kind of mental help for the families that are there with the patient, you know, through their time? i will hang up and let you answer. guest: the first answer is of course you have a choice for who cares for you. you don't like there's a therapist who comes into your home, all you want to do is call the agency and bebel sense of what else could you should not put up with somebody who you do not -- called the agency and they will send somebody else could you should not put up somebody who you do not like.

the pain of caring for a loved one is devastating. that is often what you have a husband and wife and it is the husband that his cell, but the wife dies immediately after the -- husband that is ill, the wife dies immediately after the husband. there is nothing more debilitating or to please people more than caring for a loved one. -- or depletes people more than caring for a loved one pre. men and women who contribute the way they treat their dad or their mom, or what it would bring into the home setting. i don't know about you, but i am a fussy about who i allow in my home. they're not there for the money, but there to make our lives easier. by and large that is what you have with home care and hospice care. it is so important that we do not have excessive cuts in this health care reform package that would cripple efforts by a home care agencies to care for patients than he did so badly.

-- that need it so badly. host: if these cuts go through, d know how much home and hospice care would be cut? guest: yes. the congressional budget office believes we will receive $318 billion over the next 18 years to pay for hospice care under medicare. all you have to do is subject to $54 billion from that and you will have an 18% cut. one other part -- what other part of the health-care system is being cut 18%? medicare and home health care, except for 0.5% of all of medicare, and we are being asked -- makes up 4.5% of all of medicare. we believe that the costs right now are excessive and it legislation, -- excessive in the legislation, far more than what the president asked for. if we go back to what the

president was putting on the table, we believe we can survive the cut, particularly if they are targeted rather than being across the board, if they take on individuals abusing the system, then we can make these cuts appropriately and put the bad guys out of business and make sure that the good guys continue to survive in the industry. the ones that have the heart, the ones that take care of people the way they would take care of their mom or dad. those are the values to which we ascribe to. those of the values are ticketed by mother teresa. -- as are the values articulated by mother theresa? host: how much waste, fraud, and abuse is there an element hospice care? guest: there are incidents in texas and parts of california, people who put the desire to make money ahead of the desire to take care of others. the one in florida -- down there they have made something that was an exception into the norm.

there is something that isn't a liar, over and above the payment -- that is a noutlier, -- an outlier, and the average health- care agency has only 2% of their revenues coming from out letters. in florida, some have 60% or 7%, from -- 70% from outliers, and it is clear that it is an abuse. you could save $8 billion to $18 billion over years, which we could use to pay for reform. host: next phone call, birmingham, alabama, a republican line. caller: my question is twofold. i don't quite understand who pays for this. is it medicare? if it is, is there any point in

having your own private, long- term insurance? guest: yes, medicare is your tax dollars and mine in africa and the country paying into the medicare program. -- mind and everybody in the country paying into the medicare program. it is a very narrow and limited benefit that has to be prescribed by a physician. it helps you get home quicker and state homes that you did not wind up in a hospital. that is the primary thing that happens. beyond that, people have to use their own resources. if they exhaust their own money, sometimes the state medicaid program, which is the welfare program that helps pay for health care for low-income individuals, takes into place and would pay for some health care services. very often they require you to meet income or asset tests. to make a long story short, it is a valuable if you have the right type of long-term care

insurance policy that would supplement and help pay for your care that you will need when you were older. it is something you have to buy when you were young. if you are my age or older, i would not recommend that people use money to buy a long-term care insurance policy. host: detroit, i said, democrats lik -- isaac, democrats line. caller: i'm a quadriplegic and i've been that way since 1984. i can identify with the spinal cord injury caller a couple of calls go. i want to say that yes, there is fraud, and medical supply companies charge really ridiculous amounts of medical equipment. but we needed this program, and cannot afford any more cuts. i also want to say that they do not pay the home health care aides a livable wage.

we don't have enough trustworthy, dependable, and health care aides. the reason why is there are only paid a little bit above minimum wage. host: that is what i was just going to ask you. do you know what is that these home aides are getting in your area? caller: in my area -- believe me, i have to fight for this, i have to justify all my needs -- the doctor gives me an evaluation and assessment there. -- assesses my care. it is tiring, but something i have to do. by kevin -- mike caregiver makes $9, $10 an hour, and he works with me $6 seat -- works with me six hours each day. i definitely need more care. i depend on him for all my activities of daily living. i definitely would like to find someone in a higher pay rate.

they are more trustworthy. -- they are more trustworthy when you bring somebody in your house cri. i appreciate people like mr. halamandaris -- i hope i'm pronouncing your name right -- i hear the care and concern and compassion in his voice. we really appreciate people like that. without advocates like that, i would have been dead a long time ago. i would just need to with that. -- end thawith that. guest: we have no tolerance for fraud. anybody who steals from the public purse ought to be thrown in jail. we need -- the people who care for you need be paid better.

host: next phone call. caller: i have had two experiences with hospice over the past year, and both expenses were less than pleasing. -- both experiences were less than pleasing. my second oldest brother -- the hospice workers refused to give them the pain medicine. they told us, "he is dying anyway, he does not need it." this puts us in so much pain that was not necessary. my second experience, and this was the one that just tears me apart -- my dad died at home. we had hospice come in. but there were only two other people in the house, and hospice worker came in and he died at home. my dad's a wedding ring was missing. we cannot get it off his hand. they were married for 65 years. you talk about fraud and abuse

could i do not know what the lady got paid who came in. we never recovered the wedding ring. it was so much pain for something so simple it is like you said, you have to trust the person that comes in your house. right now i'm taking care of my mom and i will never allow hospice ever again coming into my house because of the two experiences we have had. it is just not worth it. when they did come into the house, my dad knew right off the bat that he was passing, but the whole time they were in this house, from the supervising nurse to the lady that came in to do the treatment, "you are dying, you know you are dying. the last few days of your life, i do not think you need to be constantly reminded that you are dying. guest: that is outrageous, and i travel across the country and

the tenor of the conversations tend to be similar -- "thank you for hospice" -- there are bad apples. i would never demonize another human being and tell them they are dying. people are given a chance to live and have a miracle and achieve that. and as far as stealing your property, and excusable. -- inexcusable. host: finally, this comment from twitter -- they want to know your web site. guest: our group helps people learn how to choose the home care agency. when you need one, you want the best it is an emotional decision at a time when most people are strung out and they are dealing with a loved one that is ill. it is a diffi t