Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150325

House. Lets begin with the decision to retain troop levels in afghanistan. Democratyou can also send us a tweet or go to facebook. Com cspan or journal cspan. Org. Lets show you a friend pages of the pages. Obama the slow troop withdrawal from afghanistan. The u. S. Will maintain current levels. Two will be out by 2000 troops will be out by 2017. What are your thoughts on this . The phone lines are open. Lets hear a little bit more from the president yesterday. [video clip] president obama you cannot minimize the sacrifices that our military families make. Some folks will be rotating that for a few extra months. We are moving the drawdown pays over to the bright for several in part to compensate for the linkengthy time it took for government formation. We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to help Afghan Security forces succeed. So we do not have to go back. So we do not have to respond in an emergency because terrorist activities are being launched out of afghanistan. We are on the path to do it. It made sense for us to provide a few extra month to be able to help on things like logistics making sure equipment is not just in place but is also used properly, that the training and advising and strategic input that is provided continues through this fighting season in part so that president karzai u. S. Taken on the mantle of commanderinchief anyway we have not emitted at him president can do a serious review. [end video clip] host president they are referring to the new afghan president. He met with the president yesterday at white house and talked with reporters. He will go to capitol hill today at 11 00 a. M. Eastern to talk more about afghan u. S. Relations. Democrats 202 7488000 republicans 202 7488001 independents 202 7488002. The president cannot repeat in mistakes he made that allowed for this in iraq. The host mark in st. Paul, minnesota, republican. What do you think . Caller i find it rather comical that president obama has indicated that Benjamin Netanyahu losses credibility with regard the two fell within a state issue. At the same time this is the same president obama who in 2012 campaign on the plant that he was going to have all truths withdrawn from afghanistan by the end of 2014. That was the campaign promise. I did not believe him at that time. Surprise, surprise, were talking about maintaining 9800 troops. It intimate netanyahu had credibility problems, certainly president obama does as well. Host keep dialing in with your thoughts. We went to get your take on what the president is in about retrain troops in afghanistan for the security of the country. The New York Times this morning, this is what they are we working. U. S. To delay afghan pullout to a drone strikes. That is their take on this. To american officials said the significant part of the deliberations have been focused on the need for the cia and military this is been the primary base used by the cia in the tribal areas of practice then. The german operations were re located there after the them out at the base. The lobby to the of a present to allow the Journal Program to continue. Host this is partly due to the administration wanting to to military base is where the cia is operating theater joe strikeouts of enough to understand. Lets hear what the afghan president had to say. I would like to pay tribute to the sacrifices. Mostar in 22,000. I would like to say think youd. I would also like to thank the american tax there for his and her dollars that has helped to enable this. Host the president there. Thanking the american taxpayers and the soldiers who have served in afghanistan during this 13 year war. Were getting your thoughts. Bbc with a profile of the afghan president. They say he came to prominence after the fall of the taliban event taliban in 2001. He was then close to karzai and served as finance minister from 20022004 alongside his future opponent abdullah abdullah. He had previously been an academic in the u. S. And worked for the world bank. Host maria, new jersey independent. Caller good morning. I think that this time we go back to what our forefathers said about no foreign entanglements. We have elected to become rich and britain toxic. We have to realize the foreign aid includes foreign aid infrastructure and countries. As for partners, uncle sam should not go around the world just pretending that we are globalists. We were told to be an example for the rest of the world. Bring them all home. Elect people that really care. Host what about the argument that if you too early to understand become like a rock where terrorists are there. Caller it is their struggle. It is not our neighborhood. We have to come home get rid of the illegal aliens and take care of own economy and our own citizens. Virginia independent, high. Caller i am so frustrated. I cannot see straight. It bothers me every day. Im a vietnam veteran. 68,000 guys got a. Everybody had all of the answers. Communism was going to get as youd we lost. Here we are again in a similar situation. You are not going to change anybodys religion. It is a civil war. We do not need to be there. It is not winnable. Nobody has an answer for this. I just want to scream sometimes. Host jim and maria on their thoughts of president obamas announcement yesterday that he will not all downstream this year. 10,000 will remain in canada afghanistan. We will hear more about that this morning when the afghan president will be before a joint meeting of called. We will have coverage. We will get back to more of your thoughts. Lets begin with what is happening in the house. What is the strategy on the budget blueprint . Its ladies to vote two votes. Caller the first is an amendment that would vote for the budget blueprint. A lot of republicans feel that an order to get the whole party behind this they are going to have to increase defense spending. This has become a Sticking Point along the Republican Party. I suspect both of you will pass. You will be a very busy day is the house today. Host what does that mean . What happens in that . Has reconciled this with the republican budget on the senate side . Guest that is the 6 trillion western. What comes next is a larger argument of defense spending. There are debates that we have already been having about sequestration and obamacare. The more eccentric republicans will be on display during that time. Not to mention once they do reconcile it will go into president obamas adjust. Host what is the democrat strategy . Guest democrats have been consistent that some of these are increasing for defense. It is typical partisan lines. For republicans this is an opportunity of them to really able to pass the budget which is something we have heard them say for a wild. It is a huge first test to see if they are able to do that. Politicallys taking politicallys weekend they were really want to show the American People they can govern. Host a rare moment of bipartisanship. They have come together on a doc fix. When would i get a vote . Guest it is a really wonky issue. I would expect it sometime this week. This is a huge bipartisan moment. This has been going on for a wild. It comes to fruition this week. You are right. A rare moment of bipartisanship. I think if you read in between this a signal from leader pelosi that she is willing to work with republicans being in the minority. Really interesting political display of action comes from democrat in the house. Host we appreciate it. Guest have a great day. Goodbye. Host the hill newspaper reporting on the announcement from the president on afghan troop levels. Read for that a new afghan leader is trying to prove he can be a reliable partner during his first check to washington. His predecessor frequently clashed with u. S. Officials. Karzai refused to sign a Security Agreement that would have determined troop levels after 2014. He has adopted a row the west stand. He came to power six months ago after allegations market by allegations of fraud. Questions remain whether it can keep the country safe without heavy u. S. Involvement. They also announced a hundred Million Dollar economic assist its program that is tied to the implementation of certain afghan reforms. He also pledged Additional Support for a Reintegration Program for former combatants. Cincinnati, democratic caller. What do you . Caller i agree with the president decision. If you feel over there and start these war and if right away we have to a for them after we are gone. Families police can have our eye on how the any of the that we shall have to inject into the economy. I think the president of afghanistan is willing to work with us. That is an asset within itself. All these other countries before us like russia left and did not leave no additional troops. We are trying to do in the most of my way that we possibly can. Everybody can always comment on how to president is doing this or that. I think he is doing a tremendous job. He is a great president. Host democratic caller with his opinion about president obamas decision to not draw down troops. 10,000 troops will remain. We are getting your thoughts on that. Democrats died in at host , republicans a dial in at 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001 independents 202 7488002. Take a look at some of the twitter reactions of on capitol hill. Robert lee says a political solution is the only way or work in a and a stand. Prolonging the military rule will not be the way for peace. Then you have walter jones saying more time in afghanistan will be worth the waste and taxpayer dollars . Center roger wicker the hardfought gains we have made in anna stand should be protect it just as vigorously as if they were won. Thomas, democratic caller. Ahead. Caller good morning. You opened up this segment with this right from john boehner about obamas mistakes in iraq. Let me tell you something about mr. Weiner. It is mentioned not be trusted with the keys t the constant straino a car. Between netanyahu in the white house, the president was getting his last state of the Union Address and knew what was on his mind. This man cannot be trusted. There should be a federal investigation into the whole republican house. Host Dearborn Heights, it indiana, independent color i think. Go ahead. Caller how are you doing . I wanted to give a broader perspective. What has then going on is since the Carter Administration we have been supporting islamic terrorism which has destroyed the rights of women in afghanistan. Today in Dearborn Heights they are pushing foods in the schools which is separation of church and state. We have this weird things going on. What is basically going on as we are using islam as a wedge against the nations. I think there is a huge economic change coming. If they want to issue marshall law and america, what they are doing as they are dividing this country anyway they can. The bottom line is we have to grapple with this ideology. We cannot give any accommodation for islam in any way at all. Host ok. Bruce. What are your thoughts on what the president had to say and the 13 year war in afghanistan the previous . The previous caller said it was a gripe. The washington born says caller i find it interesting. I cannot make this decision. It is a revolving door. The yearly contacts i see. Host they have some numbers of the money that has been didnt. This is the amount in u. S. Dollars since trying unsuccessfully to provide farmers with soybeans as a new cash crop option. This was written recently. This gives you an idea of the money appropriated for iraq and afghanistan. Also from the same website. 13 is the number of years it has last. 140,000 is the highest number of u. S. Troops. 13,000 500 is the number of international troops. This was written earlier. It was supposed to fall. President obama announced that it will not fall. It will remain at 10,000. Democratic caller, what do you think . Caller i think that we should just boulevard troops out of the whole middle east. If they want to have a big war just let them beat each other into the dirt. When it is over, if they want to do a trade agreement or whatever, you will do it with is left. Host 2015 is the number of soldiers killed in afghanistan in the past 13 years. Republican, good morning to you. Caller i think obama needs to be signed for treason. Host why is that . Caller because he is messing up our country. He is doing all this stuff illegally. These immigrants need to be deported. Host we are talking about u. S. Troops and drawdowns. Your thoughts on that. We will remain at 10,000. We will get to more of your phone calls here. Our diving in. The previous caller mentioned relations with israel. Heres the front page of the New York Times. Host heres what the president had to say. He said they are spying on iran negotiations. Take a look. President obama let me address your second question about spying allegations. I do not comment on Intelligence Matters in a big room full of reporters. I think i will continue that tradition. With threes debt to the possibility of a with responsibility to the possibility of making sure they do not get a nuclear weapon, it is not Just Congress of the light fear of like there is but also the israelis. If in fact an agreement is arrived at that we feel confident will prevent iran from obtaining a new layer web then, it will be there for everybody to see. People are going to be able to see what is in there. I have confidence that it will be a good agreement for American Security and israeli security. Host president obama you of allegations that israel is spying on enron. We want to talk a little bit more about those. The analysis morning says that the rift widens further on tuesday with the report. They its use them as spying on closeddoor negotiations with iran. Iran not responding to many requests from the Nuclear Watchdog to give them information. Also in other news, i want to share with you on the politics site. Senator dan coats is going to retire from the senate. It is setting off a senate race. See discomfited by republicans and democrats in indiana. Democrats have a deep bench of replacements. Democrat are hoping for a repeat of the 2012 senate race when a democrat won by taking advantage of a bloody republican primary. Some democrats hope to persuade a former senator to make a political comeback. Back to our topic here. President obama announcing that troop levels will remain the same this year. They will not go down from 10,000. Democratic caller, what do you make of this development . Robert, good morning to you in maryland. You are on the line. Caller yes spirit i would like to say the troop levels of president obama is leaving there, we go into our servicemen to protect them and to give them the support they need. We have to protect them. We are it the proper way. Doing it the proper way. Host all right. Verne in florida, democratic caller. A lot of democrats or the letter from republicans as well. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. My statement was about president obama changing his mind on the troop levels. I understand, truly understand what he is doing. First of all, he did not want the iraq war. He is not a war monger like a lot of individuals in the politics are. He wanted to draw down the troop level but meeting the new president of afghanistan and hearings in the things he said about the government the way the American People had spent their taxes money, the way the soldiers had fought vigorously we understand that we truly have a true partner with hidden. He talked so kind to the American People will. I think it really hope in our heart to go and be a part of the coalition to try to help fight a lot of different individuals that would harm American People. Thank you for taking my call. Caller i agree with the last caller. We need to be there. I left it that the afghan president came out and said open thank you to all of us. He said we appreciate everything you have done. You have been a great help. We need your help. We appreciate you being there. Host chuck, democratic caller. Go ahead. Caller my comment is that there is so much, i do not want to say dysfunction, but lack of bipartisan agreements, they are acting like gettinggang members. It is about territory, the red and the blue. To me it totally signifies, it is the same thing of what has happened with our gang members in normal everyday life. There is no common agreement. It has become like a gang. One side against the other side. Power against power. Territory against territory. I am not a twitterer but i wish it would be tweeted out that there is a lot of similarities between the bloods and the crypt s and the democrats and republicans. Maybe i should have called in on the independent line. I have been a democrat. My biggest disappointments with obama was he should have stepped up and been on this that i made a mistake that you cannot keep your same doctor. Host i do not want to go to for down this road. But did to the topic of the president lets stick to the topic of the president having the same level of troops in afghanistan over the next year. He did insist all troops will be gone by 2017. What do you think . Caller i do believe were going to need some force there. The question is if these deals goes out with iran, someone is going to have to get iran out of iraq eventually. That like to this question. Host weve got a few minutes left to keep taking your thoughts on this. Look it back to the just a minute. I want to show you the headline of politico. Ted cruz that he is going on a omnicare. He is planning to sign up for the health care. Here is what he told cnn about this. [video clip] ted cruz we will presumably do this through my job in the senate. We will be on the federal exchange like millions of others. Youll beginning obamacare . Rted cruz when the good things is that the statute provided members of congress will be on the exchanges without subsidies is like millions of americans are there would not be a double standard. For right now the iron is unbelievable that you have made your name fighting against obamacare and now you are owing tos sign up to get your insurance through that very process. Which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] it was the case before that they would get Health Insurance through their job. That not a new development. I will get it through my job like millions of others america ends. That is not a shock. Will you take a subsidy for your job . Ted cruz we will follow the text of the law. I strongly oppose the sentient the president the exemption that the president put in place for members of congress because harry reid and the democrat to not want to be under the same rules of the American People. That means you are going to take a government the . Ted cruz we should follow the text of the law. The law you want to repeal. Ted cruz we should follow every law. Host senator ted cruz talking about signing up for the socalled obamacare. His wife is taking a leave of absence from oldman. He is announced he is running for president. They have to get their Health Care Insurance through his job through the senate which means signing up for obamacare. We have five minutes left in a conversation about the state of afghan u. S. Relations. This 13 year war is not ending anytime soon. President obama think he will be troop levels the same here but saying he will stick to the timetable of having all troops out by 2017. In defending michael, what are your thoughts . Caller i am very interested in partisan politics. President obama announced he was drawing down troops. All the democrats are really excited and supported. Now we are keeping troops in. All the democrats are supportive of obama saying it is very important to stay there. I do not really a great with that. I think we need to stop meddling in other peoples affairs. Were not the policeman of the world. Lets stick to our own boundaries. Host here is a chart for all of you from vox. Com it shows how bad things are getting in afghanistan. On wednesday the you and release the and it will reap port that the situation is even weaker than you inc. It is the most dangerous years since president Obama Took Office in 2009. Here are the different regions of the country. The red are represent 2014. The blue, 2013. The above chart shows civilian casualties during Ground Fighting every year since 2009. You can see much worse is the red bar in 2014. We are getting your thoughts here this morning on note u. S. Troop drawdowns because of this reason of keeping afghan say in making sure it does not fall into the hands of the taliban were isis. Couple of other stories for you. A bipartisan deal on Health Care Issues has hit a snag. A deal that is brooke burns between the house and nancy pelosi. It is likely to get held up in the senate. Send it democrats are object to it because of abortion language. The political standoff over the next attorney general to stretch into at least next month. She awaits senate confirmation. She had served of the u. S. Attorney. It is our duty to his them by the administrations legal position on immigration. They are saying the vote is likely not to happen until next month. A couple more stories for you as we wrap up this conversation. We are going to talk with frank of new jersey. We will get his reaction to yesterdays announcement of u. S. Troop levels and what is going on with the fight against isis and other terrorist groups. A member of the Budget Committee will talk about this on the republican budget. Joseph clancy testified again on capitol hill yesterday be were the House Oversight and government reform committee. Here is a bit of the exchange over who has custody of this videotape showing the secret service in a barricade outside the white house. [video clip] who has a copy of the video to turn it over . I would, in consultation with my legal counsel, i do not know that for certain. To the extent you do have the power or influence, will you recommend a copy of all video footage be made available . I will certainly talk to our did art meant and with our legal counsel. You do not need lawyers for everything. You have a bunch of them on this panel. The only excuse they have is some theoretical potential investigation or prosecution. I promise they will not interfere with anyone. Will you now turn over all available video . The video will be available at all times. I will go back to the department. I will revisit this. Do you know if there was video footage of the alleged officer misconduct . I am not aware. You do not know if any of the cameras were trained on the car that they were wrong . The only video i am aware of is what we have provided. They answered the gate at south park. To you have a policy of preservation of any video that could be potentially part of a criminal investigation . We have retained video related to any incident. If there was video of fact no one would have taken over or destroyed itt . It would not have been destroyed. How about taped over . I practiced it is automatic. You have to selectively decide what you want to preserve. Witten this be one of the things . I do not know what to place. If you missed yesterdays hearing, you can go to our website. Host we want to welcome you. He said on the Armed Services. I want to get your thoughts on what the president is doing sending to keep the levels the same in afghanistan. This is a minimum that we can do. On a bipartisan basis at least from the Intelligence Committee we have been able to see the pull out. We cannot support any intelligence activities. They are dependent on the military being able to them the cover for the protections they need. All the great work that has been done, the assets that have been developed. They have health us keep the enemy and check. It would be like turning off the switch. I think the Intelligence Committee has been prepping the case or the president. Republicans and democrats have been prepping this. I think the afghan president has made this case as well. I am not sure 10,000 is enough. It is better than zero. Host the New York Times has exactly what you are talking about. Part of the reason the president has kept them the same is because the cia has two important bases in afghanistan. Troops were drawn n down they would not be able to collect the intelligence or do the german strikes they have been doing to go after the taliban in pakistan. Rep lobiond understand that they had way more than two basis. There on the afghan pakistan border. I have been to that region of the world numerous times. I have personally been to each one of the forward basis. It is with inks that the cia has been forced to close down a number of the basisbes each one is essential with how to do with the bad guys. We were down to the two most critical. If the president had gone through this plan to zero out, there was no way the cia could keep them open. It would just be horrible. We will be turning afghanistan back over to the owl again taliban. Host what can you tell the American People who serve on the Intelligence Committee, what can you tell our viewers about the threat of the taliban to afghanistan and the region . Rep lobiondo it is enormous. Just by way of brief discussion, the house Intelligence Committee is the smallest committee and congress. It is called the select committee because it is picked by the leadership. We are responsible for authorizing the programs that protect the country in the oversight of the agencies and the operations the conduct. The big ones are cia and nsa and fbi. As we look at afghanistan, we have seen where we have done a lot to take out Top Operational leaders. They have morphed. They understood what has happened. They have split into these affiliates. They are very effective. They are vying with other terrorist organizations to approve who is the most barbaric from a terrorist standpoint. When you look at what they have been able to do, to be able to lose the capability would be terrible. Host u. S. Drone strike kills 11 at any taliban in what is the reaction that are i you look at the number of strike that had been taken over the last couple of years and what were doing now, there are a lot of surrounding. The decision to go after operational leaders, we have diminished what we have done. Every time we have the operational planner who has the knowledge to put these together. Were putting people at risk. We have been very fortunate that they have not taken place. Im convinced they have not taken place here. That is what we need to do. Host afghan leaders also telling you what is the isis is buying of afghanistan and pisces pakistan as well. What is attractive about this region for terrorist groups like isis . Rep lobiondo the weakness of the government. The fact that these have been hotbeds for centuries with a completely different philosophy. What we are seeing with what you just that is what we have been seeing developing for a couple of years. These different terrorist organizations are vying to have top spots. It is for recruiting. It is for fundraising purposes. A situation in yemen and north africa is indicating how the influence has grown tremendously in large part because of these barbaric attacks that have been so visible to the world that attract a real sick mentality. Host is it also the Financial Resources that are possible in afghanistan . The fox website has this headline. U. S. Efforts to try to give the afghans another has been a failure and that the u. S. Has only been able to seize about 1 about what afghanistan produces. It looks like isis needs money to keep operating as well. Host rep lobiondo before anyone knew what isis was, the taliban were using the ob in revenue for financing their operations. It is so lucrative. We have not found a way to convince the poppy farmers to be able to do something differently. Yes, that is exactly what has happened. Host congress this continuing debate whether to get the president new authority to fight isis what kind of language needs to be in here that allows the president to go into countries were ever isis ends up . Where do you want to see this state . Brilliant leaders who are retired from the military now has woken up. These are folks i have tremendous respect for. We cannot do an authorization for the use of military force which restricts what the president can do. This is an enemy that is not know any boundaries. This is where they are. That is what he sent to congress. I do not think it allows them to do the job. It sends a message to our potential allies that we are supposed to be leaving in a coalition. Either we are not serious about this we do not understand what we have to do to do it. They are reluctant to follow us. It has to be a coalition. Host you can start dialing it appears he represents the Second District of new jersey. Mario, you are first, democratic cholera. Go ahead. Caller the morning. Good morning. Circuit 2001 the u. S. And cia had about 100 agents in iran. They subsequently got out. They sent a list of all of the agents to iran to a double agent. I was wondering. I know congress was reached on this and that is why they got very worried about the situation. We advance the nuclear program. Does the letter from the republicans to iran, does that stand for anything along the lines of the congress, giving them insight into what went on . Rep lobiondo the letter was from senators. It is a reflect and of how concerned the senate is in how they are about the iranian deal. I do not have to comment that has to do with any the more than 10 years ago. Host do you think the letter was a good idea . Rep lobiondo i probably would not have signed it. I am opposed to the Administration Proceeding the way they are. Host what did you make that they are spying on these negotiations . Rep lobiondo it is interesting. This is what countries do. We cannot talk a lot about it. We do not like to hear these things publicly. We do not know the details. We cannot confirm or deny whether it to place. He protect their own interests. Host when israel says it is not conduct espionage, you do not believe that statement . Host i cannot confirm or deny it. Independent caller. Caller how can you send or more troops in afghanistan when you do not even take care of that. I have to drive more than it did miles one way or care. Every other that in the country has been screwed over by you because we do not qualified to go to qualify to go to outside sources. That is shameful. Watch the john daily show from monday night. The first 10 minutes. He showed how you cost us. If you covered every event and allows to do the we should not be able to drive more than 40 miles, it would cost 50 billion. The only thing you agree to was 5 billion. So we are still being screwed, sir. Host lets get a response from the congressman. Guest how our veterans have been treated in the is a tragedy. We will first talk about the veterans issue because i feel very strongly about this that we have not kept the progress promise that has been made to our veterans. My district is 40 geographically the state of new jersey. We are our vets do not have the 40 mile parameter to work with. But i have introduced legislation and lively but the answer is and i have request a legislation to be a Pilot Program in my district because it is a rather small district that event has a veterans card. They take that to the doctor or hospital of their choice. I think first and foremost, it would provide the best level of care for veterans, and secondly, i think the v. A. With two that it would be very costeffective. So i am on the callers side. I dont think we are doing what we can do, what we should do. If a vets anywhere and the weight is longer than 30 days, they can automatically go to the doctor or hospital of their choice. But i dont think that is good enough. As far as afghanistan, again, if we dont keep a presence in afghanistan of our military, that can provide the cover to the intelligence agency, we go completely dark. We go completely dark. We have no ability to have eyes on and do all the things that we are able to do, but at least give us some opportunity to go after the bad guys who want to do great harm and destruction here within our borders. As much as we want to do for the vets, they are two separate issues. Host john, an independent. You are next. Go ahead. Caller all right. You keep talking about vested interests. And thank you to cspan. People who listen to this, we have heard it over and over and over. What are the vested interests in pakistan, afghanistan . What was the American Interest in iran and iraq . I know iran has a nuclear bomb. We give every dam one of them damn one of them to them. Bring them home from all 100 and 70 147 countries we have them in. Keep our country safe. To help with the rest of the people in the world. Guest well, america is a great place. I respect every callers point of view, but in my estimation, that would be a terrible mistake. We are not living in a world where we can put up a fence and keep everybody out. And what would happen in america if the paris attack situation has happened here. How would americans feel . What would americans be demanding of us, of the government, of congress about keeping them safe . The questions would be how did it ever happen . If we were to pull everybody back and say, you know what, let them all do their own thing over there, you are saying that they keep themselves over there when that is not their goal. Isis said they will take out the white house. That is their goal. That is what they want to do. They have targeted military members here. They have released names and addresses. How would we feel if we found out in an hour or tomorrow that there was a military family that was taken out by a group of terrorists here because they had infiltrated us. And now that we have sleeper cells, lone wolves who are activated by who know what crazy trigger in their mind, these are the reasons why we are trying to keep off our shores. Host is the credible evidence that isis could attack the United States . Guest no. No. I mean, taking out the white house is but the fact that they have it as a goal, the fact that the iranians which we doubt would tweet out death to americans, i mean, this is how they feel about us. There is no bigger responsibility that i think our government has been to protect its citizens and the country. Now, we are going to have a lot of debate and a lot of discussions. And, obviously, a lot of heated feelings on what is the best way to do that but completely withdrawing is a terrible mistake. Host mike in carnegie, pennsylvania. Hi, mike. Caller yet. Thank you for calling. For letting me get on. I wanted to know, why isnt isis attacking russia . Is the only reason for them not attacking russia russia is so independent they can come and go as they please. Why is it that all these countries are after the United States . Is it that we dont have the power, the knowhow of what to do . I mean, i was in the second war. When japan attacked us, all the japanese people that put them in a big compound because they knew that we couldnt trust the japanese. Host mike, i will have the congressman jump in. Guest well, i dont know why they havent attacked russia. Russia certainly has its problems with terrorism, with chechnya and some of the hotspots they have dealt with. Why hasnt isil been after russia . I dont know. But clearly, they are not just after the United States. Look at belgium, look at france. Look at britain, look at spain. Look at what they did two japanese journalists. So, they have a pretty broad brush of who they are going after. Host rich. South bend, indiana. Democrat. Hi, rich. Caller good morning. Congressman, the answer to your question what would we have done if the American Public if the attacked had happened here . The answer, go shopping at the mall. Congressman, since the war on terrorism has started the military age members, 90 have chickened out. That is your answer. We would have done nothing. Host rich, what you proposing . Caller well, you want to fight a war congressman . Bring back the draft. I am a vietnam era vet. It is accident me absolutely ridiculous that you guys keep sending the same guys back over and over again. Multiple tours. Just how much luck you think they got . Host congressman. Guest once again, room for many points of view. The draft is not anywhere close to coming back. It is probably the best trained best men and women we have had. Certainly as good as we have had. But i disagree with what we would do. I am talking about the american psyche. We all remember how we felt on september 11, september 12 after the tax attacks. The display of patriotism. The will to really go after the bad guys and to do whatever we had to do. And the rules of engagement to the matter in whole lot. All that mattered was attempting protecting american lives. Now that seems like a distant memory. While enemies are getting stronger and stronger. What we are seeing in yemen are terrible developments, as far as the United States is concerned. How isil is getting together with boko from haram. A few years ago, boko haram was considered a street gang by Hillary Clinton and mr. Obama. Now, they have teamed up with isil. This is happening all over. As these alliances these evil, unholy alliances solidify and take place, the threat to us is greater and greater. We are seeing that in yemen. Host the headline chaos and yemen leaves u. S. Intelligence blinded. Guest we are. Host why . Guest a couple of years ago and i was on the ground in yemen and i do not think this is a surprise not from the people that i talked to. They said the situation was bad and was getting worse. But we had a situation where we had the cooperation of government that was helping us in a very hard place. Probably the most effective al qaeda affiliate aqap. Where the worst of the bomb makers came from, and was basically operating from. Developing the bombs that are harder to detect. And where the operational planners for activities and attacks on the u. S. Because we were fortunate with the underwear bomber and the shoe bomber and some of these things didnt mean that they werent planning, didnt mean that we wouldnt have had a lot of destruction. So in yemen, we have a couple of very bad situations. But what we have been forced to do is what we talked about in afghanistan a little bit. We cannot support our Intelligence Community because there is no way to protect them and to all the things we have to make sure we have to do. So, therefore, we have essentially gone dark. And the people that will we will worrying about where they were going to sleep tonight are not going to worry about where they are going to sleep tomorrow night because we cant get after them. Host the headline yemen rebels push into the south. They report yemen militants battle their way southward toward the strategic city, capturing a military base in heightening the presence of military intervention by saudi arabia. Should saudi arabia get involved here . Guest well, they are going to protect their own interests. And understand what is happening here. The that are being backed by the bad guys want to set up host the bad guys being around iran . Guest there are two bad guys. There are the iranians and there is isolate isil. But saudi arabia has to be careful about the shia rebels, the terrorists who want to attack them from bahrain. So saudi arabia is going to do with a have to do to protect themselves, but the iranian influence now has spread into yemen. And they appear to have the upper hand. Now, what will isil do . They claim to have been responsible for the mosque bombings. We cant prove this, but if in fact they were responsible, this is a serious escalation and capability on their part. And it shows that they have moved in to yemen come into south asia, into north africa. And then you have the iranians neither of this is good news frost. And all the time this is happening, our ability to understand what is happening and how to connect the dots is essentially gone has essentially gone dark. Host what should the u. S. Do . Should be troops sent into yemen . Guest no. No, we cannot send troops into yemen. We we sort of have to hope and pray at this point. That is not a good answer. But with the coalition that we are supposed to be leaving that has the same concerns as we have for a variety of reasons whether they dont trust the United States and what we have done probably further reinforces their view that when something tough happens, we are just out. So we tell them, dont worry, we are going to be there. When something tough happens well, we are out. Maybe there was no way to get around getting out, but it further highlights why we have trouble putting the coalitions together. Unless we can put the coalition together of the gulf arab states, who are at least friendly to us, we dont stand any chance at all. Now, i will assume that there are intense discussions behind scenes with our administration our secretary of state, who are trying to formulate some plan that would get restabilization. But it is going in the wrong direction right now. And the ironic thing that i believe of what is happening is that a lot of our gulf state allies are going to be probably looking to israel, rather than to the u. S. Because israel seems to be the one to have a tougher stand on what iran is doing and how these things, you know, are impacting the other gulf states. Host we will go back to calls. Jim inhofe i. An independent caller. Caller aloha. I wanted to know a couple of things. First of all, i want to know why general betray us got off with such patreaus got off with such a light sentence . The second question is, as far as the sergeant bergdahl, i guess the investigation was over in october. How long is it going to take until the american citizens find out why in 30 days from today there is going to be five of the worst characters ever to kill our troops back in the battlefield, and we dont even know what is going on . Host congressman. Thoughts on those two . Guest on the first question, youll have to ask the department of justice and the attorney general. They are the ones who cut the deal. On the second one the Armed Services committee raised this in a hearing last week. With secretary of defense, our new secretary of defense, which i have very high hopes for. And we cant get an answer. Clearly, the administration doesnt want the bergdahl report released to we dont released. We dont know why, we can own only draw our own suspicion as to why. But the caller is right. In june, these five individuals who are some of the worst of the worst at least four of the five will probably get back into the fight. As operational planners, as leadership of terrorist organizations. And they are going to be walking on june 1. Host why is that . Guest because that was the deal. They would be held for a year. In the year is up on june 1. What will they immediately do . We dont know. We get no answers. Apparently, we dont according to the deal have any ability to keep them from becoming operational planners and prevent and for anybody who doesnt know that means is that they planned to kill americans. So how Many American deaths were they responsible for to begin with, and how many more will they be responsible for because of this unconscionable act to have been released . And we dont even know the circumstances of the person they were released for. The country deserves better. Host a republican in indiana. Hi, fisher. You are next. Caller yes, maam. Thank you for accepting my call. I have a question for the representative. I am a veteran of desert storm and i understand i dont understand soldiers being in danger, but if our intel goes away i was going to ask the representative, what is his opinion of the permanent duty station in the middle east . I served my first two years in germany. Now, what a permanent duty station be called for in afghanistan and iraq . To have a presence there at all time . That is all i have. Guest well, i dont think we want to use the word permanent because permanent signifies forever. But clearly, if we are to be effective in protecting american lives and American Interests, we are going to have to understand that the problems we created getting out of iraq, we cant undo that. And what we are doing essentially, is we have turned iraq over to the iranians. That is not in the best interest. So this battle in to create t ikrit, we are sitting on the sidelines and were sitting there because we didnt leave a force behind that could have helped the situation. Now, there are a lot of circumstances, a lot of arguments on why we didnt leave it to hide. The Administration Says the iraqis didnt want it. I see it whole different way. I see it as the president deciding he was going to pull everything out because that was the campaign progress. How many people do we have on the ground in iraq and what is it mean . But specifically to the question, if we are going to lead the coalition leave the coalition, and it means that we are going to use her leadership capabilities to show willing partners, other information jordan is a good example. A very small country, a very big heart. Very open to doing what has to be done, but to cant do it on their own. So we have to have a presence there. We have to be able to have people on the ground who can be the advisors, the intelligence, the training. Unless we make a commitment to do that, i think we are making a terrible mistake. Host i want to get your reaction to this breaking news from reuters. The airplane strikes where the yemeni president is, and say are at the planes. These are unidentified warplanes that are firing missiles new the compound. What do you make of that . Who do think is behind this . Guest you are reading something that im hearing for the first time. I imagine i will have a briefing on this later today. This would be a new dimension if the bad guys have air capability. Yet many president . Host yes. Guest who is favorable to the u. S. Host exactly. Guest therefore you have one or two groups who want to take them out. Iranians have capabilities. Isil does not come unless there is a whole new development that we do not know about. If youre talking about a game ginger, now youre talking about a game changer. Who has a capabilities and can do bombing and strafing runs. This is not good news. Host you say you expect you would get a briefing on this later today. When something develops like this, is a briefing immediate for you . Guest immediate is maybe not the right word, but we have a procedure for what are called hotspots. Typically, when something major is breaking, we will have an ability to go into this gift the secure classified area to be able to host on capitol hill. Guest yes. That is where we meet. And that is where we are able to have classified briefings and be able to get what are folks make of these developments. Whatever that may be, we get these briefings and they give us their best take on why they believe it is happening and who is behind it. I dont you know, im hearing this for the first time. Host and we will bring you and our viewers more as it develops. Ward is reporting this, and cnn as well. John in virginia beach. A republican caller. Caller yes, good morning. If isis is so bad, how come we have 12 and 14yearold girls flying by themselves from the United States to join isis . Host lets talk about that john, and the intelligence behind that. This attraction to isis. What do you know . Guest we dont know exactly why, but we do know that this this mentality that we, most of us, cant get our brain around to understand why a 12 or 14yearold male, especially female, would want to go over, join forces, associate with, purposely participate with a barbaric organization because those videos present some dark side that we dont understand to attract people in. But we do know that there are americans with american passports we had an example last week. In fact, a former military person from new jersey who made an attempt, and if not for the turkish government, he would have been successful. The brits have a big problem with this, as well. And that is part of what is so scary about all of this. If we dont continue to put a lot of effort into staying on top of it, isil is not the jv. This is a very serious organization that you dont bargain with. It is not like they want to negotiate. It is pretty clear, you either convert and join and subscribe completely totally to their will and philosophy, or you die. There is no middle ground. That is why we are seeing the persecution of the christians. That is what we are say that anybody who doesnt totally capitulate is being eliminated in a very brutal, barbaric way. What is the attraction . I wish we could understand that. Host the story today as well that isis stones some iraqis that were accused of about three. Of adultery. I want to go to melvin in fort lauderdale, florida. Hi, melvin. Caller i just want to make a comment. I have been listening to it in 80 and i have been listening since 1980. First of all, when he is talking about members of the coalition coming together and they are against the United States, that is totally ridiculous. You never before have had people come over there exit being a part of the coalition. Why isis is not dealing with isis, because russia has never been a part of any u. S. Coalition fighting them. Secondly you are asking what would he do in yemen. He couldnt answer because he has ran out of talking points. He has made unsubstantiated claims about anything. With respect to the talk we are having, right, after 9 11, we went to the wrong country. We bombed iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of people. That is the main problem we are having now with this particular war. That is why you need have two members on an do with these particular situations, and not let people run off and make unsubstantiated claims. Host we certainly try to get different opinions on the same topic, and we do that to the best of our ability. An invite members of congress from both parties on to talk about whether it is the strategy of isis or the domestic issues. But congressman, i will give you a chance to respond. Guest well, i will measure my words carefully. Whether the caller likes it or not, my views are not republican views. My views are bipartisan views of at least money on the house Intelligence Committee and the Armed Services committee about failed policy from the administration, whether it be yemen, iraq iran, syria, all of these things that we were told. Statements that the president made that have proven to be very problematic for us now. And how we put things back together. There is not a good answer on yemen, so should i make it up that what, i hope the secretary of state is developing a plan and procedure that i dont know about the members of congress dont know about . We have these briefings. Unless they are giving bad information, im not passing on that information. Host a republican. Reed you are our last here. Caller thanks. I have a question i would like to ask the congressman. But if you get a chance, could you put on the shot of Hillary Clinton three and half weeks ago in front of the crowd answering the question about the email scandal with, dont you want to see a female president echo can you president . Can you please put it on the air . Congressman, if the roles were reversed hypothetically and we had a civil war here, and there was a doubt called ike islam here a death cult like islam here, do you think americans would support foreign troops from foreign nations on our soil to fight it . Thank you. Guest no, i do not believe that they would. But i dont think you can equate that to the situation in afghanistan because we are there at their request. They dont have the ability to do this on their own. Whereas if something were to unfortunately have been here, we do have an ability to deal with it. Host the leadership plans to have a couple votes today on the budget for 2016. One would give more money to the pentagon through this emergency war fund. How do you plan to vote . Which bill, or amendment, do you plan to vote for and why . Guest i am continuing to study the budget but are the lee terry readiness capability has been decimated. So making sure that we have the money to prepare troops equipment, to be ready in the case of a real emergency and catastrophe is key and essential. That part of it i completely totally support. Host congressman, thank you very much for your time. By the way, for that last caller who is asking for the verio of Hillary Clinton video of hell are you can go to our website to watch the whole thing there. Coming up next democratic congressman tim ryan. And later, state treasurers from across the country are meeting in washington. We will talk to two of them. We will be right back. Here are some of of the two programs for this weekend. On cspan2s booktvs and sunday afternoon at 5 00 director of the Earth Institute on a Development Plan to counter global issues like poverty political corruption, and environmental decay. And saturday morning at 10 30 eastern on cspan3, a discussion on the last major speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther king, junior. And so the afternoon at 4 00, the 1965 meet the press interview with Martin Luther king, junior. Find a complete Television Schedule at cspan. Org. Let us know what to think about the programs you are watching. Call us at 202 6263400. Email us at comments cspan. Org. Or send us a tweet cspan comments. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host democrat tom ryan. The republicans will bring forth today the 2016 budget blueprint. This bigger of the house yesterday talking with reporters, defending the proposal. Lets take a look. [video clip] we will be considering a balanced budget that helps create more jobs, strengthens our economy from the ground up. I stark contrast to the president budget, which never balances, full of tax increases, and a lot, lot more spending. We are also going to actively strengthen medicare and make the first real structural entitlement reforms in nearly two decades. For washington, this means the end of the dot fix. For seniors, it means Better Health care. And first taxpayers, it means real savings. Host congressman tim ryan . Guest i am not sure youre going to be surprised, but i disagree. I think this is a bunch of gimmicks actually. And i think it lacks any vision for what we really need to do in longterm aspects of really growing our economy. If you just look at the contortions that they have to get through, price budget number one, price budget number two that has the additional letters spending by goes to the overseas account, which basically eliminates the sequestration caps that caps that we have had for both domestic and defense. So they are going to get around the defense caps, meanwhile putting the squeeze on the critical investments we need to make here in the United States. I think it lacks the investments we really need. Host with 18 trillion in debt why isnt it a good thing to try and want to balance the budget . Guest i want the balance the budget too. The question is, how can you get there . You cannot get there without growing the economy and lighting up new sectors of the economy. And that takes investment. We need Industrial Parks that help commerce. We are not making any investment. They are saying we are going to fund transportation, we are not sure how yet. So there is no clarity in the budget. If you look at nih, these critical investments that we always need in this country to help grow our economy, they are not making them in this budget. And if we dont have that kind of growth within other sectors of the economy, we are not going to be able to balance the budget. There are critical investments we need in the country, and i love House Speaker boehner and others talk about tax cuts. You cant fill a pothole with the tax cut. You cant transform your Energy System with the tax cut. So these are investments we need to make, and they are not going to allow us to do it by being so rigid and saying we have to balance the budget now. Look at families. Families take out loans to send their kids to school. Families take out loans to pay for a car. Over time, it is a good investment for you. You will make the money back. I think we need to look at government the same way. Host what about on the defense side . Why not increase the money for the pentagon right now . We just heard from our previous guest about the threats the country is facing chaos in yemen, the president wants to stay isis, battling isis in different parts of the world. Doesnt the pentagon deserve to get more money . Guest yes, they do. I agree with frank. Let me just say that frank is one of the great members of congress. A moderate voice for how we need to move forward. I love frank. But let me say yes, we do. I have been in those hearings. We have hollowed out our military. The provides a lot of anxiety for me to sit through some of these meetings and here is happened to a military because we are not making those investments. The question really here is we have threats at home too. Poverty, inequality, lack of an educated workforce. Those longterm Midterm National security issues, as well. And when you said through some of these hearings, and i have been here a long time now, my 13th year, we have all the old friends threats. The old capabilities that we have from a lot of the threats we get from north korea, iran, russia, all that. And, you know, or to the west. Ultimately, we have new threats. So we have to keep the money in and be investments in the old threats, but as we pivot to asia, we have to deal with asia. And then we have isis, syria yemen. His counterterrorism threats. Afghanistan, keeping troops there to make sure we can have our counterterrorism capabilities. So the old threats dont go away. And the new threats come online. Both need to be funded. And they need to be funded robustly. But that means we also have to make the investment in the domestic economy. Host the senate is also debating the 2016 budget for senate republicans. Senator Bernie Sanders trying to offer many amendments. One of them would be a tax on millionaires. Do you like that kind of idea . Guest i think it is something we need to look at, absolutely. Because of feeling at the level of inequality that has happened in the last 20 years, more acutely, every ceo makes 296 for everyone dollar that the worker makes. They cap between the wealthiest in the country and the poorest and the poorest in the country has grown substantially. And i think we have to ask those folks to help us solve those problems. Any budget always included maybe we do need to trim some spending, but we also need revenue. Again, you cant fill a pothole with the tax cut. You can put in special Operations Forces with a tax cut. You need to make these investments. And i think, given the success that many people have made in making over 1 million year, it is something that we would do. We have never cut taxes during wartime. We did a trace twice during the bush administration. Host i suspect you are a no vote for today when the senate excuse me, when the house votes on these two different proposals . Guest yes, i will be a no vote on both. You cant put a give it a gimmick to get around the deal. The deal was limit spending domestically limit spending on defense. Now the increase is a gimmick. But meanwhile, you know, we are putting the screws to those programs that i think are critical to grow the economy. Host congressman tim ryan talking about the overseas Operation Fund that the pentagon has been using to find the words in iraq and afghanistan. Richard in newport, north carolina. You are up first. Go ahead. Caller yeah, i would just like to ask the congressman there ok, you have a bill for a balanced budget. In the next 10 years. That is what happened with clinton when he supposedly balance the budget, but it never happened. What happens when the next regime gets in . They just throw that right out the window and go on spending like you democrats do all the time. Spend, spend, spend. Why cant you just pass a clean balanced budget . Clean budgets without all this, oh, bring it home to my district . Host ok, richard. Guest let me first say that your facts are off of it. If you look at the clinton budget that was in 1993 that was passed with democratic votes that did create surpluses in the United States. We had balance growth. We had liked tax increases primarily on the wealthy. We trimmed spending. And throughout the 1990s, made critical investments in immunizations, Childrens Health care, College Affordability made those investments and we had the largest surplus ever. And we were beginning to decide if were going to pay down the debt, or what we are going to do with that surplus. And you might remember al gore saying lockbox. He wanted to put the money in to shore up Social Security. What happened is president was came in, republicans came in they basically give away the surplus in tax cuts. And then increased spending, both in the war in iraq and afghanistan and on the Prescription Drug bill. None of that was paid for. So any republican that is tying to tell me that somehow it is the democrats that dont pay the bills, the democrats doing the spending, your facts are wrong. You need to go look at the historic budget from 2000 until president bush left office. Those were wars and a Prescription Drug bill in the hundreds of billions of dollars that was all put on the credit card. You can use the rhetoric, but the reality of it is, it was the republicans who did that. To balance the budget, you have to grow the economy. As i said, president clinton showed us how we can do that. Ask the wealthiest for a little bit more money, not because we hate them, because we want them to create jobs. In order to grow the economy and give them more opportunity, you need good infrastructure. You need a well educated workforce. You need investments in research and technology. And access to those things. You cant do that with the tax cut. I think there are a lot of people in america a lot of wealthy people say i did well under bill clinton. Host al. A republican. Caller yes, i have a question for mr. Ryan. This is due to the avoidable care act. There have been so Affordable Care act. The have been some of the cuts to health agencies. And these are for people who work 30, 40 years in this country. I would like you to work into this. Where the money is going. And these Home Health Agencies are actually shutting down. You know it is a lot cheaper to keep somebody in their home than to keep them in their hospital. Appeared what can we do about this . These agencies are shutting down. You have seniors going to emergency rooms, costing three times as much as host all right asthma to. Host all right, al. Guest that was the idea with you for double care act, to keep people out of the emergency room. Natalie wood health care funding, but in the Medicare Program not only in health care, but in the Medicare Program. A lot of men and women lose their health care when they are 55 or 60. In the old system, they wouldnt go out to get health care. They would wait and say, well, im going to be in medicare in a few years. And what happens is they dont take care of themselves. Once they get into the Medicare Program, they are actually driving up costs because they werent getting basic treatment. That eat up eats up a lot of money that could go into some of the programs this gentleman is talking about. Host speaking of medicare, a headline in the New York Times this morning. Your leader, nancy pelosi, its taking a deal with the speaker of the house. The reimbursement rate doctors get for patients. But it would also continue to fund a Childrens Health program, as well. Guest i have to look at it, but it seems like i will be a yes vote on it. It looks like it is a reasonable fix. This is something we have to do. The doctors are going to take a 20 cut, i believe, if this is not fixed by the and of the month. So i am tentatively supportive. Im he reports hearing reports that there might be a snag in the senate on some abortion language. But Speaker Pelosi has a long prochoice record. And i think she would be able to balance these interests here. Critically, we have to help the doctors and make sure that they get paid and get paid enough to want to stay in business. Some of the reforms look good in here, too, as far as rewarding doctors for quality as opposed to just call you. Host do you know where the vote stands to echo stands . Guest i dont, sorry. As far as the senate, i wouldnt know. Host we will be watching when the house is likely to vote on this thursday. The socalled doc fix. Cspan will have live coverage of the house proceedings. Charles in west virginia, a republican. Caller good morning. Host go ahead, sir, with your question or comment for the congressman. Caller hello . Host yes, sir, you are on the air. Caller i have a couple of questions. Netanyahu is a warmonger. And we have all the senators that have been in congress that signed the letter to you know to back israel. I think that these republicans want to go to war and spend more of our budget money. And i think that, in my opinion they all need to because of hard as a traitor. Thank you. Host congressman. Guest strong words. I think whether you get up to treason or not clearly it is outrageous that senators would send a letter to the regime in iran in the middle of negotiations. It used to be politics at the waters edge. The president was elected twice by the American People to be the commander in chief. You have to respect the office and traditions and the ways we have established our democracy. I think, you know, 47 senators sent a letter. That is why we set up our governments the way we did, to have a chief executive to be able to do and make these kinds of deals. You have to bring it back to the senate for ratification with regards to a treaty, but there is a reason we have it. You cant have 100 people negotiating a deal. With that what we are doing here now. Might as well throw the house of representatives into it, as well. If it is except double, you ratify it. But to kneecap the president in the mayo middle of these negotiations. How would any of these guys like it if they were president and we were undermining the their authority . Host michael, an independent caller. Caller yes. Host go ahead, michael. Caller yes, my question for the representative. I am a disabled veteran retired. And im on the disabled retirement list. And there is an appropriations question for the dav which i think is the lead chapter out of ohio. But anyway, why arent they appropriate funds for these kids when they get home for housing . A lot of them are killing themselves because they have no housing for their families and for their kids. That is 24 day. A day. It is like there is no shock factor anymore with the politicians in congress and the senate. When i grew up, my dad had built housing for veterans, v. A. Housing. And a lot of that housing all of it has gone to the housing and urban development. Why cant they set aside housing for veterans . Why are they ignoring they sent us over there and then they dont want to take care of us would become home. Host congressman tim ryan. Guest there is money for housing, the problem is in this budget when you say we are going to balance the budget in 10 years, you have to squeeze everything. That means there are some priorities that are not going to get match. You have to have a longer vision for it so you can meet these needs. And so there are two issues here. One, there is a squeeze with the budget grid and there are vets who are able to access it. But the other issue here is a lot of vets dont go and ask for. They are afraid to go to the ba. They are afraid to go and see say i need housing. The snap cuts will affect that families. I think it is a twoway street. Have to have the resources there, but we also who are coming back. We need to be able to handle that in a better way. Host lakeland, florida. John is our next caller. John is an independent. Hi, john. Caller hi, good morning anderson. You congressman. I have an economics book published here in 1969. And it says that, well in 1964 it is called the multiplier effect. Every dollar that was decreased in taxes, the government collected two dollars. It is called the accelerator. And secondly, my other point is in the budget. Social security. They take the fica money, what a terrible waste of taxpayer pot money. They put it in a Treasury Bill that only pays 2 . It should be in a blind trust. The stock market has outperformed every other institution. You could get 10 , 15 , 20 return on your investment. Why isnt the budget do they make recommendations to Social Security and say, why dont you put your money in Treasury Bills . Host congressman. Guest first and foremost, when Ronald Reagan came in, he cut taxes. And utilized your theory. This multiplier. You know before you know it, in 1982 19 84 1986, he had to go back and get revenue and raise taxes. Whether it was the gas tax or other taxes against the multiplier wasnt happening to you got to make investments in the country. You cant just type cut taxes. If you take your theory to its ultimate conclusion, lets not have any taxes. How you going to build roads schools, have a Missile Defense system . I am not saying i am for enormous taxes i am for a reduction in the Corporate Tax rate. I think it is too high. I think we need to get in the middle of the pack. But it is like, what is that balance we need to strike in order to both have the revenue make the critical investments and lower tax rates as low as they possibly can be to make sure there is private capital to be able to invest . That balance, which is really important, and Social Security clearly is not a scam. This is something that has to blessed are citizens of the country for a generation or two ago. Now. If you look at what 401 k s are like now, most people have very, very little money in there for one day. Even though have tried to push people into private savings. Those numbers arent really what they should be for people to be able to retire. So it makes Social Security even that much more essential that we beef it up, strengthen it. I think it is even more of a player within peoples portfolio than it has ever been. Host mount vernon, pennsylvania. Sean on our line for independents. Caller high. How are you expect to grow the economy when youre pushing trade bills that are going to decimate the middle class, like the chance Pacific Partnership transPacific Partnership transPacific Partnership . Guest i have been adamantly opposed to it. I will think it is a good deal for the American People. You know, i vigorously fighting both the fasttrack authority to give the president and tpp. I am anxious to see an agreement with europe. That is an agreement i think out of the able to support were your worker standards, your Environmental Standards are much more on par with the United States. So i would like to vote for a trade deal like that. I would obviously have to see the details, but the low wages the huge competitive advantages that these pacific rim countries get will continue to decimate the Manufacturing Base in the United States. I think you go to places in northeast ohio, western pa, you see what these trade deals have ultimately done. I sent a letter to the president , and that is that the president because the people who want the trade deal, the tpp, are the corporate interests. Those folks also want a transportation deal. So im the president should back away continued the negotiations, but back go a and say i want a fully hundred robust transportation bill. When you give me that for 500 five years, 600 billion, then i will talk to you about a trade deal. When these trade deals a lot of the negotiators talk about the benefits that will come from the trade deal. The trade adjustment assistance because they know there will be displacement. I say, if we know what we are going to lose jobs, lets wrap up our investments into our roads and bridges and poured in all the rest and create jobs. That way, it could mably maybe support some of the jobs. I think the president will lose any leverage he has in a transportation bill he wants if he just goes off in science the trade deal. Host you are vigorously fighting against the pacific to radio, but the european one, you are holding their fire. Do you know which one is coming first and when . Guest it sounds like tpp is, you know it in the batters box. Ready to go. And the european deal is on deck. So, we will see what happens. That is the talk now. But we will see. I think there are a lot of people in congress who would say europe has got good Environmental Standards strong employment system, the kinds of things that mostly democrats like. Lets trade with them. Host you are a yes vote on that. Why is the administration that putting that one fourth . Guest it must not be. I dont know the inner workings of their particular strategy. And i cant say i am a yes vote, but roy, it is a lot different conversation that the folks in my district who has seen desolation with nafta we had factories close down diminished , and moved right over the border into mexico and ship the products right back. That has also put millions of farmers out of business that ended up coming into the United States and putting the stress on our immigration system. These trade bills have a lot of impact that unseen i think on the surface. Host congressman tim ryan, as he said, serving 13 years in congress. He represents the cities of akron, the 13th district of ohio. Harvey in kingston pennsylvania. A republican. Caller hi, how are you doing . First of all, i want to let everyone know that im a jewish american. And please let me finish. Lets tell the American People the truth behind the letter. It was instigated by republican senators. It was all the jewish lobbyists whom will do Anything Possible to blow up a promised peace deal with iran. Host let me just stop you because what is the evidence that this was put together or pushed by projewish lobbyists . Guest caller she actually came out and said it verbally. They are the guys they are the they contribute more money to the Republican Party than any other group. That is why all our perspective candidates run out to las vegas and kiss his asked ass. He is a nasty man. Host lets get to your point, harvey. Caller let me get to the point. Where was i . They physically want the destruction of error after war. They are not concerned about Iran Nuclear Capabilities because related dont have any. And i think the whole world knows that. Host guest i know a lot of Jewish Americans who have families that live in israel, tel aviv, and they visit there a lot. I just dont think the people of israel are interested in getting into a war with iran. If you have been there, you have seen how close in proximity everything is. That would be a very dangerous, bloody mess that would result from that, and so i think we are talking about how to get there as opposed to certain people who want to start a war. I would say, you know it is a scary idea to think of things spinning out of control there. Host gary, from texas. Democrat. Caller great show always. Always glad to see senator ryan on the show. My question to representative ryan, the former guest representative, doesnt seem to have any answers to the biggest questions. The war in afghanistan, weve lost another trillion dollars of trying to control that and yet isis is now set to fill their banks with the poppy money. Combine that with what we lost in the drug war in this industry. The answer seems so simple. If we look to the successes of the netherlands and portugal where they have clinics and decriminalize, it knocks the bottom out of all the illegal marketing. What is your take on this seemingly simple solution to a very dangerous situation is crisis is sending themselves if isis is funding themselves . Guest i remember asking him this very question, why do allow this poppy to grow . Why dont we destroy and find another way to help prop them up . I agree with you. I am not sure we can get into the legalization of it because that is something that is country by country and in america, statebystate. They are determining what they are able to make legal or illegal, so i think even getting into that discussion doesnt necessarily address the problem because there will always be countries who have been illegal and there will be a market for this kind of thing. They will want it there and the price will be high and there will be a demand so i think wiping out the poppy is the best way to go about it and help these farmers figure out another way to make a living. Host by the way, the caller was referring to something we showed earlier, fox. Com has something that says afghan drug war is a total failure and this is what they say they are auditing the war effort in putting together human data on drugs and they found that from 2008 2 2013, the u. S. Only seized about 1 of the total kilograms of opium. The bars represent opium seeds and they barely show up compared to the total produced. This is over a fiveyear. This is over a fiveyear period. And now the president is talking about keeping troop levels the same and giving another 800 million in economic assistance, is this money well spent . Guest a lot of this is to counterterrorism in the region pakistan and they are bases in which we have to access what is going on in pakistan, so i think this is deeper than just what is going on with the drug war. It is all tied together. Host we talked a little bit about the trade debate. There is also you know, union issue that is surfacing in congress. Youve got the house last week that got to build their role from the National Labors force that would speed up elections. What is the impact on that legislation . Impact on unions . What is going on with unions in this country . Guest i think within unions, a lot of them are playing defense i think. That is a problem because the attacks are coming from states like wisconsin which you have the public and now the right to work legislation is coming through wisconsin and it was passed in wisconsin and happening in places like ohio. And other states, so i think the unions right now are playing defense and i think the kind of initiative that the president was pushing, card check, these are the kind of things i think would help unions grow their ranks. Lets be honest, without the unions, we would have even a deeper divide between the wealthiest in our country and the poorest in our country. I am recognizing that the country is not as industrial, so to speak, as it used to be. There were 20,000 or 30,000 people working in a steel mill and it was a city in and of itself, so the unions have to figure out how to get more membership because the need is as great today as it has ever been. If you look at the service sector, for example these are the jobs of the future and how are we going to drive wages up for those people . Minimum wage, living wage, those will not pass without the unions being behind them. Where the Koch Brothers are pushing the other side, it is people rallying together and their needs to be renewed vigor within the unions in america. Host the 25th right to work state in wisconsin last week. In your district, is this a big deal . What is the Union Representation like their . Guest it is higher than the National Average and higher than the state average, probably about 50 to 20 of the work force. It would be slightly higher 15 to 20 of the work was. It would be smiley higher than the national percent. The wages have not stayed the same. That is the issue. Greta, i think that 2006 election, the 2004 election was almost about economics until the war. 2006 was about economics, 2008 was about economics, and democrats do not fix the problem fastener. 2012 was about economics. They felt like the president was better than mitt romney. 2014 was about economics. This economic anxiety, the pensions, wages, inequalities, middleclass squeeze, is the issue of the day in america. This is something we really have to figure out because of we dont, we will continue to see this divide between the wealthiest. The average ceo makes 296,000 290 six dollars for every one dollar the worker makes. 296. Back in the 1970s, used to be nine dollars, 10, 15. Now it is 296. That is a huge divide and bad economics. Not only is it social justice issues, bad economics. To not have a middle class that can go out and buy a house and car. Unions, i think, stand at the forefront of being able to reinvigorate that kind of discussion about wages and pensions and the important things that average families are thinking about. Host former secretary of state was in washington last week before that at a progressive think tank and sitting right next to a union leader. Other Union Representation and the headline from tuesdays politico, clinton tries to sue progressives that union event. You are progressive, do you need soothing . Guest no, i dont need to soothing. It is just a media generated story. How do we encourage something to run hillarys left and that would be exciting for us. They could have a big race, but Hillary Clinton has been working on womens issues, childrens issue. What is more progressive than that . Not only doing it in america but around the world. She has been on these ride and butter lunch bucket issues for a long time, so i dont need any soothing from hillary. Im excited about her getting in and running. She is really a unique blend of being able to energize i think our base and also have new ideas. My conversations with her folks in which she has been saying, i think she is ready to come with a new, fresh agenda. To have the experience and relationships with john mccain and other senators that she has worked with, i think can really help bring the country together and help move this forward with a new agenda for a new economy. Host newport news newport virginia, chris, you are on there. One last call for chris in newport. Mike, leslie michigan. A republican caller. Hi, mike. Caller [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, good morning, my question is why do democrats like to take money from unions, sei you, planned parenthood and all that, but they dont like it when republicans take money from Citizens United . Guest well, Citizens United governs all elections and not just democrat and republican. At the problem really is with Citizens United, you do not have a union or a group of people like the United Auto Workers for example, giving limited contributions to your account or even donations to political parties. You have addison writing a check to keep Newt Gingrich in the republican president ial primary indefinitely until he wants to stop writing checks and to have one person being able to do that can continue to feed into that divide between the wealthiest in this country and the poorest in this country. I think you would certainly want an elected representative. Ive republic financing of campaigns, so i disagree with the whole system to begin with. I think you should take the money out of politics. But to give certain people that level of influence, i would much rather take money from thousands of people and collectively put it together to support their issues and if you agree with them, they help support your campaign as opposed to leaving one billionaire who can keep you afloat for extended periods of time. You dont even know who is making the donation and when it is dark like that, that is not good for politics. Host larry. Good morning. Caller my question is on the gop budget. I would like to ask representative ryan, i was born back in the 1950s, so that means i was growing up as a teenager in the 1960s and early 1970s. I have always through Elementary School and in the eighth grade all the way through high school, i had a parttime job. My question is, i built all this money up into Social Security and as you can tell, being born in the 1950s, i am 65 years old in retirement stage. My concerns are with my family, my wife and my children. Being 65 years old and the gop discussing eliminating ties and Social Security, do i really have something to be concerned about because with bad health, pain money into the system, and then they are talking about cutting it out, how am i supposed to live . That is my question. Do the democrats and the president really going to fight to protect my investment . Thank you for taking my call. Guest youre welcome, thank you. We had this fight when they were talking about privatizing Social Security. I thought it then and i will continue to fight it. We have examples of other countries who have put a portion of their Social Security like system into the stock market, and it is very volatile. We saw it happen in 2000 and eight. What if your money 2008. What if you are ready to retire in 2009, 2010, what would your retirement have looked like . That is the ultimate risk you run. This is a social insurance program. This is not where you make a lot of risky investments. This is to stabilize and make sure our seniors do not live in poverty, so that system needs to remain strong. I think there needs to be a reduced amount of risk in those investments, so i will fight the privatization of Social Security. Host entitlement programs picking up a large portion of our federal budget. Back to the debate up on capitol hill this week, republicans dont touch Social Security in the budget blueprint, but they do take on medicare. Where is the Common Ground . Could there be Common Ground on tackling the cost of medicare . Guest i think this is a unique approach, but i think we have an opportunity to address it. Medicare and medicaid make up about 40 less 40 plus and given by health care costs. In the next five years about half the country is going to have diabetes or prediabetes. To think the Health Care System in the United States. You have half your country with diabetes and that will jack costs up through the roof and never be able to afford it. We will spend the entire header budget on medicare and medicaid because of the diabetes epidemic. This goes back to food. Right now, we look at these things as separate issues. If we are going to address entitlements, we need to look at this holistic way. We spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing cops that end up in very highly processed food. This highly processed food over the last couple of decades has led to diabetes epidemics, high blood pressure, all the sicknesses we are dealing with today because the food is cheap and accessible. And then we subsidize health care to take care of the people who are really sick. I think if we look at this coldest sickly and say why dont we take some of this money and afghan farmers who also get paid get the revelation that the revenue and the exactly where they are and asked farmers who also get paid and get the revenue and we ask if we can get that to do people in the Medicaid Program, seniors, and we can bend the cost and address the entitlement issue without slashing benefits and pushing the cause off on seniors. If we continue to eat this process food and high levels of sugar, we are going to think our health care budget. The idea of hearing washington is, look at this holistically. Shift the payments in the farmville to grow healthy food and make sure that food gets to our folks and build a new food system that will reduce the expenditures of our entitlements and extend the life of entitlements. Host we have run out of time but we appreciate you talking to our viewers. Guest thank you so much. Host coming up next, we will be talking to two state treasurers. They have gathered in washington this week and we will talk to two of them about what they do. The biggest drain on state budgets and challenges in dealing with washington. We will be right back. Here are some of our feature programs for this week on the cspan networks. On cspan2s tv at heater walls and talks about the financial crisis and how it could happen again. Sunday afternoon at 5 00 director at columbia university, Jeffrey Sachs on a Development Plan to counter global issues like poverty, political corruption, and environmental decay. Saturday morning at 10 30 eastern on American History tv on cspan3 a discussion on the last major speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther king jr. Sunday afternoon at 4 00 on real america, the 1965 meet the press interview with Martin Luther king jr. Find a complete schedule at www. Cspan. Org and less know what you think about the programs you are watching. Call us at 202 62 630 400 email us at comments at cspan. Org or send us a tweet at cspan comments. Join the cspan conversation like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host Fiscal Health of states is the topic for the next 45 minutes and we are joined by two state treasuries. Jim mcintyre, Washington State treasurer. Along with david miller, who was the Tennessee State treasurer. Mr. Lillard, i want to begin with what do state treasurer is due . Guest theyre usually the chief Financial Officers of their state and they managed hundreds of billions of dollars for State Governments and local governments entities throughout the United States, including Pension Funds. They play a very Important Role in Fiscal Health. Host how do you go about doing your job . Guest a sickly investing monday investing money and offering programs to citizens of that they can use in their state like that. Host jim mcintyre, who do you report to in your job . I elected, pointed, how does it work . Guest im elected by the voters every four years and we have nine statewide elected officials in Washington State. Other states have fewer, but we are very active and i report to the voters. I am there to try and make an independent voice on Fiscal Health and how we manage our finances. Both short and longterm. This is a longterm focus. In our state, we issue a lot of bonds to finance schools and those bonds get paid off over 25 years. We invest Pension Funds for a very long term. So one place in State Government where we have a real strong focus on longterm Fiscal Health for the state. Host what are some of the shortterm forces for states . Guest shortterm, we have a lot of concern about transportation financing. I wrote and ability to finance School Systems and build new schools. Those are real challenges. Host why did you all come to washington this week . Guest many of the issues that we are concerned about as state treasurers that affect the lives of our citizens, we represent in every state. There was that originate here in washington and our legislative conference addresses those issues and gives state treasuries and their staff not only a chance to have education, but to also meet with numbers of congress and their staffs to express thoughts about the best fiscal policies. Host president and Vice President , what is your association, why do you think it is necessary to have it in washington . Guest the National Association of state treasurer is is a nationwide organization that includes officers from every state in the United States. We also have three affiliate organizations involving College Savings and unclaimed property and debt management. It gives us an opportunity, like i said, to share best Ethical Practices among those organizations, but also to serve as a voice for fiscal responsibility not only in the states, but in the United States government as well. Host jim mcintyre, what is the message from state treasurers to washington . Guest we are very concerned about Municipal Bonds. It is our primary tool for financing the Public Infrastructure of state and local governments. We invest and build about 75 of Public Infrastructure. The schools, the roads, the bridges, the public facilities in this country. They are largely financed by state and local government. The typical financing tool is a municipal bond. Which is historically been taxexempt under the federal tax credit host . What is your message to washington specifically . Guest the specific message is we do not want to see the interest on those bonds tax. If we do that, it will mean that we will have to invest less in infrastructure. Host what is the impact overall on state health . Guest the impact can be quite significant. If we tax the interest on those bonds, it would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of infrastructure that we have built over the last decade. Mr. Lillard, your thoughts . Guest there has been an estimate over the last 10 years or so that it has been the president s proposal to cap the Interest Rates of a bond. Citizens would have paid 173 billion more in the cost for infrastructure as he pointed out, we have Higher Education buildings with this in our state and many states use them to build roads. Others have essential Government Service buildings to provide services for the public, and it is a very important thing. You think about a citizen and you think about the fact that the k12 School Building their child goes through was probably built with general Obligation Bonds and certain Municipal Bonds that have tax exception out. This tax exception on Municipal Bonds has been something that has been in the law for over 100 years, and it has worked well for our country. It represents one of the best publicprivate partnerships. It has made America Great today. Recorders of them for structure today was built with those bonds. Host jim mcintyre comics might have his miscible bonds work. Guest when we need to raise money to build schools or new bridges, for example in the seattle area, we go out to the bond market and offer longterm bonds for 20 to 25 years, and we issue those bonds. And ill you to investors an iou to investors and they give us good Interest Rates. We have been able to finance it had about three percent to 3. 5 percent Interest Rates which is very effective for the state of washington. It keeps our taxes low and it allows us to do a lot of construction, particularly during a downturn. Host during economic recession what role do these minas up a bonds play, not only for your state of tennessee, but also what role did a play for investors who were looking to put their money somewhere . Guest they play a role for states because during the great downturn, they gave the states an opportunity to continue infrastructure building and acquire money to fund a project at a relatively reasonable rate, then you have a greater chance of continuing to build infrastructure which maintains jobs and the economy during that time period. It does benefit people who buy the bonds who can use the tax exempt status so that interest in terms of overall tax savings but i want to point out that those bonds are not only for high income earners. There are many retired couples on rather limited incomes who can invest in tax exempt bonds so it is not just something that wealthy people invest in in that regard. Host we are talking with two chief Financial Officers of their respective states. They are in washington this week as state treasurers have gathered here to talk about the issues that impact them. The health of states around the country and we encourage all of you to call them with questions or comments and tell us what is going on in your state as well. These two gentlemen here will respond. David lillard, tennessees state treasurer and James Mcintyre who was the treasurer for washington eight. The forget the calls, lets talk about pensions. Before we get to calls, lets talk about pensions. David dillard, how does it work and what is the help in tennessee david lillard, how does it work and what is the help in tennessee . Guest we do the administration side, putting benefits out, keeping records, and we also do the investment side. That is about a 44 pension plan and it serves many retired employees at many levels. It is a very important thing for our state. We are one of the healthiest plans in the nation. We are 90 funded on a blended aces and we are one of the top five or six plans in the country in terms of overall funded status and that is because we paid the annual funding requirement 100 every year and have since 1972. Guest washington has a little bit different organization. We have gathered all of the local pension programs and they are manage at the state level, so everything is managed and consolidated in a consolidated basis at a state level for state and local government. Our Pension System was reformed back in 1977. We put in place some benefit reforms at that time. We have done some additional benefit reforms since then. We are on a blended basis, 94 funded and all the programs that are open are still accepting people and they are actually funded 100 or better. We manage those funds very carefully. Our investment returns are very good and our benefit schedules are really the idea of the rest of the country. A lot of states have been scrambling to keep up with where we are, so i think we have two very good states. When you can find is that some of these states and pension programs are actually providing terrific returns. . 84 of every benefit dollar paid out in Washington State was paid for through investment returns because we have made the right investments. Host lets get to calls. Will is first. Thanks for hanging on the line. Go ahead. Caller thank you. I was wondering what does the National Association of state treasurer think the president obamas proposal on infrastructure . Guest well, for qualified him for structure bonds and etc. , they are constructed, but we prefer them as an additional tool in the toolbox. As we said earlier in the discussion, we believe the taxexempt status forming visible bonds must be maintained for the reasons we indicated. To the extent that anything, whether it is an alternative proposal or either aspect of it ceases or cap say, that is a problem from our standpoint. Host we will to akron, ohio, democrat collar. Caller i would like to make the comment that i dont know how good morning. [indiscernible] host good morning, listen to your phone an opportunity. Listen to your phone and not tv. Have to move on. Frank in georgia, go ahead. Caller i wanted to ask a question about where our money is going in Social Security and we have not had an increase. We want to know about the lottery, millions and millions and millions of dollars a year are going to the government from the lottery. Why doesnt anybody ever say what they are investing in and what they are doing with that money . Instead of helping those people that need the help and where you cant retire at 65 no more and the kids that are working now have nothing to build up to until they can retire. Where is that extra money going to . The taxes they are playing pain from 65 or 72 or wherever they can retire. Host two different issues, the lottery issue. How does that work . Guest in washington, i cant speak to georgia but the lottery produces about 120 million a year and has for several years, so it is actually not a growing Revenue Source. It is a pretty small part of our budget, but all of those funds are dedicated to education expenditures. In washington, we are pretty clear about how we spend lottery money. Host why is it not a growing resource . Guest well, certain populations find the lottery to be fascinating and interesting and something they want to do on a regular basis, but it is a source of entertainment for people and it is not a growing population. It is just not a real growth Revenue Source. Guest in tennessee, the lottery has been a growing source of revenue and the money is used solely for education like treasury mcintire edging said. We have a Hope Scholarship Program that is used to fund the tennessee promise, a program to provide Free Community college to residents of the state. Tennessees biggest need Going Forward is to have a 21stcentury workforce ready population. We have to have Postsecondary Education to do that, but the key host is it a large Funding Source for you in tennessee . Guest it is a large source for those programs i indicated, the tennessee promise and hope foundation. It is not used for general Fund Purposes or any other purpose like that. I want to assure viewers it is being used for a very good purpose. Host what is the biggest source of revenue for states . Guest that depends on the state and how taxes are structured. In tennessee, we do not have a personal income tax on earned income, so sales tax is about six the percent of our general fund revenue and followed by the franchise tax. It is a Corporate Tax version and those are two biggest sources for the general fund of our state. We also received federal funding dollars. Host jim mcintyre . Guest in washington, you have two treasures from two of the six states that have no personal income tax. For most states, that is the largest revenue stream. We get about half of our revenue from the general fund in washington and from retail sales tax and we get another large tax source from the Gross Proceeds tax which is about 20 . Those are the major sources. Some comes from property taxes. Host how much do you get from federal government . Guest in tennessee, 40 of our overall expenditures are from federal funds. That comes in a lot of different forms, federal highway money transportation medicaid, the 10 care program in tennessee is our version of medicare. Guest i think that percentage is lower. It is significant. Host ted, raymond, new hampshire, and independent collar. Caller my question to the gentleman is, they hold the bonds for a lot of the buildings and construction of state schools and stuff. New england has had some of the worst weather in years and a lot of schools with flat roofs have failed dramatically, causing and caveins. Why cant they design these schools and put like a pitched roof and have entrances to end of the buildings where they had a metal roof, it would be selfcleaning and nobody would get hurt and the roots and Everything Else would last more . Host getting into architectural details of local schools. Guest i serve on the Tennessee State Building Commission and your met and the caller is close to my heart because we should be moving away from groups. Some of the things he points out are very appropriate points to take into consideration. Guest washington has all kind of weather experiences. Of course, we have a lot of rain, but we also get a lot of snow. It depends on the part of the state you are in. Frankly, the architectural work on our schools is very good. All of our School Buildings that are being built now are green. Just about everything we finance with our Capital Budget are green. I want to point out, one of the things we talked about in terms of lawns and having all this of bonds and Municipal Bonds these are issued largely to construct and build things that will be there long after the bonds are paid for. Host nick, pleasanton, california. A republican. Caller all these bonds, it takes over 30 years to pay them off and a lot of money they are asking for. Bonds have tripled the money and nobody talks about that. The people that can buy the bonds are restricted to millionaires. People who have a lot of money. The individual who lives in the area cannot buy bonds, you have to bite 1000 up to buy thousands of them or you cant get any money. When they do that, the price of the project goes up and you are left to borrow the money for something else. Like governor brown, he likes to raid all the money that is being gathered for certain things and take some of the money out of there to put where he wants to put in. Host ok, nick. Jim mcintyre guest . Good point. We have to do Pay Attention to this. We do not issue bonds pabons for more than 25 years. Under federal tax law, the projects have to last longer than our bond payments, so as a result, we do think we are matching the time period for this. In many cases, we are building large project and it is very difficult for us to be able to do those on the paygo basis. I think both of us have urged our states to do more payasyougo financing for capital projects, transportation. To save taxpayers money. We lowered our debt limit to push that. Host do you have to be a millionaire . Guest no, you do not. To binding is supposed bonds you do not have to be a millionaire. It depends on the practices of the particular state, many have a retail sales. Retail sales period. We encourage retail purposes with our bonds and they are limited to 20 years. We are cutting that interest cost as opposed to a 30 year bond alike treasurer mcintyre was talking about. It is important to think about that. Host what is happening with the invisible bonds postrecession and into this recovery . Are you think less investors . Guest not necessarily. I dont think there are problems with purchasers of bonds or willing to invest. There have been some of market uncertainties but they yields on bonds created a cap at about 20 and the president s proposal is an issue. Guest the bond market is about 3. 6 trillion from invisible bonds. Host across the country . Guest yeah, it is very active. I think it is a little over 50 of the interest it that is paid is paid to households with income. So less than. Host john, democrat of new jersey. Caller my question is basically, you are talking about College Savings and i am paying off a lot of student debt and i have a younger sibling who will enter college. I want to know about College Savings plans. I heard they want to do some other bill in the coming months. You have any idea to what the bill will entail a, could mean for potential savers . Guest in our state in tennessee, there is a bill filed on behalf of the College Savings plan network which is an affiliated to the National Association of state treasurers. That with among other things would make computers qualified education expenses. You can use those College Saving funds to buy a computer. I think we could all agree for Postsecondary Education, computers are very desirable and necessary. I would urge and im sure treasure mcintyre what, everyone who has a child or other relative or friend, etc. , who is going to college or post secondary education and that qualifies for college fund, establish a College Savings account to get out of the levels of that we have these days for college. Guest you can invest in these College Savings plans and the interest on that, the earnings on that, are not taxed and can be turned around and paid directly into your tuition for child tuition. Host how do these funds help states . What is the benefit . Guest one of the significant bars post secondary education, the ability to pay for it. As the caller indicated, people arent a lot of debt. Sometimes from post secondary education. That is one of the main things this attacks. Studies have shown that a child with a College Savings account established for him or her is much more likely to go to post secondary education. That is one of tennessees greatest challenges, to have a 21stcentury workforceready population. This is a big part of that. Host there is a revenue stream here for 529 college fund . Guest there is not one for this day, but i would point out at least in washington, tuition is an evergrowing portion of the state cost for education. So more and more, and this is true in most states, more and more of the education cost is being borne by tuition. This is at least one way we can help people save for tuition. Washington has a guaranteed tuition plan, which you invest today and you can then be guaranteed it will cover the highest tuition cost in a Public University in the state. Host william is calling from Washington State, republican. Hi, william. Caller good morning. Ive got a couple of questions. I will ask the first one. We put all of our money into wind energy and solar energy, especially in Washington State. There is energies out there like water that make 800 times more energy than wind starting out. When you multiply that using the paddle wheel type generator, you multiply that by 12 times and you can keep multiplying because of the way the water hits the paddlewheel and we will multiply that by four, in the and run you have water making energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at 100 power and it ends up making 1650 times more energy. Host ok, william, i had to jump in because we are running out of time. Your question or comment. Caller well, why dont we look into energies like that instead of wind . Host jim mcintyre, this is in your guest we dont directly invest in energy or Power Generation at the state level, but we do encourage a lot of Energy Investments and conservation. At the same time, washington our, a lot of it comes from hybrid electric power already and the waterpower, so waterpower is a real source of energy in Washington State and it gives us some of the lowest power costs in the country. Host jeannies next in new jersey. An independent. Caller hi. I was going to ask about the 529 plans but you answered that well. I have another question. Just on news this morning, they were talking about how americans are living longer and a 70 is the new 50. I was wondering how you guys as state treasurers or people as investors factor that into pension planning now . Guest that is a very good point. Mortality is moving in favor of individuals who live longer. American society of actuaries revised the tables to show that both men and women are living longer. For defined benefit potential pension plan, it means your liability goes up as a plan and you can expect to collect benefits longer, so that is an investment challenge for plans for those who are in some type of hybrid plan. There is a need to look at how long you will need the money and to plan accordingly. Also this emphasizes the need to save regularly during your lifetime. Whether it is in ndc plan or some other vehicle because people are living longer and that trend is not going to be any shorter in the future. Host weight in georgia, a democrat. Wade in georgia, democrat. Caller i have a question for both gentlemens. What has Affordable Care act impact what impact has Affordable Care act had on the state . Guest tennessee has not expanded medicaid and we do not run a federal exchange in our state. The federal government runs the exchange. So in terms of State Government it has not had that much impact. It has impacted our version of medicaid because as people who were eligible for a sick medicaid who have not signed up, it is called the woodwork effect, they came forward and signed up for the program which is basically a two thirds federal program and one third state match. Guest in washington, we had already expanded our health care program, so when the Affordable Care act was enacted, it actually lowered our cost because the federal government came in to help and pick up the cost of some of the health care that we were already providing. So it lowered our state expenditures by i believe a couple hundred Million Dollars. It was very effective. We have our own state exchange which we started before the federal care act was passed, and so we were able to get ours up and running. It has been very effective. One of the effects of the Affordable Care act has actually been to bring down costs for health care. That is one of the things i know cbo just did a study that suggested that the Affordable Care act is actually resulting in lower cost increases. Host ted from jackson, tennessee. Caller i have a comment, not a question. This is for mr. Willard. First about mr. Lillard. First of all i was looking can give me an answer, anyway, a lot of kids have had minor drug sellers, and they have less than one month in jail and they get out and cannot get a job because it is on the record as a finale. Record as a felony. They are not murderers or anything, i just wondered if tennessee is making any progress and i will listen to offline. Guest thank you for that question, ted. The Treasury Department and my role in tennessee, i do not directly address that. I would urge you to talk to your legislator or senator or state representative. They have various bills at various times to change requirements and to deal with the reality that you speak of. Host we have about 10 minutes left with our discussion with jim mcintyre and david lillard. Im going to ask both of you, we asked about the largest Revenue Streams for your states, what are the biggest drains on the state budget . Guest one of the biggest expenses in tennessee, the tenyear program. The Medicaid Program i spoke of earlier. Even the one third state match roughly that we put in is a significant amount of money in terms of general fund revenue for our state. That is billions of dollars, so that is significant. There are others but that is the most. Guest in washington, it is for k12 education. Our constitution has one of the strongest requirements that the state fully fund a12 education. And amply fund and currently, we are having a disagreement between the state Supreme Court and the legislation as to whether or not they are living up to the constitutional requirement. Host your two examples, are they pretty much the trend across all state Education Health care . Guest in most states. In tennessee k12 education is a significant portion of our budget, so that is probably number one and number two in most states. Host let me ask both of you this, what impact is washington have on your states . What is the biggest challenge for both of you in dealing with washington . David lillard, if you want to go first. Guest having continual policy with respect to invisible bonds. Keeping the tax exempt status of those bonds. Aiding is in way of College Savings and making commonsense improvements to the College Savings plans for the country. Also, we have the issue of things like gas tax and a federal road funding and such. That is an issue for our state as it is for many states on whether it will continue and how. Host that is a debate happening in washington. The highway bill needs to be extended and a debate over what do you do about gas tax. Guest in washington, the senate on a bipartisan basis, just past and 11 sent gas tax increase. It is a big topic in washington. We have a lot of transportation and we are building some major replacements and transportation systems. For us, it is a major factor and to have a washington not be able to kind of come to terms on how to fund highways Going Forward we could actually use some help. Gas tax revenues are on a downward trend. People are driving less. They are using more fuelefficient cars and as a result, we are seeing that gas taxes is a Revenue Source as a Revenue Source for transportation is beginning to dwindle a bit. We could use some of federal assistance and in thinking about how did we come up with an alternative to that for transportation finance. Can we get developing taxes . Host they quickly, has your state had to raise the gas tax . Guest not in tennessee. As a developer i believe we should have a new construct before we raise it. Guest we raise in 2003 by a nickel and we raise in 2005 by almost . 10. Theyre are talking about at least another . 10 coming up. Host steve from florida, republican. Caller i have a question, why dont they expand you bonds where they have Union Workers investing the union bonds where they will causally create new jobs and they can get a lot of things accomplished, through schools, bridges, and just have the unions primarily selling bonds to the Union Workers. Guest great idea. I have done that in washington. We do a retail sales once a year, and i have had several Business Leaders from the business officers from the unions come to me and say, let me know when those retail sale is coming. We would like to buy some of our own states bonds to invest in washington. Host david lillard, let me give you this next call. Caller thank you for taking my call. State treasurer, he recently in the state house in tennessee a measure came up about the governors proposal, which he was working with the president on the two year free college and you would think that Governor Haslam working with the president on the two year college and in Tennessee Health care, it would be well received. But yet still, the state house of tennessee is still against that. So, i mean, how do you get that . And when you have the state of tennessee in the lottery and is supposed to be going into education and tennessee has one of the largest lottery returns ever, and we get no response to our schools. Guest we appreciate the question. I think number one, we do have the tennessee promise in tennessee that funds Free Community college for residents of our state. It is a direct result of Governor Haslam. The president says we should adopt that for a National Program and that is a matter for national debate. I do not think there is a real debate in tennessee about how much good tennessee promise is going to do. It will do a lot of good. The Treasury Department of tennessee makes that possible by investing those excess lottery proceeds to produce money for the program. Host some states have also moved toward having casinos in their states to help fund education. Putting that on about for voters to decide if that is what they would like. What about your perspective states. Guest we have the lottery in tennessee, but i dont see casino gambling coming. Guest we have some gambling in washington paramount is on indian reservations, and that provides revenues for their government operations. There have been, in the past, proposals for gambling expansion in washington. What we found is that the only way we will actually get more money out of that is to make washington a target state for people to go to to gamble. People dont really feel like that is Washington State. That is not an image they want. Host livingston, louisiana johnny. Independent caller. Caller my question is directed to the person from Washington State. I understand that cannabis has been legalized like colorado. I understand that colorado is benefiting from the taxes coming from their. I just wondered if you feel like that the legalization has been positive or negative . And what is being to what the taxes received being done with the taxes received from the sales . Host if you want to weigh in. Guest briefly, we just started recreational sale of cannabis in Washington State. That revenue stream would be about 25 million for the first couple of years. Host 25 million . Guest 25 way dollars. That is not a lot of money when you have the state budget, but it is new money back is coming in and came in better than expected. I think it was about 30 million or 35 million for the first year. It is a new industry, startup. Seattle only has one or two double stores. Some of the local governments have not been very excited about providing space and they can actually say, we dont want any retail or recreational sales in our location, even though it is legal, they can keep it out. It is a small piece that is starting and we will have to see where it goes. We have to get the pricing right, because there is a black market there. The tax that we imposed on it is pretty significant. Host what percentage . Guest somewhere around 25 , pretty high. The tax that is imposed makes it difficult to sell it below the black market price. Host has that been the only challenge to this new revenue stream . Guest there are several other. One is the fact that under federal banking law and regulations, many banks are concerned that they would be pulled back or the feds could come after them if the department of justice changed its tune and said we dont want to allow this to happen. So it is very difficult to get the money off the street if you cant have these businesses with a bank account where they can do transactions electronically. Host your overall state budget, you just said. What is the number . Guest it is about 16. 5 billion or 17. 5 billion dollars. Currently, it is likely to grow up as we increase education spending. Guest more than 30 billion including state and federal funds. Host there is a big difference. 16 billion and 30 billion. Why the difference . Guest population is different. Our population is smaller than that of Washington State. Economies are based in different areas and with issues like that, those are things that determine the size of your state budget. Tennessee is a conservative state in terms of that. Guest that is just a general fund. Overall budget is probably twice that. About 32 million. Host lets you from jim the house is about to gavel and for morning session, so a quick question or comment. Jameson jim in winstonsalem, north carolina. Caller quick question, is there a proposal to try and collect medicaid longterm care cost from a state after a beneficiary use those costs ties . Is there a proposal for that and what you gentlemen think about that idea . I may have misunderstood, so i would appreciate the clarification. Guest there are some provisions in Tennessee Law that are permitted by the federal state that allows recouping costs. We do not recoup longterm care costs, generally unless there was an issue. At the moment, that is not something we are looking at in tennessee. Host jim mcintyre . Guest im not aware that we are doing anything like that in washington. Host before the house, lets wrap up. Biggest challenge is Going Forward on statelevel . Guest funding for transportation investments and funding for schools. Host and the federal government impact on that . Guest in terms of attacks and the visible bonds could drive up transportation cost dramatically if they start taxing. Guest in addition, investment market is an issue for us because as he indicated, a lot of pension earnings come from investments. Host david lillard, Tennessee State treasurer, jim mcintyre, treasurer for Washington State thank you for being here. Now we will go to live coverage of the house. The house will be gaveling in for the prayer and pledge, and then they will recess until approximately 10 45 when the senate will be joined by the house with a joint meeting to hear from the afghan president ghani. Thank you for watching and we will be back tomorrow morning