ron in madison, connecticut. good morning, ron. go ahead. ron in connecticut. >> yes, yes. i am a tanker truck driver, i haul petroleum and heating oil. i'm worried about the financial situation in this country. i am going to be voting for trump because i was in construction prior to this. and construction industry has been in connecticut has been overflown with illegals and they don't pay taxes. as far as me going back into construction, it would be unlikely. i'm worried about the security of our country because to drive these trucks, to drive the tanker trucks i need have an fbi background check and a card to get in the terminals and i go to motor-vehicle here in connecticut to renew everything and i got illegals standing in front of me to get their driving permits and they don't speak english. i'm wondering, are the same problems that were in construction with me will they overflow into the trucking industry because my commercial drivers license and background check is the only thing protecting me and i'm temporarily laid off because the demands for diesel fuel is down and we're not hauling as much. i'm just worried about the whole economic situation. i have to vote for donald trump because we have got to seal our borders or there's going people like me and i'm hanging on -- i should be making a lot more money right now than i am, and we've got to turn this country around and we need somebody like trump in there to secure our borders. it's an absolute must. i think i should have the benefit of knowing who i'm sharing the highways with. if somebody pulls up next to me and wants to use my truck as a weapon i have no protection. we have to secure our interstates in our country. we need stronger border control. >> we're asking this morning about the consumer confidence and the cost of living. talk about the confidence board report that "the wall street journal report"ed on. the gallup poll up to august 9th. economic confidence in the u.s. remains lower at minus 12. the gallup economic confidence index averaged minus 12. they say the economic confidence index entered positive territory in late december for the first time since the daily tracking in 2008. it dropped below zero in mid-february and hasn't been in positive territory since mid-march. that's gallup's poll. what are your thoughts. what your seeing in the economy, the cost of living. joe is in florida. joe, good morning, go ahead. >> good morning, the man said he would have a heart. he's going to spend health insurance. he turn around and did the opposite. $800,000 -- 800,000 floridians don't have health insurance. trump is making a good point on immigration but he wants to destroy obamacare. so if obamacare saved between 10 and 11 million people, americans. i think it's working, don't you think? >> appreciate your thinking so. any other comments? >> yes, i mean trump is making a good point on immigration. and the republicans are making a big mistake on -- they want to go to war with iran. they want to send soldiers, they want so send -- how much will it cost? how many lives? how many soldiers? not too many american soldiers? how many innocent people in iraq that have died like more than 100,000. >> focusing on the economy this morning and your consumer confidence. a couple of calls mentioning donald trump and the immigration plan which he released yesterday and part of that calls for building of the wall between the u.s. and mexico. he expanded on his thoughts with his interview yesterday on "meet the press." >> the executive order gets rescinded. >> you'll rescind that? >> we have to make a whole new set of standards. >> you will split up families. you'll deport children. >> we'll keep the families together but they have to go. >> what if they have no flies go. >> they have to go. chuck you either have a country our don't. >> how do you do it? >> the cost of doing it. >> do you think there's tremendous cost for the illegals that are in here right now? >> of course. >> tremendous. do you think there's tremendous crime being committed by illegals? >> definitely evidence that it's happening. >> you see it all over just last night. we'll do it and expedite it so people can come back in. >> still not clear. >> chuck, it will work out so well, you will be so happy. in four years you're going be interviewing me and you're going to say what a great job you've done, president trump. >> conversation this morning about consumer confidence and your cost of living. 202-748-8000 for those making $100,000 or more a year. 202-748-8001, 50 to 100. send us a tweet c-spanwj. another one. raise the minimum wage. company raises retail price or goes out of business. how to compete with cheaper workers in the orient. also from jay. conversely the rest of the world will have to compete with us on living standards and environmental stewardship. another one we need to seal the border from illegals, dnc gets voters, gop gets cheap labor. and steve says quite clear you don't read or hear much of sanders position. beyond wages are tax policy, corporation control training and more. kentucky. good morning. >> good morning, sir. i make about $100,000 to $165,000 a year. i was up on a project up in danbury, connecticut. my hotel cost me $2,000 a month. in morocco my hotel was $2800. i'm in the energy industry. i can go on a project down in mississippi and i can pay $1,200 a month for a motel and i can make money. you walk into a chevy dealer down here, i was just in one in milford, connecticut, brand new tahoes are $73,000. they keep talking about there isn't any inflation. price a t-bone. we need to bring -- there's so many companies with an international presence, just skating out on paying taxes. there's 35%, 40% of american people carrying the whole tax load for the whole nation. something has got to change and i don't have the answers but raising the minimum wage is exactly what everyone talks about. it's raising -- it's raising prices again. everyone has to raise prices to pay for the minimum wage. you can win. >> go back to your comment about hotel costs in new york and connecticut. you talked about those versus mississippi. what is driving up those costs, do you think in those areas? >> a friend of mine -- how do you justify $60 a night, $55 a night -- how can you justify such a price difference in different parts of the united states? it's because of where the cost of living is. the economy can only in each part of the nation can only justify so much. >> do you find a vast difference like in the lodging tax, the tax they charge you to stay in a room for a night or week? >> absolutely. a friend of mine is a smoker. he was paying $12 a pack for cigarettes in new york, $9 in connecticut. and we were talking and, you know, like in mississippi they were $4. i mean, so people don't get to travel all over the united states like i do, and stay on extended projects, they can't see what's really going on in our country. >> let's go to the unemployment line. we have mark from washington. thank you for joining us this morning. >> i just want to make a statement about the -- it is funny how everyone -- not everybody, but some people are down on the minimum wage increase yet minimum wage has never inyaesd the kind of percentage that all products have increased throughout the 50 years that i've been alive. and i don't understand if we're going to be a competitive nation against china and all those other countries that are using kind of a low wage labor, we need to increase or bring in the tariff taxes from third world corporations. if it's american corporation bringing in from third world countries into this country we ought to double that tax because they should be in this country giving us jobs instead of going a cheap way of labor, no epa standards or work safety, no insurance coverages, of course that's been done away with now. but it's unfortunate the way our country is going. >> mark, what line of work have you been in and when did you become unemployed? >> i became unemployed because i'm a disabled veteran. i've been chaeeated out of my military disability because they overdosed me during surgery which destroyed my spinal cord. i worked for 20 years in construction, auto mechanics and various other labor jobs. i can't do it any more because i can't hold on to anything or barely get around because of the damage to my spine. >> we appreciate you being part of the conversation this morning. 0 "the washington post" addresses the minimum wage with a different take. here's their headline. as pay rises will restaurants start rolling out the robots. minimum wage has some chains to look at tech to lower costs. there could be another jolt, the fast food industry as the ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 nears the district and other campaigns to boost wages gain traction around the country. 30% of the restaurant industry's costs come from salaries. if the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is doubled. your thoughts on the economy, cost of living. to ricky who is in nashville who is making between, making under $100,000. go ahead. >> i have made over $100,000, but in 2006 i lost my job. i walked into a retail outlet because i saw the writing on the wall and i applied for a job. they hired me. and then within a few months it had fallen apart so the smartest thing i ever did was walk in there and apply for a job. i'm still employed there. it's kicking my butt every day. i'm 59 years old. in 2006 when i lost my job i made a conscious decision because i had a daughter ready to go into high school and then college. in made a conscious decision to pay my house off network these last ten years to do nothing but put every bit of disposable income i had to pay off my house. i have a fico score of 829, 850 is the best you can get. i can get anything i want credit wise but i can't pay for it because of my wages. now what i'm telling you is this. i am fixing to retire, 65 i'll try to stay on until 65. my daughter is in her senior year of school. we got that taken care of. i've done what i've done for the american dream, the house and pickett fence and all that. now that i'm older and this health care is what i'm talking about. it's not health care insurance it's health care crisis. as we get older and start to have more problems with our health if we can't afford the insurance based on social security and all the other little pensions that are not there, 401(k)s have been wiped out what will we do for the people? what will we do for the people? they have worked -- i'm not talking about the people who don't want to work but what middle class, lower middle class and upper poor people who have always worked who want to just be left alone and rejoice in america's benefits. but our government, both sides have screwed us and last thing i say go donny go. kick their butts. >> here is dennis next up talking about consumer confidence, the cost of living. westchester ohio, dennis, go ahead. >> good morning. i was concerned that if the minimum wage is raised, what happens to the next level of income? don't we close the gaps on those workers? so that in effect they become minimum wage workers? also people living on social security is sort of like a fixed income. are we now putting them down into minimum wage? also, my understanding of when you start off a job as you should move on, you just start out at minimum wage and then you work your way up or you change jobs. >> five more minutes of phone calls on consumer confidence, the cost of living, what you are seeing. we are a little over three weeks away from the return of congress, the week of september 8th. fed page, "the washington post" looks at the return of the congress. their headline challenging fall awaits congress when congress returns in september. they write that it faces a tangle of fiscal deadlines that can serve as a replay of some of the most contentious battles of the past five years. they include keeping the government open amid a fierce disagreement over spending, finding a way to fund federal highway projects long term and lifting the debt ceiling, dispatching with all of those issues before year's end would be a big feat under the best of circumstance. congress will be deciding whether to block the nuclear deal with iran, host a papal visit. republican leaders are preaching calm and i'll pull this off with the "wall street journal," senator jeff flake and his announcement, iran pact loses a key vote, senator flake's decision to case unanimous republican opposition for the president, the senator from arizona, the junior senator a member of the senate foreign relations committee who is most widely seen as most likely republican to vote for any agreement with iran said on saturday he wouldn't back the pact when congress votes on it next month. senator jeff flake. when they return on c-span 2 and on the issue of the economy i want to let you know coming up today on c-span 2 thoughts on the economy and the end much fed from former fed chair ben bernanke. speak being today at the brookings institution, defense spending and the economy is the theme and we'll have that live for you at 10:30 eastern on c-span 2. back to our calls on the economy. demarcus, welcome. >> my concern is that i am an educator, and we are charged with educating america's youth and making then be productive citizens of our country. however, we also are charged with educating immigrant, especially hispanics that tank our test scores. for years we haven't gotten raises in the eyes of the public we're not educating our children we're dealing with english learners that tank our scores and give us a bad name. something has to happen. english as a second language learners, we have to do something about that. >> okay. >> next up, bob in petersburg, virginia making less than $50,000 a year. go ahead. >> if we don't do some regulating to the companies and corporations raising the price of something every time they give someone raises, there will be no change. what they need to do if they raise their price, it has to be built in automatically for people that work information. right now, the groceries, oil products, price of oil we're down but still has to pay $4 or $3 for a quarter of motor oil. if there's anybody out there that wants to get into a lawsuit against c-span because of discrimination i would be more than willing to participate. >> why do you say that, bob. in guess we won't find out. thanks for your calls. more ahead. next up we'll hear from michael farris, co-founder of a group, convention of the states project. he wants to talk about the grassroots effort to amend the constitution. and later teddy downey and more about the economy. he'll talk about economic populism as a rising theme in campaign 2016 as washington journal continues. >>> tonight on the communicators. >> he was really into computers, sci-fi, and that pushed them. he had always heard of silicon alley and dreaming of getting to america. from a very young age that's what he wanted to do and at 17 he ran away from home and did it. >> ashlee vance on elon musk. >> in silicon valley he's seen as the next steve jobs figure. there's bits of him like that for sure. he has this attention to detail. he pushes his workers really hard. i lean more towards this edison kind of idea although elon has a lot to prove. but he's a guy who gets these thousands of engineers, the brightest of the bright and these very hard-working individuals and really he's able to get product out of them that can be commercialized and have really changed industry. if you look -- to me he's the guy who has -- he's combined software and hardware this idea of atoms and bits in a way that nobody has. >> tonight on "the communicators" on c-span 2. >>> our road to the white house coverage of the presidential candidates continues live from the iowa state fair on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. as the candidates walk the fairgrounds and speak at the "des moines register's" candidate soapbox. today at 11:00 a.m. eastern it's republicans governor scott walker followed by carly fiorina at 1:00 and senator lindsey graham at 4:00. tuesday morning republicans senator marco rubio at 11:30 and governor john kasich at 5:00. on wednesday, republican rick perry will speak at 11:00. on friday afternoon at 2:30 it's senator ted cruz. on saturday, republican governors chris christie at noon and bobby jindal at 1:00. join the twitter conversation at #dmrsoapbox, c-span's campaign 2016 taking you on the road to the white house. >>> washington journal continues. >> joining us is michael farris co-founder of the convention of the states project here to talk to us about their efforts to amend the u.s. constitution. tell us what prompted you to get behind this effort? >> i've been working around government for about three decades, and specifically here in washington, d.c. and i became convinced that the combination of big cities, big immediate area big government in washington meant that the grassroots efforts to try to lower the amount of government coming from this flarks debt, the spending, the regulation, the burden of big government on us will never be solved inside this city. that if we're going to do that we needed to go outside of washington and the only way to do a structural change is through article 5 of the constitution. >> let's take a look at the fifth article of the constitution and what mr. ferris is talking about. it says congress on the application of the legislature of two-thirds of the several states shall call for a convention proposing amendments which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states or by conventions in three-fourths thereof. it takes 34 states to call a convention, 36 states have filed a legislature -- have filed in 2015 and this effort has passed in four states. georgia, alaska, alabama and florida. define this. what's a difference between convention of the states and actual convention. >> convention of states as opposed to a congress means you come together and it's one state one vote. it's for a particular purpose. there have been over 30 conventions of states in the history of the american republic. about two-thirds of those prior to the constitution and about a third since the constitution. and the nature of a convention of the states is you get-together for a single subject and you discuss that subject and you come out with a proposal that is relevant to that. for the constitution they camec came together for the purpose of completely revising the government. here, it is coming together for particular amendments. there have been 400 applications for a convention. we have never had a convention. we have never had two-thirds of the same subject matter. the starting point is, you have to have two-thirds of the state say, we want a convention for this purpose. the purpose we are asking for is a convention to impose fiscal restraints and limit the power and jurisdiction and impose term limits on federal officials. it doesn't mean all those things will survive the process. those are the things that can be lawfully discussed at the convention. >> why wouldn't you do them through the normal amendment of the constitution? >> no way in the world that congress will propose any amendments that limit the power of washington and congress. they have one motto, increase washington's power, increase washington's influence. >> when was the last time the constitution was amended? >> the 27th amendment was adopted in the 1990s, proposed as part of the original bill of rights. that's kind of an animally. before that, the 18-year-old voter amendment. >> michael farris is our guest. we are talking about amending the constitution. his group's effort to call a convention of the state to address some of the issues. 202-748-8001, republicans. democrats, 202-748-8000. all others, 202-748-8002. backers of constitutional convention are stepping up the campaign. >> what's involved in the campaign? >> our efforts are involving trying to get enough grassroots participants to have at least 100 people in 3/4 of the state house districts of the country. there are 4,000 state house districts that are primary targets. if we can get 100 people in 75% of those districts, we believe the grassroots pressure will allow state legislatures to feel free to vote in favor of it. our hope is that this will be done in a couple of years. it is not going to take six months. it will not take ten years. >>s ha the effort to call a convention to the states ever been undertaken? you say we have never had a convention of the states? >> correct. >> has anybody ever tried to call a convention of the snats. >> lots of times. 400 applications. an organized grassroots approach has not been really done very much. it is mostly inside politics where a group will say, let's try to do this or that. not enough political punch in an effort that's only state legislators. you need legislators and grassroots participants to make this a reality. >> what is the situation in american legislatures these days? who controls the majority? >> if you count nebraska as a republican state, there are 32 states where the republicans control the legislature. there are an additional six states where the republicans or the democrats each have a house. then, there are 11 states. my number is off by one. there are 11 states where the democrats control both houses. it is 32 plus 7 plus 11 that that gets you to the 50. >> you mentioned the four states that have passed the call. georgia, alaska, alabama and florida, all kreeld by republicans. >> we were able to pass it in the single house in 10 or 11 other states this past year. some of those are split states like iowa. we passed in the iowa house, didn't get it through the iowa senate. there was a party shift. we are hopeful we are going to be able to do that. >> is there a time limit once it passes the legislature. is that good for a year or two? >> it is good forever, unless one of two things happen, either the legislature rescinds it's application or they put a time limit within the application. >> we have calls for michael farris on amending the u.s. constitution. we go first to ron, who is in andrews, north carolina. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: good morning, mr. ferris. this sounds like a great idea. what can an ordinary citizen do to get thibehind this to help g this under way? >> you can sign up on our website convention.com. we need help in north carolina. i came and testified there in the committee hearings. if there is enough grassroots backing, north carolina is a state that really should pass the convention of the states. we came pretty close. >> list us the top priorities on what you would like to see passed. >> limiting the power of federal spending by fixing the general welfare clause. limiting the four of federal regulation, fixing the commerce clause, balance budget and realistic checks and balances on the federal court, particularly the supreme court. they have said 20 times there is no realistic check on their power. either term limits or some kind of override. something needs to be done. >> to our democratic line
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