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caller: [unintelligible] host: louisville, ky on our republican line. caller: good morning. vice president biden has the ability to spend other people's money hand over fist, yet he is not generous with his own. if you look up his last tax return, 2007, on a gross income of $200,000, he made a grand total of $1,855 in charitable contributions. host: connect the dots for me between his charitable contributions and his performance as caller: vice president his performance is out of my purview. these are democrats so he cannot perform well in my view, but it scares me when a guy is spending my tax dollars hand over fist and gives less than one-half of 1% of his gross income to charity. host: another's tweet comes in from erin who writes -- next up comes allie, from tampa on our it democdemocrats' line. caller: the vice president we have is doing a very good job. the reason i say so -- he is a realistic person. as we are discussing his history as far as dealing with his family, it touched my heart. most politicians we have today are out of touch with what is going on in the fami

host: mary on the republican line from hancock county, ky. caller: good morning, c-span. thank you very much. i wish you had a 24/7 program on this, you guys letting people colin and stuff like that. i'm a chronic pain patients -- i'm not good mornings, but, sir, i don't know -- we do not in this country want socialism in medication. i do not want somebody telling me how i could do what, when i can do what and where i can do it. i have pre-existing condition, i have -- i am taken care of, my husband is also a union man and he is not a democrat. guest: it is not a requirement. caller: if you all want to help pay for health care, pay for your own in the congress and let the president pay for is an each member of your family instead of the american public paying for your insurance. pull it out of your own pockets. guest: first and foremost, i do not have a government sponsored health plan. people in congress who do are treated just like any of the other millions of federal or employees, not dissimilar to what many of the americans who are fortune enough to have come employer

ky not be dissuaded from that. i will say i am a dedicated single payer advocate. i'll continue to raise this issue, i have before. but the fact is, politics is the art of the possible. we do have the limitation as the gentlelady from california mentioned of not having 100% of all the congress yet being progressives. so we have to do what we have to do. i have absolute faith that with a public option along the lines of medicaid, medicare, or the v.a., that it will out-compete what these other guys are doing and you know, if they can't out-compete them, that's fine, but the fact is, i believe they will. let me yield to the gentlelady. do you want to respond to this question that 2,275 people ask from www.progressivecongress.org, do you want to ask that question, what's wrong with single pay her merchandise hirono: i don't think there's anything wrong with the single payer, but we're dealing with a lot of interest and -- interests and ideas and as president obama said, this is a time when all of the perspectives ought to be given consideration and due respect. i thin

for comments on policy and what is in the news, let's go to louisville, ky. bob is calling on our independent line. caller: thank you very much. my name is bob and i have been involved in three businesses. the first one was heavily regulated by the federal government if you think the federal government is there to help you in any business that you involved in, you are not because they are sold -- you are nuts. there are so heavy handed, they will micromanage our business until there is no business. the second one is the auto industry. i have been in finance sales management, the whole 9 yards, closing, everything to the third is the housing industry. i will tell you, when they talk about community reinvestment act, fannie and freddie and all this good stuff, i went to the real estate and saw the difference, the qualifications and requirements for loans. if you did not have a big financial score that exceeded 640 points, you did not qualify for a loan for a car. just automatically. in the housing industry, if you had a number of 530, you could buy a house. now

host: now washington, ky. republican collar. -- caller. caller: i do think the president is a little bit too timid in what he has said. honestly it really does not matter what he says because even if the more moderate leader does get in, the ayatollah is still going to be in power and is still not going to ever accept israel's right to exist. host: a couple of editorial views here on the conflict in iran. this is "the washington post" this morning. he writes -- president obama was right to exercise caution, both because the united states should not imply false promises it will not able to keep and the increase could come indeed, heard them. and, paradoxically, european political leaders have been outspoken in criticizing the iranian government's abuse is precisely because obama's restraint gave them room to act independently. views in "the washington post." the editorial writers of "the wall street journal," meanwhile, has obama and the roads, the lead editorial did they write, the risks of doing nothing are even more serious now because i

ky not support the amendment at hand as it goes against the bill's fundamental purpose. to begin this amendment actually guts the bill, it does little more than restate the status quo with regard to the type and amount of leave currently available to new parents in the federal government. to be clear, i support h.r. 626 because i want to support working families across the country. i oppose the amendment because we should not replicate the current inadequate system that forces moms and dads to choose between their paychecks and caring for a newborn. the gentleman's amendment would strike the bill's core requirement that federal employees receive four weeks of paid leave. instead, it would require them to take advance leave in order to take care of their newborn or newly adopted child. in other words, new employees would be required to go into debt in their available -- in their available leave as a cost of caring for their child. i do want to point out an odd result of the gentleman's amendment. for the new employees who have unpaid leave right now, it would force them t

louisville, ky. democrats line. >> as much an observation as anything else. i am wondering if you all are aware and the last three and half years, including the two years that mr. obama was running for office, republicans have gone on about him and some of his opponents and george bush -- he has never been questioned as to whether he has done a good job, responsible for things happening. happening under his watch. he was not even question about it. all of the coverage is about what mr. obama was doing and what mr. clinton was doing and mr. mccain. i'm wondering do you think the coverage that you all -- is it fair as far as mr. obama is concerned with you think it is a time that mr. bush's policies should be discussed? host: i would venture to say that if you took our coverage from the same period in 2001 or in the spring and summer of 1993, we would have heard different sentiments depending on your political party. it will be no difference whether it is a democrat or republican on the white house. audit of -- caller: i am not necessarily speaking on a partisa

chairman, for the life of me,ky not understand why the gentlelady's amendment seeks to cut what may be one of the most important processes that could take place to learn how to do things better and i strongly oppose the amendment and i yield three minutes to the gentleman from massachusetts. who is sort of the originator of this proposal. in some ways. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding and rise in strong opposition to this amendment as well. this provision is intended to improve the effectiveness of the state department and usaid, to save taxpayer dollars. so that there is greater firktcy, improved capabilities, less waste, more bang for the buck, if you will. to do that, we've taken a page from the military. section 303 is modeled after lessons learned centers in the armed services. these are mechanisms if you will, which allow our men and women in uniform to learn from the successes and as importantly, the mistakes of their colleagues. by cutting down on the need to reinvent the wheel, they have saved not just money, but they've saved lives. the state department and usaid do not

you cannot even find a bus or train in louisville, ky. guest: i have long been a supporter of amtrak and i at least hope we would see high- speed rail, something europe has had for decades. there is a big investment to look at high speed rail, to connect people from cleveland, detroit, chicago, st. louis, milwaukee. but obviously transit in urbanized areas, you need that. my district is fairly rural. we do not have things like subway cars. i think we only have one bus in my congressional district. in fact, that needs to be part of the equation, to get people off the road. host: we will have to leave it there. thank you for joining us. up next, we will talk to republican congressman scalise. we will be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> every weekend, the latest nonfiction span offers on c- span2. saturday, how you run for congress with $7,000 and your sixth grade students managing the campaign? she gave it a shot in ms. cahill for congress. sunday

ky tell you, i've been there and i've seen it. our soldiers are going to get frustrated, i know our f.b.i. agents are frustrated, our law enforcement community is frustrated and the best you can do is say, debate is inconvenient for us today and some things are just better left unsaid. like the billions of dollars in this bill that spends too much money that we don't have, that we're going to have to borrow from the chinese or the rush yab -- russians or the saudis. or the fact that we have to look in the eyes of those soldiers and say, we can't even have the opportunity to talk about it on the floor of the house. ms. slaughter: mr. speaker, i yield four minutes to the gentleman from new york, mr. hinchey. the speaker pro tempore: four minutes. ms. slaughter: four minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for four minutes. mr. lynch: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i can't say how much i've been amused by the statements that we have heard from our dear friends across the aisle. they know very we