Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20160407

President obama and ted cruz have defended natos role in keeping the world safe. Do you think nato is a good u. S. Investment . Republicans call in at 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. For those outside the u. S. , 2027488003. cspanwj and facebook. Com cspan. We are talking nato this morning. The u. S. Role in the 67yearold alliance. We are talking about the u. S. Contribution to nato which equates to 500 million a year, according to Defense Department budgets. Not role has become a concern on the campaign trail. This from the Washington Times this morning. Secretarygeneral Jens Stoletenberg said he welcomed more attention to nato and nato related issues in the u. S. Bit of Donald Trumps recent comments in the Washington Post editorial board. [video clip] donald trump i see nato as a good thing to have. I look at the ukraine situation ad i say, so, ukraine is country that affects us far less than it affects other countries and nato. Yet, we are doing all the lifting. Why is it that germany is not dealing with nato on ukraine . Why is it that other countries that are in the vicinity of the ukraine, why arent they dealing why are we always the one that is leading the third world war with russia . Why are we always the ones that are doing it . The concept of nato is good, but i think the u. S. Has to have some help. I will give you a better example. Ofpay hundreds of millions dollars every year in supporting other countries. Look at germany, look at saudi arabia, look at japan, look at south korea, we spend millions of dollars on saudi arabia and they have nothing but money. Why . And structure a deal and it would be a much, much better deal. We cannot afford to do this anymore. Host u. N. Secretarygeneral Jens Stoltenberg is in washington this week. His comments were part of a fourday visit that included an Oval Office Meeting on monday with president obama. Here is a bit from that Oval Office Meeting. [video clip] it will affect us all, from brussels to the u. S. All the allies contribute to the u. S. Efforts to degrade and destroy isil. We started the training of officers and we will continue to support the efforts of the u. S. And other countries to fight isil. We also discussed how nato can increase our support to all the countries in the region to enable them to stabilize their own countries and to fight isil. Different ways of Building Local capacity. Later in that meeting, president obama called nato a linchpin and a cornerstone of the american and European Security policy. Our viewers for this morning, do you think nato is a good u. S. Investment again, line for republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. Those outside the u. S. , if you have comments, 2027488003. You can catch up with us on social media as well on facebook. This question has been posted and several comments already. Ryan writes in this morning yes, nato is a good investment, but why not cut 10 of our bloated military budget and use the money for our own people . Amy writes i read that nato is no longer what it is intended to be. You can follow was on facebook come on twitter or call in like bob in iowa. An independent. You are up first on washington journal. Caller thank you for cspan. It is indeed a godsend to television. I wanted to wish you and everybody watching a good morning. And then i wanted to get to the question. I think nato is an excellent investment. Wasneeds to be used as a originally intended to be. Organization that only goes into action a whenvely offensively there is a selfdefense reason to do so. With what it that believe to be with all to Samantha Power , lets contrast that with the u. N. The u. N. Does not serve the purpose it was originally intended for at all anymore. Become i guess the best way to describe it is a self injuryed organization for the u. S. Host the concern among donald trump and others who share his view is that nato is becoming too reliant on the u. S. U. S. Direct investment in nato comes out to about 500 million a year. The concern donald trump anothers point out is that nato documents show the majority of nato members failed to meet natos guidelines that were established in 2006 that expenditures should account for 2 of each countrys gdp. You can see from this chart from the nato website, the states actually meeting that target of 2 of gdp from member nations. United states, greece, poland, United Kingdom and estonia. All the other members of nato falling short of that goal. Is nato still a good u. S. Investment . Melissa is in california. Republican. Caller good morning. Say i am foro trump and im a conservative. Is good, but we cannot keep paying for everyone elses way. Theres Homeless People everywhere i go. California is not the same as it used to be. The economy is in shambles. People are really hurting. Everybodys a scornful of the people who cry out for help. I hope we start to listen to each other and care about each other. Before it gets worse. But we cannot keep paying everybody elses way. We have to take care of our fellow americans that are hurting. This nato issue, of course it is important. You have to be wise with your money. You have to take care of your people or you will spend care about the homeless. The nato issue, had some of the people pay for part of it. Its only fair. Host lets head up to montana where carmen is waiting. An independent. Caller i just want to Say Something about that last comment. Acting like donald trump is so concerned about normal everyday people, you see him throwing people out the door without their jackets, people getting beat up on the floor and he is he will payybody for their legal fees. We need to nato. We need anything that promotes peace, especially in these days when the rich do not take any responsibility in this country to start wars, like dick cheney i swear neocons to god, they should be in jail. Host you say we do need to nato. One of the concerns expressed by monti on twitter, it gets us into fights we dont need to be an around the world. In around the world. What would you say to monty . Should i think monty look at the past, 68 years nato , what they have stopped and what they have done for peace. Mideast, ahe whole lot of them want to flood into europe. We need to protect europe and they need to protect us with their intel. We have to keep nato. Donald trump is saying they dont put this much money and its about the piece. Orth more than any war. Its about peace. We come back with some kind of trade deal with workers for . 60 an hour. Host we go to tim. Caller thank you for taking my call. Way too muchng money as far as our share of money. They need to pay their share. It comes down to our kids and grandkids in debt. I know we have to have peace in the world, but we cannot do it with our money. And then telling us what to do. Everything he said he was going to do has been the biggest lie in the world. I pray that trouble get in there because he is not a politician. I was pulling for carson, i thought he was a great, honest person. ,e can pull the nation together he can pull the black situation together, which is credible. We of a lot more credible things here getting ready to break loose. Who are you supporting now . Caller honestly, Bernie Sanders. I hope people cut a lot of stuff out. He is saying the same thing over and over, but if we have three or four of those things, it. Ould change efforts we are a country that is free in a lot of ways. It is set up for the superrich. Every time the market goes down, they make money because they have money to scam. Families in the world making money off of us. Host Bernie Sanders primary fight against Hillary Clinton continues, all eyes on new york. The wyoming caucus this weekend, but the big delegate Treasure Chest is in new york later this month. Hillary clinton talked about the nato issue as well. Here is a bit from some of Hillary Clintons recent comments. [video clip] nato in particular is one of the best Investments America has ever made. In the balkans to afghanistan and beyond, nato allies have fought alongside the u. S. Commissioner and the burdens and alongside the u. S. Burdens ande sacrifices. Theyame known as the are at the heart of what makes nato the most successful alliance in history. Turning our back on our alliances or turning our alliance into a protection hurt decades of american leadership. Host john kasich wrote recently on twitter as these comments came up from donald trump one other tweet, this yesterday from john mccain lets go to tamara waiting in california. Republican. His nato a good u. S. Investment . Caller i dont think so. I think it is a bad investment, both in terms of what it costs and its mission. It was designed to protect europe from soviet incursion. There is no soviet union anymore. Russia has no interest in annexing Eastern European countries. They have as much to fear from western europe as they do from russia. More of a threat to poland prior to world war ii than russia. We need to reduce our investment fiscally and it needs to be repurposed to fight Islamic Jihad because that is a real threat to europe right now. Host you concerned about what happened in crimea and what is happening in Eastern Ukraine . Does europe need to see that as a threat . Caller look what happened in ukraine. Iev, russia coup in k wo small areas vitalaine that are it has interests only acted to protect the russian populace in two areas of ukraine were National Security is important to russia. Look what nato is doing to Eastern European countries. Countries that used to aggregate and have some level of national defense, such as yugoslavia, have been broken up into tiny principalities that cannot protect themselves. That is not a good thing for eastern europe. Host on twitter, fred writes in sherry is up next in florida. Independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I want to say, first off, i fromed the entire program nato yesterday. Before i saw this, i had big reservations, like everybody else, about everybody paying their fair share. After i watched and listened to stoltenberg, last year, we told in nato thatlies they need to start paying their 2 gdp. He said, as of last year, they investment inng military. Yes, they had not started meeting the 2 gdp that they are supposed to, but they stopped the reduction. For people that are saying no, it is a bad investment, im sorry, but they are wrong. I watched the entire program. Yes, people are not paying their fair share monetarily. I dont agree with that. Sweden and finland have played a huge part in afghanistan. The italians are paying a huge part in training. People need to educate themselves, like i do, especially when you have a bad feeling and you dont think and there going right is corruption true, there is corruption on both sides, ok . Like the superdelegates with hillary. The democratic side of the election is rigged. The republican side is rigged. Host we will get into the election a little later in the show. Glad you were able to catch that event. If viewers want to watch Jens Stoltenberg at the lannett council yesterday, go to that at the Atlantic Council yesterday, go to www. Cspan. Org. You brought up how Different Countries are changing their military spending in recent years related to that provision that nato ask that each country of the alliance spend 2 of gdp. Fact checkingwas Donald Trumps statements about nato and u. S. Spending in nato. Diplomat said defense spending cuts have all but stopped in European Countries in response to the new threat from russia. Soon beean powers with spending 2 of gdp on defense. That is meeting nato guidelines. Some of the more recent spending happening in different nato member countries in europe. John in new york. A democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. I watch that program yesterday the lady before was talking about. We only pay . 11 on the dollar for nato. Nato does a lot of things. , alsos also into nasa doing stuff with nasa. They are all over. Nato does good things, people dont read anything about nato and what they do all the time. Whoonly listen to people say what they dont want to hear. They dont want to hear what nato is doing. , pakistan, over iraq all over certain places. You should play that thing that nato lady was saying yesterday again. U. S. Thatlain to the nato is doing so just because the other countries are not paying 2 now, they will be paying it, but we need nato. Host the nato annual Budget Committee was provides 500 million a year the nato annual budget, the u. S. Provides 500 million year. The u. S. And for other countries members that only meet the 2 spending on defense goal. Countries have spent less on defense in recent years. Some of those numbers are starting to change in response to new threats and the changing news in europe. Jim in spartanburg, south carolina. Republican. Caller good morning. Those who question natos before nato, war spread through europe constantly. Sometimes involved russia, sometimes not. Says it is no longer necessary ignore the renaissance stage. Europe has not attacked one another. They have not been in war in six decades. We can trade with them, produceed by war to prosperity between both continents. Those who say nato is irrelevant because weve come of age in the anymore between england and france and france and germany, they ignore the worst that happened in the past. Late ops have even as made back their we protected europe from being overrun by Russian Troops or russian tanks. It does serve a purpose. I cant even believe a politician would say that. If they do come i dont know if they understand military history and world history. Host here is james in a recent article that he wrote about the importance of nato in time magazine. A former nato commander and retired fourstar navy admiral. He wrote that nato is not a cold war relic. If you want to see his piece, it is in time magazine. Larry in minnesota. Independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am voting for trump because he will be the next president of the united states. The whole thing yesterday from the secretarygeneral, i was so impressed. I believe nato is still very relevant. Our viewers. Org if want to watch that event yesterday at the Atlantic Council. Connie in kansas city, kansas. A democrat. Caller good morning. I am definitely for nato. I want to warn other americans, i dont know who they are, but russia and prudent has been has been putin working very hard to break up the nato union. The spread a lot of propaganda through the mideast. To go into all the details, but america has to realize that a lot of this protesting and anger at the west , they are drinking vodka spiked koolaid. Nato does a lot of good in the world. Societyss free democracies and we are truly a union of democracies on the planet. I will be darned if i will allow and ournravel nato western protections. People better think about it, they want to put this guy in the presidency. The leader of the free world. You have a cup of coffee and wake up they needed to have a cup of coffee and wake up. People are reading too many alternative news websites and not bring attention to the facts. Paying attention to the facts. This country has to be its own filter. Since we dont have people editing and double ,hecking news online anymore human beings, especially americans need to be more careful and check into these things themselves. They have to be their own editor and they have to be smart enough to check all kinds of different sources for their information. Host connie in kansas city, kansas. We go back to your phone calls in a few seconds. Did want to point out some news on a story weve been following some of the Obama Administrations efforts to cut down on corporate inversions. Post front page lead story. That is the news a story on the front page of the Washington Post. If you go to the opinion page of the wall street journal where column abouta this deal and what happened and the pressure that pfizer came under from the u. S. Government. A response from the chairman and ceo of pfizer in todays wall street journal. Back to the phones. Barbara in las vegas, nevada. He democrat. In morning. A democrat. Good morning. Caller i thought nato, one of the main reasons they were formed was due to nuclear and gaining im sorry, i had it right before. Host are you talking about concerns of the Nuclear Threat . Caller right. Not tonted to countries create or make or go after Nuclear Weapons. They joined and the big countries joined because we did not want a lot of countries to weaponslear, atomic laying around everywhere. Host i think you are talking about the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty. Reason that was the main one of the main reasons of nato being put together. That facedlp nations russia. We dont want to get into a nuclear war. I thought that was one of the main reasons that nato exists. Trying to keep Nuclear Weapons from running around everywhere. Host falls church, virginia. Independent. Good morning. Caller i want to put a vote in for intellectual honesty in the various topics of debate this morning. Stop personalizing the value of the question is, is nato a good investment . I dont think anybody would disagree that if you invested in a company and got nothing from it, you would call it a bad investment. I dont think anybody is saying that we are getting nothing from nato, but the comments were, are we getting enough . Are we getting the value for the funds we are putting into it . Legitimatet is a area to look into. Start a debate to say, wait a minute, should people be paying dust peopling more weight should people be pulling more weight than the u. S. . I would like to see more intellectual honesty about the debates instead of standing up and saying yes, nato, yes, nato. Lets relook at things and stop personalizing as to the person who makes the attacks. Host we appreciate the call from falls church, virginia. David in lake city, ford appeared a republican. Lake city, florida. A republican. Caller god bless america. Bad,nk nato is good, it is i think it should be revamped and more used and everybody pay their fair share in the world. It is not doing what it should do anymore. It needs to be straightened out and revitalized. I think they should stop hounding the man trying to straighten the world out. Note in thiser segment of washington journal, a story in the Washington Times about obama revisiting Chicago Law School. He will promote his nomination of judge Merrick Garland. The president will make the argument that republican lawmakers are refusing to hold a confirmation hearing. We will be covering the president s comments today at 3 30, life here on cspan live here on cspan. Randy in michigan. A democrat. Host good morning, john. I would like to start out by thanking you and all the men and. Omen who bring us this show i do believe nato is a good investment. You also have to be careful that deinvest in our nation. About what mayed happen in some other third world nation. If the other people are not going to keep up to pay, the nato is not a good investment. Not invest in this nation. The Republican Party does not believe in investing. School in 2008 when everything was going bad, if we wait one day for one year on building one of our buildings , it would cost us more money than it was to borrow the money and pay the interest on the loan for the five years. Youve got years of cheap money and you have not invested in this nation. You have to invest in both. You cannot have a sick country and claim you are a secure country. Therennot have kids out how will these younger kids buy houses and cars coming out of college with 50,000 in debt . You better start paying them 75,000 a year. We cannot ignore our nation to protect the world because then notnation becomes that third world, but slower to respond. I hope that made sense. Everybody have a nice day. Host edwin on twitter says the u. S. Invested in nato, 22 , 500os annual budget million the u. S. Gives to nato annually. To spend 2 ofrs their gdp on defense spending. The u. S. And for other members of nato are the only ones that meet that goal. On the u. S. Er take commitment to nato in the history of nato. It would seem nato partisans are not the ones who value the onessans are who dont appreciate the role of change in international affairs. Time for a few more calls in this segment. Reese in fredericksburg, virginia. A republican. I want to remind people that turkey is also a member of nato. I believe if somebody attacks turkey, we have to go to attack the people that attack turkey. Turkeys attacking everybody else. Somehow, we are supposed to go in and say slaughter a bunch of people in iraq. We are supposed to go in and take care of turkey. No, i do not think nato is a good investment. The reason why russia and the west are getting and the west are getting in problems is because they want to push nato right up to russias border, which would make us nervous if mexico or canada put all their troops on our border in an offensive move. Say direct, they investment of 500 million. In direct investment is billions from our defense budgets. I would hope that, yes, we need to take a look at nato. We need a new way of looking at the world. That is why im voting for trump. Reese talking about the article five commitment that comes with nato membership. An attack on one is considered an attack on all nato member nations. In our river,rles michigan. Independent. River, michigan. The last couple of people are basically right. Nato was a good thing and is still a good thing, but we are inot getting our bang for our buck. We are paying to be at nato exercises. Is oneto send them thing, paying to be there gets ridiculous. Still good inod, reality, but the rest of the must pay their way so we so the burden falls on everybody, not just us. Victor in cartersville, georgia. Democrat. Caller good morning. I think nato is a very excellent investment. Keep needed, it has helped peace. Ismps comment about nato one of the many, many reasons why this man has no business being president. I hope hillary gets elected. I would also like to make a comment i think president take theuld republicans to task for not doing their job on his Supreme Court nominee. He needs to go ahead and do recess appointment. That would shake things up, wouldnt it . Host taking republicans to task, you might hear that today at 3 30, president obama set to speak at the university of Chicago Law School about his nomination of Merrick Garland. You can tune income that we are showing it live on cspan. We should Hillary Clintons hillary we showed clintons comments on it appeared here is ted cruzs comments. Writingor to ted cruz some remarks from a top foreignpolicy adviser to ted cruz in the wake of Donald Trumps statements. Linda in gardner, maine. A republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead, linda. Caller i think nato is a good countryut i think each leads to equally pay their fair share. If trump is president , he is a good businessman, that is just what they need. It needs to be treated as a business. Hillary clinton should not even be running. Host talk more about fair share. The you have thoughts on what that might be that should do you have thoughts on what that might do you have thoughts on what that might be . Caller i think they all should be paying the same amount. Host you think it should be an equal amount from every member country . Caller yes. Host kenny in california. A democrat. Caller thank you for cspan. I think nato is a good thing. Have military to in so many countries that is costing us a fortune . The amount of four and eight we give to so many countries in so many of these countries are so corrupt the amount of foreign aid we give to so many countries, we have to evaluate what are government our government is doing with our money. Host albert is a democrat. Go ahead. Caller thank you for cspan. I tried to call in when you had the general on earlier this week. If i was in uniform still, i would be totally supporting nato. No commander is ever going to want to take command with this budget. People are dismissing donald hand. S position out of mid1990s, the split of yugoslavia, the u. S. Did with nato, but europe was totally impotent in that situation. Whether it was the times or the post, they reported on exercises in germany and this german unit tell me u. S. Money is not subsidizing any type of nonmilitary issues in europe if you can have a military unit show up for exercises without even having the Proper Service rifle. That is all i have to say. The gentleman from falls church had it right. How weime to look at support nato. Undera bit inequitable those two examples i mentioned. Host the wesley clark interview you talked about also available at www. Cspan. Org. That will do it for our first segment of washington journal today. Olivia golden. Later, patrick maclachlan joins us to explain the centers new study that ranks the 50 states by the affect that federal regulation has on each states economy. Book tv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Here are some of the programs to watch for. Saturday at 1 30 p. M. Eastern, book tv is live at the 21st annual Los Angeles Times festival of books at the university of southern california. Afterwords with jc watts talking about dig deep , his new book. He is interviewed by kevin merida. You will have to overcome adversity. You have to unlearn some things that you have to have humility. To run thened to try race. When i was an f, the focus was if my skin color was an issue, that was everybody elses issue. Sunday at 10 a clock p. M. Eastern, Julian Thomas talks that examines how title vii of the 1964 Civil Rights Act affected working women. V. Org for the complete we can schedule. Weekend schedule. The book tells both the story of the fact that the manuscript is not what we thought while also trying to chronologically think about what was madison encountering at the time . Keeping those two narratives straight was quite tricky for a while. , mary sarahght bilder discusses her book madisons hand, which takes a critical look at the notes madison wrote before and after the constitutional convention. Madison took the notes on sheets of paper and folded those sheets on half and half. In folded those sheets an half. One of the wonderful things we noticed, the last quarter of the manuscript, the holes he had sewn did not match with the earlier ones. This confirms my suspicion that the end of the manus crypt had been written later. It was a wonderful thing to get to see that in person. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Washington journal continues. Host olivia goldens executive director at the center for law and social policy. To joins us this morning talk about food stamps. In light of reports that thousands of recipients could be kicked off the program due to work mandates that are coming back into effect in over 20 states. Explain what these work mandates are and where they came from. Guest it is more accurate to call them time limits than work mandates. You can want to work, try to work, but if you dont actually have a job for more than 20 nours a week and you are a adult not caring for children or technically disabled, this has a time limit that says you can only get benefits three months ended three years. It is a very unfair and harsh provision and it has not been in ofect for the whole period the recession and the years after when the Unemployment Rate was slowly getting better. Has a provision that says states can wave this harsh requirement when either the on appointment rate in the whole state or parts of the states high. State is high. The concern that another estimated halfs a Million People could lose the help they are getting to buy because either states are forced to put that time limit into effect because their Unemployment Rates have gotten better or in some states, they are actually choosing not to use that waiver when they could. That 500,000 people still small portion of the people on food stamps. 69. 7 billion of u. S. Spending. Heres the headline from the Washington Post last week. States . E 21 why do they not apply in the other states . Guest one thing is the Unemployment Rate. Andlaw gives some criteria says if your state as a whole or areas within your state have an overall problem with lack of jobs, you can wave the provision waive the provision. They have a choice about other important policies that could come back, offering everybody a job or Training Program and then they would not have to cut them off. Is unfair about this rule, say you are working two days a week at a fast food place and you back for more hours and have not gotten them, you are still working under 20 hours a week even though you want to work. States that have to impose the time limit could help people out by offering opportunities. Is the statesgory that a chosen to. There are some governors from our perspective wrongly thinking that maybe it would be better not to w the time limit. The time limit. In louisiana, Governor Jindal said it would support work to not go for the waiver. Governor bill edwards has said the opposite. Edwards has had the opposite. It doesnt do anybody good when you make people go hungry. He is proceeding to get that waiver of the time it. Time limit. Host a special line for those who have been food stamp recipients. 3. 2748800 otherwise, our lines are split up as usual. Republicans, 2027488001. Emocrats, 2027488000. Ndependents, 2027488002 if somebody is going to be kicked out of the program, how does that process work . Are there other social safety nets . That theye answer is have the least help available to them. They are not caring for children come on the recent Study Suggests a fair amount of them may be caring for an elderly relative. They are not formally classified as disabled. There is not much else available. These are among the most honorable people. Vulnerable people. It is a complicated process and there are a lot of worries that states will make it worse by not doing it well. There are two policy steps. One is decide whether there are areas within the state where there arent jobs and you can get a waiver. The second is to decide whether to offer people training or work opportunities, which is a choice that is open to all states but only five have made it. The practical side of it is the states need to collect information they would not normally have in their files, like they need to check to find out about disabling conditions, check to find out how much somebody is working. And they have to give people notice and implement it well. Host a map in the Washington Post. The dark blue circles are the states where work mandates take effect this year. The lighter blue circles where work mandates have already taken effect. The gray circles are the states where they are not enforced. Taking your calls as we talked to olivia golden from the center for law and social policy. Debbie in bank report, alaska. Rt, alaska. O caller good morning. The food stamp program, every time i see one of these shows, there is nothing wrong with the food stamp program. People can come in and buy ,hips, candy, frozen tv dinners power drinks and they spend their money on so much junk food. People, like myself or retired people people who dont have food stamps are struggling to eat. That is the frustrating part, to me. Guest i want to start with what you said about people struggling to eat. From theho gets help nutrition assistance program. When you look at the whole set of people getting help, most are familiesr disabled, or raising kids. Most of the families are working. Most people are in jobs that are lowwage or not enough hours. It is a lifesaver. One of their thing that is important to note, people snap at a low point in their lives, almost everyone in snap works the year before or the year after. Getting this help is all of us. I think that is an important way of thinking about it. One of the things to remember when shopping, all of the people in line, who are your neighbors and friends and parents, they are also likely to beginning help. Scrutinizing choices is not a way of seeing the contribution of the program as a whole. Host there are charts on the percentage of households receiving snap benefits. We can go through the different states as callers call in. David, dayton, ohio. Good morning. Caller how much, how involved is alec with these decisions . The Koch Brothers mafia thing. It is horrible what they are doing to the people. Debbie from alaska, what if you . Ive in a food desert detroit, dayton. Have compassion for your brother or sister, or americans. Guest i dont know the answer to how much alec has been involved in the states. When a state makes a choice that is not a good choice, namely to impose unfair requirements, even if they are trying their best to find work but they cannot find it, that is a real it is a bad choice, not just out of compassion, but also, when we look at the long run results. Eating is not optional. We make sure people are able to eat. See longrunto benefits. We see reductions in poverty it if you areense that hungry and dont know where your next meal is coming from, it is hard to concentrate. Host the federal government spent almost 70 Million Dollars on the snap program in 2015. What does that equate to . It depends on the size of the family and the amount of the income. For the people here, single ,dults, who could be cut off their incomes are low. About 20 of the poverty level. People are getting help. The benefit is not large enough to you have to devote Additional Resources to get nutritional food for your family. Host we have the special line for recipients to call in, 202 7488003. Sandra, go ahead. Ago, i sent an email to our local politicians suggesting the quality of the food for the snap program be increased. The way it is done, the quality of each item could be rated from one to 10. That way, when they go to check out, lowfat hamburger would maybe get a 10, highquality, organic milk, would get a 10. Quick foods would be rated lower. That way everybody at the checkout could pay for what they wanted to have, but the program would only pay the percentage for the healthier food. Because of all of the medical issues that are around in the world. 23 Million People are diabetic or prediabetic from bad food in carbohydrates. I am also paying for their health issues. I work very hard. I know the quality of food is savetant and in order to money in the health sector, it is important we get people on the snap program. Do you still receive benefits . Caller i do not. I grow all of my own soon. All of my own food. I want to highlight one headline. One of the Things Research does is that the investment ,e make as taxpayers in snap when parents have the money to purcha food for their children ,ithout worrying every second they make food choices when they are not desperate. Your thoughts on how to make it approaches is the how you get good food into low income communities. If you think about the typical , the personnt working a lot of hours at low jobs, at lowwage anything that requires time from work if less likely to you can improve the Grocery Stores. It is a fruitful area to think about. Host about 17 of households receive snap benefits. The numbers in the charge, you can see. Jim is in knoxville on the line for food stamp recipients. At one point in the late 1990s, i did apply for food stamps and did receive them. I provided some information. The next thing i know, i am allowed hated i am allocated a small amount of food stamps. My problem with the program is this. Many of the colors have ,entioned, a lot of the people i can only speak for myself. Andes like memphis, dense urban, often times i will see people with shopping carts full of nothing but junk food. Sugar products, carbohydrates, no nutritional value. I am not as concerned about the adults as i am the children. Children are slurping down these high sugar drinks. The first lady is all about nutrition. She should have done something to reform the program to make it impossible to purchase those products. Supplements. They can be bought using food stamps. I think you should take a look at that as well. Many of the people on food stamps have a limited education. Dont know if you do this i dont recall sitting through a workshop on how to make healthy choices. Foods that can help your child develop properly and help you be a better parent because you have good, solid energy to help you canhe children and be a positive role model for your child by eating whole foods. Those reforms would be helpful. I am not against the program. There are many people hungry out there in america. I am all about helping my brothers and sisters. It needs to be reformed. That about covers it. Thank you for taking my call. You not help from food stamps for a brief period, when you needed it and it helped you and the rest of your life. That is the typical experience. People are typically getting help for a short period of time. There is a website where snap alumni talk about their experiences, or when i meet theye, there is the sense want to give back. I got help from others when i needed it. And how she managed a time when you are trying to put yourself through school. It helps many people feed their kids. The idea that is an investment by all of us. It is about one in eight americans overall getting help. At somel need help point. In terms of the nutritional value, there are Nutrition Education programs. One of the strong Nutrition Education programs is a program ,hat is not the same as snap but related. Very many women get help with breastfeeding and the ability to buy food for themselves and their babies in the first year of life. That is very valuable. I want to emphasize the importance of changing the supply, the issue of where you can get groceries and where Healthy Foods are. Probably increasing the benefit down the road to help people make healthier choices because those choices are expensive. Host has there been an effort to redline certain items . There have been debates. Congress has concluded that you can do that for everybody. Ator bloomberg proposed that one point, a soda tax. It does not make sense to ask the poorest people with the least access to food to bear the whole burden of improving health habits. There has been a lot of work in in improvingam health. In the state of washington, the number of households receiving benefits in 2000. in 2013, it has jumped up to nearly 15 . I have a couple of questions. Do you take a paycheck from the organization . I am the executive director of the organization, so i have a salaried area so i have a salary. Our mission is practical policy solutions that will improve the lives of low income people. We work with states and cities to put good ideas about childrens programs, childcare care, post secondary education, workforce programs, jobs, ideas about what can improve policy. Is any part of your Organization Funded by the Retail Grocery industry . Guest no. Theer you work in compassion industry. Our problem is we have lobbyists thisshington who allow program to be hijacked by Retail Grocery industry. If our goal is to feed citizens and be compassionate, why are we paying retail for groceries . On are we paying sales tax our tax dollars on groceries . Why are we allowed this compassion to be used at fast food restaurants . Why do we allow cash back on these cards . Help me out with your Shadowy Group . If it is about compassion and feeding people, why are we paying retail for groceries . Guest a headline on your point about cash. Snap cannot be used for cash. One of the things the government investigators who look at fraud abuse have highlighted is that the federal government has done a good job of reducing those problems. Technology to identify what is going on in stores. That has been brought down substantially. Would suggest for a lot of detailed information on the issues that she talk about, i would suggest, not our website, because we look across a wide range of enabling people to find , help children, so we do not have as much on any one specific program. If you look at the website of and priorityet policies, you will find the information on the particulars of how all of those other issues ay out in the snap program. The headline i would say is one of the ways snap is our only National Program that helps everybody. You should not be hungry and the richest country on earth. We found an efficient way to do that. You do something differently . We have an efficient way of helping people that does not cause taxpayers much money, but it does cut down on fraud and abuse and get people to the help they need. When you look at what we know from the research, and has paid the long runof results. Waste, fraud, a and abuse percentage that has come up on the snap program . Down to probably 1 from higher levels in the fans has used technology to find stores that are problematic. It is an honestly run program. York, 2000, the percentage was 8 . By 2013, it was nearly 16 . John is in brooklyn. Good morning. I am a disabled veteran. I am on food stamps. Get food stamps, i dont know what i would do. They talk about abusing food stamps, everybody dont abuse food stamps. You are talking about 2 to 3 of the people that use food stamps. Dont put everybody in the same category. In the poor neighborhood where i live, we do not have good schools. Why dont you educate everybody and then you will not need food stamp programs. Pay everybody twice five dollars or 30 an hour and cut out all of the subsidizing stuff. Need help. Ot regardless of the job you work. Schools. Ocus on in my neighborhood, we have 30 kids in the classroom. People are not learning. Needis what makes people food stamps. We have led in the water. Learn. S it hard to why dont they just give them good food, educate everybody, and you would not need food stamps. I am glad snap is helping you. Thank you for your service. Thing i want to highlight is how it is helping you through a. As a helping you three period as a disabled veteran. You are typical in one way in terms of the help people need. The second thing i want to highlight is the point that higher wages would help. Things that is true of snap and health insurance, there is a whole range of help that our Public Programs give. Is sometimes broken is the private job market for lowwage jobs. Enough andnot paid they often cannot get enough hours. It is frequent these days that someone will want to get it. Even if someone is trying to work, they could lose their ability to get help. You are just past the higher minimum wage, i think you are right, it will help families a. Ot and reduce the need i hope at some point it happens for people who work. Host could food banks and private charities pick up the need for the people . Up to one Million People could lose their snap benefits under this rules that kick in year. Is there enough capacity in charities and private organizations to pick this up . Guest food banks say no. They are supposed to help with the greatest emergencies, not take on the role of government. What will fix it is states offering work and training to everyone who is cut off. We need to six it. Caller i am 87 years old here to get 16 a month in food stamps. I work part time. I am a disabled veteran. I get a small amount of Social Security because i retired early. I penalized myself. Cant you buy cooked food from a supermarket like rotisserie chicken . It is food and you cannot buy with your stamp. When i see people with carts rolling with sugary drinks and a lot of other stuff that is not nutritional and they cannot hardly sit it in the wagon. I dont understand. What is 16 supposed to do for a person . I live alone, i still work, parttime, 20 hours a week. Minimum wage. How come my situation how could my situation be approved . Then you have the other group who sells their food stamps. Nobody seems to they get a good amount of money. They have tried to sell them to me. Host thank you for the questions. Glad they are helping. It sounds as though you have done some extraordinary things as a vet and in your work. To highlight that in telling your story, you help other people understand who gets help, people who are disabled, people working parttime, and it is not much money. In terms of how could we help more, we should be looking at the amount of benefits. Higher wages, better jobs would be an important contribution. Your comment about not being able to buy cooked food raises a broader topic relevant to questions asked before. Every time you make a rule focus theo help you dollars more narrowly, that is one of the challenges of writing. Arrow rules in the law fors not supposed to be restaurant food, it is supposed food you cook at home. Make that law, you will have consequences. That is one of the challenges of creating a program that is for many different people. Caller the government does not os anything. Ou were able to buy they should allow food stamp recipients to buy at the lowest price. I dont hear anyone in this country making a ruckus about the emigrants receiving food stamps cards. You see the ebt cards in their hands. Havee in this country ilked the system. It is being taken from people and need. Guest your story of having used help ite 1970s to through a difficult time in your life, most people do not need help for a long time, but they need it for a time when the income from work is not making ends meet or they are between jobs. Host here is louisiana households receiving snap benefits. Guest the recession years were a National Bond and a bump in each state. When there is a disaster, it will automatically respond. One of the challenges in the program is that many immigrants, and people who are contributing in many ways, are not eligible, but children are. We know from the research that kids who eat well, who are able to get help from the snap program, do not go hungry, will. Ucceed better as work others host lets go to peggy. I am not denying there is a need. Maybe it should be for a Safety Limited ind vets what they could do, some of the single moms struggling. Theperienced this in 1970s. I would see kids come in with the food stamp, they would buy a five cent piece of candy and ,hey would get . 95 in return two minutes later, here would come a mom and buy a pack of cigarettes with that . 95. I said to my dad i dont want to sell the candy and he says we cannot control that. Exposed toer, i was how corrupt this can be. Divorced, struggling, i probably qualified for food stamps. I would not think of trying to get them. Things were different back then. There was not a sense of entitlement that someone owes me anything. I never went and applied for them. I remember when my son was five, i was at the Grocery Store ,uying a boxed cake makes standing behind a lady buying a 20 birthday cake for her child using food stamps. I see that time and time again. There is corruption. As long as it is a government program, i dont see how it is not ever going to be corrupted. Host what would you do to fix it . Are one or two things she would do to change the program to make it less corrupt . A lot of these larger cities where you see more people using food stamps, there are big, empty buildings, why not make a warehouse situation, but you have to come in with your id, showing you are the person receiving food stamps, and have these warehouses full of the food they are supposed to purchase. Drinks,t of sugary good, wholesome foods. We haveo be a way to put more regulations in place because they are not following them. Selling theirlly food stands and things like that. Putting them in place of a temporary measure, once people get on assistance, they dont ever get off. Guest the program has been reformed and improved since the 1970s. People are not getting cash. When you were thinking about your kids are front and center, the reason for applying for snap is because it is the right thing for your children. I would say the program has. Mproved it is important to remember how not just large cities and specific groups, it is people in the city, country, suburbs, who are at a tough time in their lives or for whom the economy is not working. Just a step back to the safety net, one of the things that is , the one or two programs that are broad, the earned income tax credit helps people working. When you make something that requires much more local focus, we are going to build a warehouse, one of the things is a place where the need is. Host mary has been waiting. A food stamp recipient. Caller good morning. What is your, . Caller i receive food stamps. Buy asd use my income to , to as i can with my income supplement, not give me 100 . I am disabled, but i have a long time working history. Stuff happens to people. We are vilified, criminalized, stereotyped and so forth. I would have no problem, food stamps or buying cookies and cakes, that you cannot go to the fast food places and by your hoagie. You take the money and you buy the lunchmeat and tomatoes and make your own hoagie. Ismentioned, there supermarket. Camden new jersey only has one supermarket. I bust my groceries. I cannot walk. What am i going to do . Carry one bag . People do the wrong things. Stop trying to take away from us who do the right thing, are trying to do the right thing, search out those doing the wrong thing. I live in fear that i am going to lose, even though i am trying my best to do the right thing. Guest you said stuff happens. We should not think of people who need help putting food on , astable for a few months different from us. It is all of us at some point in our lives. That has come through in your comments. To and it hasrks low rates of fraud. Thing, to come back to the time limit topic, as you to taket would be harsh away the ability to buy food, and unfair, from people who need it for a few months and you are not able to find 20 hours of work. Golden, thank you for your time this morning. Up next, patra maclachlan will be here with George Mason University jake a mercators center. We will be right back. American history cheating on cspan three. At 8 00 eastern, on lectures and history. Factors, old obstacles falling by the wayside, by earlier, lincoln has decided when the time is right, he will announce a new aim for the war effort that union human freedom. Tracy mckenzie on the war goals of the north during the civil war. At 10 00 on real america. It possible for america to achieve such production and build an army . The amazing reports came in from the united states. Of the work is women power. List documents how women in world war ii helped the war effort. Sunday evening at 6 00 on american artifacts. ,isit the daughters of marking the anniversary of the exhibit. One thing that stands out is the creation of this imagery of the apotheosis. It is an old concept that goes back to ancient times where a godlike bymade lifting him up and celebrating him. Washington and jefferson are the most prominent examples of slavery in presidency. James madison, who followed jefferson as the fourth president of the united states. Responsible for proposing and expanding the 3 5 compromise. Tyler perry, the professor at California State University fullerton. For the complete weekend schedule, go to cspan. Org. Continues. Journal here patrick maclachlan is. He put together a study on the most and least regulated states. If we are talking federal rules and regulations, shouldnt they apply uniformly up ross the states . Rank morene state regulated than the other . Guest it has a distributional regions ands states. We are looking and industries. We can say where are those industries concentrated, what is important relative to the nation overall and we can put those facts together and say that is moreis state impacted by regulation. Host lets put state examples with the melon with the methodology. The most regulated states are louisiana, alaska, wyoming, indiana. The reason those states are at the top, as of 2013, they are specialized in one industry. All ofot the same across them, but they tend to have a large portion of their economy come from a single industry. Is also heavily regulated. Chemical relies on products manufacturing to produce things in their economy as well as oil and gas extraction. Those are heavily regulated industries. States will maximize the resources they have available to them. If the industries are heavily regulated, those will be the states that rise towards the top. The rules and regulations of the federal government, the code of federal regulations to figure out the rules that apply, there are over one million regulations that prohibit some form of activity. Form, a chart of how it has grown from 71 thousand pages two 174,000 pages. The reasons for that sharp growth . Of the line ise the same slope over time. There are a couple of deviations here and there. The reason for it is congress has passed laws, installed permanent agencies. Agencies will make regulations until congress d funds them, which is rare. You have constant growth from the addition of more and more agencies. Of agencies has grown over time and so have the number of regulations they produce. Is your report only looking at the cost side of regulation . There is the argument that regulations have benefits, whether they are safety, environmental. How do you quantify cost versus benefit . Guest we are not measuring either of those. Are designed to stop people from doing something or to make them do something. We are trying to caption that. It could lead to benefits, it could lead to cost. We are trying to measure that in the first place to better understand the consequences. Leastthe states at impacted. Guest New Hampshire is first, washington, d. C. , rhode island, massachusetts, vermont. States in the northeast that tend to be near the bottom of the list, and some on the west coast. Not just variation across states, but across regions. Aboutwe are talking federal rules and regulations and the impact on dates. We want to hear your stories. Give us your perspective across the country as we talk about these rules and regulations. Epublicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. We will put those numbers up on the screen and leave them there for you so you know what number to call in. However, democrats from louisiana, the state most impacted by regulations in 2013. Myself, one question is, haves it that people that low incomes, working all of myself, when ie go for assistance or some type of stamps assistance, they tell i cant get 15 a month. After i get that, they tell me i have to reapply after 90 days. I am trying to understand that. There is a connection between regulation and different income groups. ,ne thing we have noticed regulations tend to have regressive effects. They disproportionately harm lower households. Regulations by obligating or prohibiting an activity can make it more expensive for producers to make food, other products that are basic necessities. Electricity is a heavily regulated. That is one thing lower income portionds spend a large of their budget on compared to high income households. Is something that could be and it should be better considered when regulations are being designed. Unfortunately, the state of practice for that is not perfect. Karen wants to know is the study broken down by state versus federal regulation. Guest we are just looking at federal regulation based on what industries are in the state. Host here is the growth of regulatory restrictions during president ial terms. Lowestreagan with the amount of new regulatory restrictions. ,resident obamas second term rateslintons second term third. First term,amas what led the way . One law . The dominant feature is dodd frank. Congress passes laws. Those instructed agencies to create regulations or a new agency. Dodd frank did both. Over 27,000. Compare that to every other law passed in the Obama Administration, add them all together, it is still less than what dodd frank has produced. Teresa, good morning. I see the District Of Columbia has the lowest bestations and it is the economic in any county in the country. A correlation there. Maybe they need to be regulated more. I hope they get donald trump in there and he goes in line by line and gets rid of these regulations and saves the country. Thank you. D. C. Is certainly be of theto least regulated states or at least impacted. D. C. Is an area with an educated workforce, lawyers, accountants. Those are not industries disproportionally impacted compared to those that rely things such as Natural Resources. What you said earlier, do they lead to cost or benefits, there will be some industries were regulations could create jobs. In d. C. Ares created because of regulations. Host al is waiting. Had a comment and a story about regulations and the question. Ohio, the home of john kasich, we have a lot of fracking going on. I am in the epicenter of it. We do not have any regulations written for that industry. Ofare bringing all kinds waste from other states and we are getting revenue from matt. A little bit of revenue. The legislators are fighting the tax portion and the recovery of that cost. They are letting them go as they go. Even my local officials do not know what businesses are in our ora or what violations previous existing regulations were used. Have you reviewed any of the local and state regulations . In this town, i could be incarcerated for three days over a license plate light violation, but when a local company has Hazardous Waste violations, the officials dont even know. Thank you for your answer. Guest the layer of regulations we have to deal with in america can create a lot of confusion. On top of that, federal regulations are growing over time. Large volume of rules from the federal government layer on top of state, on top of local rules. It can be overwhelming for Small Business. Can berge business a costly to figure out what information is relevant to the business. Looked at state and local regulations, we are building that up. The database creation has been intense. Finding those regulations is a tough thing to do. At that. O look state first, local, i just dont know when we will be able to pull that off. What is the Mercatus Center . We focus on Economic Issues related to Public Policy designed to communicate the economics, things that researchers are looking at to people practicing public those until we can inform choices. We have learned a lot. That is the reason we have more regulations. Asbestos. D with it used to insulate pipes coming out of boilers. Many of these regulations are about what we learned. They are good for people. Maybe some of these college kids could hire bluecollar workers to have age on them. They could tell them about some of the dangers things they have done in life. Take care. Learning about risk can inform regulatory choices. Congress will react to real or informed risk. Do a good jobont learning about, is how congress impacts change. We may be hope they are going to work and address some risk we have identified. We dont look back and see if it did reduce the risk. A lot of Debate Centers around cost versus benefit when these issues come up on capitol hill between come up on capitol hill. A recent tweet about the benefits of a clean power plant. He goes through the Different Health benefits. Compare those apples and oranges . Guest it appears to be an art more than a science. There is consistent methodology to it. You need to outline what the outcomes the regulation is trying to achieve our. A regulationeating about the safety of trains, what is the outcome you are trying to achieve . Lets train accidents. That is something you can measure and observe. The rule is at how designed to reduce the specific negative outcome. Can help youtheory look at the rules, if you can achieve it, you can look at the risk analysis and see that the rule is addressing the correct mechanism. If it is not, you are not likely to see benefits. They willnow if achieve that, but what we can do is look at how the design is likely to or not likely to address the causes of the risk. Tell us about regulations in your part of the country. Are they impacting the outcome of the risk in your areas. We areines are open as talking with Patrick Mclaughlin. Jack, fort lauderdale, florida, and independent. Go ahead. Caller i would like to talk about special interests. 40s, to thearly late 30s, we had problems with the banks. , whichwas put in regulated the banks from 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years. Special interest comes along, bill graham and he says too many regulations. Guess what . He put it through the senate and it was presented to bill clinton and bill clinton signs off the glasssteagall bill. Now you dont have the regulations on the bank. What happens . The country almost went belly up. He do afterwords . He went to work for the banking industry. A perfect example of regulations in here to protect the people. Interesthave special to have loads of money, they are lobbyists and they are trying to knock out these regulations against the working class people and it is a disgrace. You, yourto organization should take a look at what these regulations are doing and how they are helping the people. That is what these regulations are for, not allow these shall interest in the money people like today in these elections, the lobbyists running the elections, the democratic party, the Republican Party, there is too much money. That is what i have to say. I recommend you and your group look behind these regulations and see who is involved in it. Host we want to let patrick respond. We are very concerned with that sort of activity with cronyism as we call it. My colleague Matt Mitchell has a lot of work on this. Go to our website and look at his stuff. Being a regulator specifically, we are concerned about the revolving door that you see form in some specific agencies. On the one hand that may be good to have people who are experts on specific industry go work at the regulator because they have a better knowledge of whats going on, maybe how to design a rule more effectively. On the other hand you might worry if there is a revolving door that there will be implicit promise of you do this for me and i will do that for you. That is a concern. Other forms of cronyism our concerns as well. You want to design a process that can minimize the ability or cronyism to pop up in regulations. Going back to what i said earlier, part of that process means do a good analysis of the regulation beforehand specifying that the area of how regular should will work. That will help flush out occasions when regulation is just a cronyism regulation. Host agencies and how many regulations they have issued over the years over a tenyear period. The blue line is 2012 rules and restrictions. A green line for each agencys 2002 rules and restrictions. The number of restrictions for the epa was about 65,000 in 2002 to 87,000 and 2012. Year 2000, the 50,000 to 55,000 in the year 2012. The coast guard, three 6000 rules and regulations issued to 39,000 in 2012. An agency you are most concerned about . Guest my concern goes across the board as the process. One thing the chart highlights is a trend that has been going on for decades. The growth of environmental regulations. That is the office of air and eva. Pa. Several offices as well. One of the things we see in our study is how growth in environmental regulations overtime is becoming a dominant determinant of where the impact regulation is distributed. Epa, to add another data point, back in 1990, it had about 7 of the total volume of regulations. Now it is about 15 of the total volume of regulations, from the epa. Host prescott, arizona. Linney is waiting. Caller good morning. It is precoffee here in arizona but this really caps my hide. Mercators is funded by the koch ,rothers among many others among the worst polluters. I am tired of those thumbsucking addicts try to deregulate our economy to benefit them. Regulations are not for saints, they are for sinners. Anchors and polluters. We need a new glasssteagall, strong regulations. They have no right to give my manchild mercury poisoning under the guise of freedom and liberty. This is a libertarian front group. When you have regulations you have to hire people to be scrubbers. Its a wonderful jobs program and if these people are not careful you tell the Koch Brothers that you work or that if they are not careful we will nationalize our oil and gas industry. Host that is lynn in prescott arizona. Do you want to talk about funding for the center . Guest researchers like myself are completely separated from funding. There is a firewall separating us from the donors so i dont know who the donors are. They dont affect research at all. I would like to say we are not focusing on costs on benefits or a specific we are measuring. Creating a better way of understanding with the process leads to. Measurement of regulation across industry in agencies and states, we can look at at are these leading to benefits . We dont do a good job of looking at now. Part of the reason is we dont have good measurements. Host this measurement you are creating, could help find redundancies in the system . Carol writes, wouldnt it be prudent to have fewer but better regulations . Guest certainly it would if they are redundant or obsolete. This is a concern. That first chart you showed with the growth of regulation overtime, theres 175,000 plus pages of regulation now. The problem with that is no one knows what is all in there. It would take you over three years if you read at a full time job to read through 175,000 pages of federal regulation. There have to be some obsolete redundant ones. There have to be cases where multiple agencies worldly targeting will be turning the same sort of activity for the same industry and that could interfere with each other. We would like to at least establish some sort of process, maybe an independent commission that would do this that would look back at regulations and see which ones are working, which ones are interfering with each other, this ones are duplicate if or creating costs without crating benefits. Host lets go to alan in missouri. Independent. Good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. I was wondering if you could tell me what are all the reasons for creating regulations like environmental safety, health, what . Guest those are all reasons. There are several others. Security. The hs for example, all the things you go through at the. Irport are stipulations every thing we import and export. A lot of the coast guard stuff you pointed to earlier is related to that. Really, any facet of the economy where theres Economic Activity can have regulation tied to it. Theres hundreds of agencies. All these agencies have their own unique mission. Their interpretation of that mission is pretty much left up to the agencies. If you had an agency that was originally created with one sort of Mission Specific to the finance sector but then they interpreted their mission to also include anywhere that ,inance occurs, maybe car loans they have now expanded from one sector to another. You can get the sort of amorphous form of regulation that goes wherever it seasonopening that cannot occur because of the ability of agencies to determine their missions. Host the impact of federal regulation on the 50 states. Lets take another example from your report. The fifth highest state the state that has been impacted fifth highest from federal regulation i guess is the right way of saying that. Kentucky. Guest kentucky is an interesting one. A state that has transformed over the last 15 or so years. It is to be more dependent on coal. That is not the case anymore. I dont think old as the top 10 in terms of how much coal mining it contributes to the economy. Now the big thing in kentucky is automobile manufacturing and parts. That is largely what we are seeing drive them up toward the top of this list. That is heavily redolent heavily regulated industry. Average fuel economy standards with epa. Epa has plenty of regulations itself that focus on automobile manufacturers and how the parts have to be made. So that is what is driving kentucky up in this list. Another point on that, cole has become less dominant in that state. You could argue that is because of regulation to read whether that is beneficial or not im not taking a position, that the Clean Air Act related regulations targeted coal. We are seeing more regulations targeting coal and maybe as a result of that kentucky has moved out of that industry. Petroleum per docs petroleum and coal Jonathan Mckinley bill, california. Morning. Attorneye have a local in this area who has made a living out of filing lawsuits under the americans with disabilities act against Small Businesses. We have many Small Businesses that have been forced to close down because they operate on small margins and they simply cost oft meet the complying with this particular law. There was a book that was written a few years ago, i dont know if you heard of it. It was called the death of , and ive been trying to remedy author. Trying to remember the author. Example after example of how government regulations were. Uining our quality of life they were preventing simple things from being implemented that would improve our quality of life. There was one notable example about how a particular area of new york city they had a problem with people urinating on the streets. They found a French Company that would have been able to provide bathrooms to prevent that but unfortunately the city would not allow that because the bathrooms would not have been large enough to fit on the sidewalks and also comply with the americans with disabilities act. He cited example after example and it was very interesting book. Host was Philip Howard the author . Caller yes. Thank you. Host Patrick Mclaughlin alledge jump in. I will let you jump in. Guest the lawyer you mention in your town, i think that is an example of opportunistic behavior. Maybe he is performing a legitimate public service. People in general may be able to get expertise on some section of regulation or law that of course not every Small Business or individual is going to have the same expertise on. With that much regulation on the books, that leads to the opportunistic behavior. Please opportunities for opportunistic behavior. Another good point you made was the compliance cost for Small Businesses. A wellknown phenomenon. Something some agencies are trying to account for. There is a policy across agencies where regulators are supposed to consider Small Businesses and how they can be exempted or given special conditions because the compliance cost for them can be overwhelming and drive them out of business entirely. Nonetheless we see an effect on Small Businesses. Finally, as far as permitting goes or this sort of processes a city or business has to go through to be able to build a new project, build walls in new york city or bathrooms in new york city. I have a story related to a town called logan city in utah. About five or six years ago to was doing work on their water system, delivery of water to drinking water. Theres a pipeline that delivered it to a building where there was a pump that pump it out to houses through more pipelines. They had to replace the pump inside this building and they decided lets put in a microhydropower facility. What that means is putting a turbine and it will be pushed by the water pressure and it is pulling water through the pipeline so they can have that turn and produce very clean green energy. But that process inside of an existing building in an existing pipeline had to go through so much permitting from federal agencies. The list of agencies as well over 16 that they had to worry about, the project took not one year as estimated but two and the cost four years and the cost doubled relative to the original price because of the permitting. Host a couple more calls. Pat is in Downers Grove illinois. Good morning. Caller good morning. I happened to be reading at the moment jane myers new book called dark money. Night i happened to be reading the part where she explained that the Mercatus Center was founded by the koch theirrs money and that professors testimonies and studies seem to coincide perfectly with the economic theories of the Koch Brothers. Host lets let Patrick Mclaughlin talk about his credentials. The firewall that you talked about on the funding side versus the study site. Tell us about your credentials. Guest i have a phd in economics from clemson university. Before Mercatus Center i worked as a senior economist in the department of transportation. My career is focused on regulation because i think it is the dominant feature of modern society and we dont have a very good understanding of it. Its not an agenda there other than lets produce science that helps us understand whats going on. Host the study is called the impact of federal regulation on the 50 states. A state that experienced the third highest impact from federal regulation, wyoming. Guest wyoming is another one of the states where specialization in an industry that uses Natural Resources is really driving their placement in the table. Coal mining is very large. Oil and gas extraction is growing. Because those are heavily regulated industries and the way we measure the impact is we look at how important those industries are to the state relative to the nation they are very much important to wyoming compared to the nation overall. I think the numbers for mining, 15 of the private sector of wyoming comes from coal mining. For the nation overall it is less than 1 . That means it is very specialized and also heavily regulated. That is why its at the top or close to it. Host republican line, change is waiting. Good morning. James is waiting. Good morning. Caller i lost my job because of outsourcing and my wife is disabled but she works parttime to make ends meet. On regulation i do not think there is enough regulation dealing with foreign aid. Do not tell me it is only 1 . On the snap program, she is a cashier and she sees how they buy alcohol, gambling cards and cigarettes. Its rampant. No one is regulating it. Wasnt there a congressman who wrote a book about the abuse with foreign aid but no doing . But no one listens to him . Guest the location and relocation of businesses is certainly tied to regulation. Regulation is going to, in most cases, cause production process for business to increase. To follow some new process you were not following before. If things are getting more expensive you might see a business move somewhere else where they dont have to follow that process. Procedure that the regulation requires. The question might be, is that a good thing or a bad thing . Is the stopping of that business from doing what it used to do achieving the benefit the regulation is going to try to achieve. . That is a question we are not answering very well but we see the impact of it. Host what are your comments on every law should have an expiration date. No more than 10 year sounds good to me. Guest there are some that. I do not think it makes sense to line everything disappears after 10 years after 10 years or sometime a reexamination makes a lot of sense. There should be a process for looking at is it working and that process, the examination should not be in the hands of the agency that created the regulation. Thats another potential problem. Big potential conflict of interest because agencies created the rules. They will have an incentive if nothing else the people who wrote the rule will want to thank their rule is doing a good job. Maybe show it is doing a good job for career reasons and so it i teach something like, at the university as well. If i give my students the opportunity to grade their final exams am sure they would love it and im sure i would not get honest feedback. If were going to have some sort of process where reexamination occurs it needs to be independent. Host cranberry, new jersey is next. Charlie is an independent. Caller im wondering where cspan could put some kind of a subtitle on shows like this. Man represents himself and seems like a very neutral organization, Mercatus Center, to say it is basically founded by exxon mobil and founded by the coke others the Koch Brothers. Everybody understands this guy is doing the work of these people. He says he is independent and im sure he is a good researcher but the agenda set by these organizations. It should have a subtitle saying this is put on by the Koch Brothers because their funding him. Host do you want to talk about the agenda of the Mercatus Center and what other Research Projects youve done . Guest again, we are a research center. We are trying to advance the science. My big focus has been the regulatory process. I created this project but others that quantify regulation. Upon. Tabase this is built another set of measurements we produced and made available to the public. Making these things available to the public is designed to let other people take the data and do their own research so they can look at whether things are working or not. Look at costs and benefits. A public good in a way that we are putting out to advance our overall knowledge of whats going on. Host Patrick Mclaughlin is a Senior Research better at the Mercatus Center. Mercatus. Org if you want to checkout the work of the center. I appreciate your time to talk about federal regulation on the 50 states. Up next we will end the day with open phones. We can talk about any of the Public Policy issues we talked about today so far in the show. Food stamps, the impact of regulation, u. S. Involvement in nato or any other Public Policy issue you want to talk about. For the last 40 minutes on the washington journal. We will be right back. This week on cspan, the Supreme Court cases that shaped our history come to life with the cspan series landmark cases. Our 12 part series explores constitutional dramas behind some of the most significant decisions in american history. A story and case about president ial power. In times of war. It puts central themes the conditions under which president in times of emergency can do things that may not be expressed in the constitution. Saidief Justice Rehnquist as you do your opening the cases come to be accepted by the culture. How many cases can we say about that . A sweeping decision. It isolated the u. S. As one of only four nations of one hundred 95 across the globe that allowed abortion for any reason after field liability fetal light viability. A case that established the rights of federal courts to review redistricting issues and the way for the one man one vote standard of american democracy. Landmark cases tonight at 10 00 eastern. Our cspan campaign 2016 bus continues to makes stops across the country. Recently our bus visited Metropolitan Arts Institute in phoenix, arizona to present awards to winners from the west division. Their first prize video, rethinking reform, prisons in america. Won secondmates prize for the video on gender wage inequity in the workplace. Our campaign 2016 bus stop in los angeles for a ceremony for presentingnner extends cspan special thanks. Every weekday this month on cspan be sure to watch one of the top 21 winning entries at 6 50 a. M. Eastern before washington journal. Washington journal continues. Ost on the washington journal you can call about Public Policy issues. Want to hear whats on your mind around this country today. Republicans can call in at 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Ndependents, 202 7488002 we can talk about the issues you want to talk about but here is the front page of iowas gazette newspaper. Grassley says he will hear but not back Supreme Court nominee. Senator grassley said who has been called out for not wanting to meet with Supreme Court has saiderrick garland he will meet with Merrick Garland but only for breakfast in not to give his blessing. The meeting was announced on social media. A story talking about that meeting. President obama expected to talk about his nominee and the Supreme Court in the battle in the senate today at his old stomping grounds at the university of chicago. We will carry that on cspan 3 30 if you0 want to tune in live. Speaking of president obama, another story, from usa today. The Obama Administration will move 510 million in unspent money dedicated to battling last year plus Public Health crisis years crisishis the zika virus. The white house also made it clear that the u. S. Calling on congress to act immediately in its 1. 9 billion request to battle zika. Jacksonville florida, democrat. Fran good morning. Suggesti would like to that cspan do a little does a little more research or has someone on to talk about the Supreme Court. As i recall a year or two ago, seeing an episode, i think it was bill moyers on pbs. He had someone on who was talking about the Supreme Court and had done a lot of research that more thanck ofhethey deted 90 i think it was the need 90 of the cases that came before the Supreme Court, the rulings were for corporations versus the people. I think what we see highlighted are those hot button issues like abortion, gay marriage, gun rights. Im thinking the people are not really knowing that they are being ruled against by the Supreme Court that we have had in power over the years. When it came down to things that affected them economically, politically. Not just those soft issues that are emotional. If we could look into that and find the person who actually knows something about the record, iurt tossed would appreciate that. Host we just did an entire series on cspan about landmarks Supreme Court cases if you want to check that out at cspan. Org. Also, certainly plenty to do coming up on the Supreme Court with so many cases on the docket, so many highprofile cases and of course this nomination fight that is underway. Arthur is in New Hampshire. Arthur, good morning. Caller how are you doing . Host good. Caller thanks for cspan. You guys are great. I wanted to respond to mr. Mclaughlin who is gone now. I dont see what the big deal is with regulations for businesses that. Dustry, all of ,oday in this age of Technology Computers and all these companies, even Small Companies are all computerized now. Regulations from the government computer to their computer and i dont know a lot about computers but i know that can be easily done. So you dont have to read one million pages of classification. You plug it into your computer and plugin whatever operation you are doing and the computer is right out whatever or wrong about the situation. Host what kind of work do you do up in gorham, New Hampshire . Caller im disabled and cant find any work right now. So im not really doing much of anything. Spend a lot of time watching cspan because its very educational and a lot of areas, science, not only politics. All news imaginable. Thingsple touch on around the whole sphere of business, education, everything. Its very informative, very educational. If i cant do anything else i want to keep learning. Host appreciate you doing that. Good luck with your job search. Joe is in north olmsted, ohio. Joe, good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to give a different perspective of the political people running for the presidency. Of all of that group may be john kasich has some of the experience. Not one of them could take a building and build it from the ground floor up with all of the things that you need, permits and what have you and all the different trades you need all the materials you need. Also build some of the finest recreation facilities. A major beauty pageant. Head a top hit show on television. It goes on and on with all of the mystique about the man and of course im speaking about donald trump. Not one of these other men can hold a candle to the things this man has done for business. Not to mention the thousands of employees that were hired to do all of this labor work. We still need people to build things no matter what computers can do. They do not build things. I would like to bring that to the publics attention. That we need a businessman, not a politician, not an attorney. Someone who really knows how to do these things. Nothing built this country but labor. I thank you so much. Host donald trump was in bethpage, new york last night. Cspan cameras were there. Donald trump talking in the wake of his loss in wisconsin. Donald trump had some things to say in new york about senator ted cruz. [video clip] people. Uld not draw 100 you. Uld im telling it was a big headline today and the New York Post. He could not draw 100 people. During the debates when he started lecturing me on new york values like were no good . ]crowd booing i started talking to him about the world trade center. The incredible bravery of everybody. Olice, firemen, everybody [cheering] [chanting usa] Better Believe it. Him and started talking about our incredible ,olice, incredible firefighters our incredible people. Unbelievable construction workers. Who could have done that . Who could have rebuilt that . There was never anything like it in this country. The worst attack in the history of the united states. The bravery that was shown was incredible. We all lived through it and know people that died. Ive got this guy standing over there, looking at me, talking about new york values with scorn in his face. With hatred of new york. So folks, i think you can forget about him. Host donald trump making mention of the New York Post headline about ted cruz. A headline from the New York Daily News raising some eyebrows today on the front page of the daily news. The story notes tender senator cruz received zero response received a zeros welcome in the bronx wednesday. The story continues on page 4 and 5. Blue island, illinois. Hubbard, good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I wish you guys may have a program on the impact of deregulation. I was in the Trucking Industry for 39 years. After deregulation, the Trucking Industry, the trains, airplanes, all your transportation was deregulated. Thank you. Host john is in mississippi. Independent. John, good morning. Caller thank you for cspan. The public is starting to wake up. Even the people that patronize fox news are starting to get the clue that their government is not serving them. It is being circumvented by corporations, powerful individuals and groups. We need to go back to the tax rate when president eisenhower was in office. And then we can put that money to use in educating our children. Free college is not free. It is something we invest in so our children are bright enough to help us build a positive future for america, democracy. We can leave this world away from war and into a prosperity once we get into Renewable Energies and we start paying attention to the impact greed is having on our ecology and the potential survival of the human race. They give for cspan. Host from mississippi next door to alabama where republican Governor Robert Bentley is facing an impeachment fight in the Yellow Hammer state. A Bipartisan Group of state legislators are backing an impeachment effort. For more on this we turn to brian lyman, a State Government reporter with the montgomery advertiser. Good morning. You with us are this morning . Bring us at the speed and how we got in to this impeachment fight. Guest last month, governor bentley fired the top Law Enforcement official in the state, spencer callier, after what he said a report which we have not seen yet, raising concerns about a number of issues including possible misuse of funds. Callier denies that. The day after he was fired, callier held a press conference where he alleged the governor was having had had an affair with a now former political advisor. In he claimed that he claimed that the governor misused state funds to pursue the affair. Governor bentley has acknowledged making inappropriate remarks to the staffer but he denies having an affair with her. The staffer also denies an affair. He has said he will not resign but there is an effort now by some legislators in the house to try to impeach the governor. Host take us through the impeachment process. How does this work and what specific charges what he face under the impeachment the state legislators are moving forward with . Unlike the u. S. Constitution where you can be impeached for treason, bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors, alabamas constitution has a broader range of items you could be impeached under. You could be impeached for incompetency. For drunkenness for example. The issue we are facing right now the legislature is facing now, there is no precedent for history. S in state there was an attempt to impeach a state official in 1915 but that never got off the ground. Wet as we know understand the plan is going to the house may set up a separate committee to investigate these articles of impeachment that were filed this week, which charged the governor with incompetency, neglect of and, moral turpitude corruption in office. In the words of the rules chair rules committee chairman, they are going to decide whether to send them to the full house for a vote. Host regardless of what happens legislatively, could the governor survive the politics of this . Is there a chance he could step down before this process begins . Guest there are investigations going on into the governor , one oftion with mason the questions being raised is how is mason being paid as bentleys advisor. She has not been on the state payroll since 2013 and she was getting paid from bentleys campaign and a dark money group. There has been an ethics askingnt filed against the Ethics Commission to investigate that. The commission has signaled they will look into that. There may be other investigations going on. Bentley himself has said he will not resign and does not plan to resign. The sense when you talk to a number of legislators is a lot of them want to see how these investigations unfold before they really consider going for impeachment. The other thing to consider, the legislature will and this current session next month. It is not entirely clear that this commission that could vet the articles of impeachment wi complete its work before the legislature leaves in the middle of may. Host the 13 governors in u. S. History hit with charges through the impeachment process, only eight have actually been convicted of high crimes and removed from office. Office, ifmoved from we go down this road and he is removed, who steps in to take over in alabama . Guest that would be Lieutenant Governor kay ivey. She has been Lieutenant Governor since 2010. Ther to that she served as state treasurer. Like mostained leaders in the legislature, she has maintained a very strict silence as to what this would mean going forward. Right now in alabama the Lieutenant Governor position is relatively weak. Really come out and said or spoken very much about the issues facing the state in part because her main duty is to preside over the senate. The other night she did indicate support. One of the things we have in alabama right now is a fight over medicaid funding. She signaled on tuesday night she might be interested in maintaining the governors fight over trying to get medicaid the funding it needs the funding the agency says it needs to function. At this point we are not sure what in practical terms this would mean. Weak ifrnor is pretty you have a credit or republican in charge. The legislature calls the shots. Whoever is in the governors office, the legislature is going to make most major decisions for the state of alabama. Host brian lyman is a State Government reporter with the montgomery advertiser. Thanks for your time this morning. Guest my pleasure. Host it is open phone for the last 20 minutes of our program today. Were taking your comments on any Public Policy issue you want to talk about whether it be something we covered on today show or another issue. David is in arkansas, a republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks for cspan. To hear from the people. I am really surprised the knowledge the people that work for cspan have. They have excellent questions. I dont know how they keep it fair. Everyone is a democrat or republican and you all hide it very well and do a great job. Just wanted to let you know that. Im an attorney and i will never forget when i was in law school one of the courses i look forward to more than anything was constitutional law. I was going to be able to read the greatest writings of the greatest lawyers in the history of the united states. I was so excited as a young lawyer. Young lawyer to be, to read those great words. The more i read, and as i gradually withdrew the book went through the book i got about halfway through and i realized there was not anything great about this at all. Basically the law clerks write the opinions and then the justices will revise them and so forth like that. The thing that bothered me the , i could look at the kind of case it was and i could tell you already how each justice would rule. A Supreme Court was not set up i our founders, nor at any time until fdr got in and tried to was not setrt it up in such a way that it was supposed to be the final say so on all matters of government. And it is. It is on every amendment on the powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branch. Relationships as marriage. If the founders would have known that they could have that much justice a Supreme Court has more power than anybody in the world. They are there for life. Host do you still practice law . Guest im not practicing right now. Im looking at some other projects. The practice of law in america is very depressing. Sorry . Host go ahead. Why do you think its depressing. Guest i was voted one of the best lawyers in the southern part of the united states. Whovery well for a long took time a long period of time. I was fortunate. Most lawyers these days do not make a lot of money. It is dog eat dog. After you goo that to law school you have to pay all your debts back. My daughter just graduated number one in her class of ucla ngos like 250,000. She owes like 250,000. Its impossible to make a living after that. The Supreme Court not only them but the court of appeals and the District Courts are so political. You have no idea when you walk arehe court the democrats so much at advantage. If you are republican you dont even get to sit at the same tables as the other people. Host that is david in jonesboro , arkansas. You bring up Student Loans. In a story and todays wall street journal talking about federal stood loads in this country. 43 of the roughly best for 3 were not making payments on those loans is january 1 according to a quarterly snapshot of the educational departments 1. 2 trillion student loan portfolio. Americans whoion have federal Student Loans are in default. 3 million americans who have federal Student Loans are delinquent. 3 million are in postponement and 12. 5 million our current on their loans. If you want to read that story its in the wall street journal and ill will straighten the chart out for you so you can see it. Leon is in mississippi. A democrat. Good morning. Caller like everyone else, blessed cspan. You guys are high quality. I was listening this morning when a woman when one of the callers called in about how she noticed a young parent buying a birthday cake with the ebt cards while she was spending her hardearned money to buy a birthday cake. Is, theseted to say young, Single Parents do not have the training. They dont understand the economics of running a house. A 14 orilar to giving 15 year old a brandnew car before he has been to school for driving. Host thanks for the call. We talked about snap benefits and food stamps. If our viewers want to watch it, it is available at cspan. Org. Genie isnt tim remedy no, california. Jeannie is in San Bernardino california. Caller i really appreciate your show. One of the news channels i will watch anymore. D what the lawyer said. I have a problem with all the Congress Making all of these laws that are never followed. I for one, here in california to make such a big deal about people going on welfare and how when a child turns to they are supposed to go to work. That was enforced back in the 1970s. Nobody has ever enforced that. Like the gentleman before that, i have a problem with that because they made a big deal of making that a law again and still it is not being enforced. As far as our laws go, i think the constitution spelled it out correctly. Congressional politicians to go into office to speak for the people and they dont. Here in california we have a constitution that says english will be the spoken and written language. Ion six. Three, sect i cannot get a jobless i speak spanish. I think we have gotten out of hand with protecting our constitution and the rights of the americans that are here. As far as letting other people. N, that is fine i am for come in legally. Our laws are written for that they are not being followed and i dont understand it. Can you explain that to me . Host we want to hear from you and from other viewers this morning and is open phones. Its your time to talk about the concerns you have and the questions that you have about Public Policy in this country. Joseph is in marietta, georgia. An independent. Good morning. Caller yes. Host go ahead with your comment. Caller yes. Im commenting im listening to all of the callers coming in. Most of you guys who are calling in, you still complain about the same issues. And you complain about the same issues that are going on in the world. Until you get to the real issue all of these tracking devices. All these eye scanners and all this. All the stuff is created by the jewish people. Host we will move on to richard in corona, missouri. Caller good morning. Electionson tv, these were having. People in big lines. We fought wars to get people the right to vote. Here dont hassle want to pass laws to keep people from voting here. Thats not right. The guy said something about the candidates never built nothing. Bernie sanders is a carpenter. I have built plenty of things area i am a carpenter. He is the only real democrat running. Host a headline in the Washington Times today. Some comments by sanders that are making plenty of headlines around this country. Sanders ticks off the ways Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president as rivals spar. Bernie sanders on wednesday says he does not believe Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president. He said she has been saying not qualifiedam to be president. I do not believe she is qualified. If she is through her super pac taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest money i dont think youre are qualified if you get 15 million for wall street for your super pac. I dont think you are qualified if you voted for the disastrous war in iraq. Referring to clintons 2002 vote as a u. S. Senator from new york. Clintons spokesman brian fallon said sanders had reached a new low. All eyes on new york coming off the primary coming up the primary later this month. We will cover it for you here on cspan. One other programming note for documentaries1 from this years student can competition are airing at ticks a. M. M. 6 50 what issue would you like the president ial candidates to discuss during the campaign . Among the top issues that came up on education, jobs and the economy, and the environment. The most entries in the 12 years we have held the competition. Entries came from 45 states as well as washington dc, the virgin islands, taiwan and the united arab emirates. Student film makers sharing cash prizes totaling 100,000. You can watch them online at studentcam. Org. A few minutes left. It is open phones for getting your thoughts and comments on Public Policy issues that matter to you. Sharon is in trinity, north carolina. Good morning. Caller hello. On theto make a comment minimum wage. 15 an hour. What they dont understand is walmart, the people thats working there on assisted on assistance, they have their hours cut so they can still stay on assistance. So i dont know where it is helping the taxpayer. Host maybe you should tune in at 7 45 on saturday. We continue our discussion about minimum wage. We will be holding a roundtable discussion on the washington journal. Will continue to cover this issue. Linda is an orange, connecticut. It democrat. A democrat. , we do airst of all lot of things right in this doion and i think we would well to stop and take a deep breath for a moment and remember that. Regarding the food stamp i myself would prefer that snap was more in keeping with because i have been in grocery lines and they do somewhat screen the quality of the foods nutritional value they are buying. Host are you saying the people who are buying them screen it . Like if it cashiers is a sugared cereal i notice they were very discreetly say they cannot get that on the wic program. It is very well run. Education, educating the young parents. If you have generationally, people who were having sugared cereal and mac cheese every day, now they have a child and they dont know themselves. Somewhat screens that. I do want to feed the hungry but there are valid points with what we would view to be abuse of the nutritional value on snap that could be remedied. They modeled it more after the wic program. Have a great day. Host tom is in ohio. An independent. On the washington journal. Open phones on the washington journal. Caller all a Student Loans. The cost of college. Every puts on a 20 minute speech and charges 200,000 for 30 minutes. The cost has got to be up to supplying people like that. The rest of the stuff, lobbyists and stuff like that are running the country. Its not the president anymore. Host Hillary Clinton was in pittsburgh last night. Our cameras were there. Some of her remarks at her rally in pennsylvania. [video clip] let me tell you. I will go anywhere anytime, meet with anyone to find common ground. I did it as first lady, as senator, as secretary of state. After we were not successful on Health Care Reform i got back up and said what can we do. You always have to determine what can we do. That is the progressive tradition. I work with democrats and republicans and we created the Childrens Health insurance program. 8 million children got health care for the first time in many instances. Senate, i was in the worked with i think practically every republican. I worked to find that common ground. Sometimes it was only a sliver of ground. But that is our obligation when we are in public life. We dont have the luxury and dictatorships to say my way or no way. That is not the way a democracy is supposed to work. So we made progress. Sometimes way too slowly to satisfy me. When i was secretary of state i helped to negotiate a Nuclear Arms Treaty with russia to reduce the number of Nuclear Weapons on both sides, which remains the biggest threat the biggest immediate threat that our world faces. We got the agreement signed. [applause] but we had to get two thirds vote in the senate. I had to get 13 republicans to vote so i started working on it. I just kept working and working it working. Dull, boring but necessary kind of work. You just get up every day and you think, how can i push this forward an inch or two. Media can get six or seven if im lucky. Host Hillary Clinton losing the state of wisconsin by a doubledigit margin. All eyes looking ahead to the New York Primary on the 19th. The latest polling according to a usa today story about the New York Primary. Percentageead of 10 points. 53 to 43 . A Quinnipiac University poll she has a lead of 12 points. 54 to 42 . Camp lookingnders to move those numbers before then. William is in washington, a republican. Good morning it is open phones. Caller morning. What i would like to talk about the Desalination Plant in california putting out 10 million gallons of water per day. Theres a different way that could be done. Lower tech but it does the same thing. It would remove that much water but in the process this plant when it is done would produce up energy000 megawatts of thehour and its like nobrainers. In california they complain about the amount of energy they consume. Process . T is the forgive me for not knowing too much about this. Caller it is in the pumping and the piping. How that is used. There is a way that you can generate a lot of energy there. You are not using highpressure pumps that they use. You dont use the energy drain. Host . Is this an issue you are you an engineer . Caller i have done a lot of studying on this. And outside machinist working for the navy. Host that is william in washington. That is our last caller here. Last caller of todays show. We will take you live to the urban taking homeland and affairs committee. A hearing today on the Consumer Financial protection bureaus semiannual report, Richard Cordray will be there testifying. That begins in a few moments here on cspan. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] on the span