From the republican standpoint, if you go over the cliff and the tax rates go back up, you instantly thought and the tax base. It also means more taxpayers are paying. Instead of having 50 of taxpayers having no liability because their income is too low and because of deductions, you have a higher percentage that are pain and a broader base. You have more people to start sweating out more money from. Once you do these spending cuts, then you decide from the standpoint of, we have already cut all this money, what do we absolutely need to add that in. In some ways, the reset would be shocking for members of congress to go through it. Host larry, you are on the line. Caller mine is a simple solution. We cannot keep going with the unlimited budget spending. My thought is one item, 1 vote. Why dont we change what people want to hear and just vote on it . That is as transparent as it gets. Guest i do not think it will work because the size of the government is so big and the number of line items you simply could not do it. Congress would spend every moment passing spending bills. The callers point is correct. Congress is supposed to pass a budget and then does appropriations bills. They are playing with monopoly money and have been for the last two decade or so. As long as you can borrow from the future to pay for what you are trying to do now, whether it be tax cuts or spending, democrats get their programs and republicans get their lower tax rates and we continue to live on borrowed time. The reason everything has been so rough for the last couple of years is that both sides have come to the realization that they can no longer continue to do that. The time for borrowing from the future is ending. That is when you see all the problems with the fiscal cliff, the debt deal from last year, the cr all of these issues of tax rates and spending are hitting because people do not want to continue to steal from the future to pay for now. Host Stephen Dinan was the the politics editor at the washington times. He covered the legislature in virginia. He has a bachelors from the university of virginia. In the New York Times this morning, there was an article with the headline, boehner finds the speakers chair can be lonely. Republicans fell 20 votes short of those needed to pass mr. Boehners bill that would make permanent musharraf tax cuts for households under 1 million per year make permanent the bush tax cuts for households under 1 million per year. The Republican Team could not bring enough members on board even though many of those who declined to support the measure told Republican Leadership that they secretly hoped it would pass. Ixions like some of these guys the speaker and the majority it sounds like some of these guys who the speaker and the majority leader thought they had the support of were talking out of both sides of their mouths. Yes and they were hoping they would not have to take the guest they were hoping they would not have to take the that vote to make this go away. In some ways, it is bad we did not get to have a vote because it would have been interesting to see who came down on what side of this. In the article, you are seeing the exact same conflict you are seeing on capitol hill. People are saying, here are my principles. Is more important that we get a deal right now. Others are saying, i want to see a deal, but my principles are more important. I cannot be seen taking that vote. In the Democratic Party one caller mentioned Social Security. You are starting to see a similar backlash from the left over president obamas offered to john brennan to allow the cost of living increase for Social Security it is a lower estimate of inflation, which would mean Social Security benefits would rise at a lower rate in the future and could save a decent amount of money for the government. Seniors and others and others with disabilities are getting lower rates in the future. A number of liberal groups say that is a benefits cut. They say they will primary any democrats who vote for it. They said if nancy pelosi votes for it, they will not offer for our support if she tries to run for the minority leader of the democrats. Host speaking of the leadership situation, talk to me a little bit about the lead allegiances in the house, punching in among the republicans. Do the republicans favor the leadership of eric cantor more than the leadership of john boehner and . Will this cost john boehner his more than the leadership of john boehner . Will this cost john brennan his speakership . Guest boehner said the members were not angry with him. They were not showing dissatisfaction with him. One of the other things about that was that standing next to him at the press conference was eric cantor. That was a clear sign that these guys are tied together and eric cantor is not ready to unseat john brennan. There was a lot of symbolism in that press conference. Ready to unseat john boehner. If he goes back and stars to negotiate with president obama and tries to bring back the deal at this conference cannot accept again, the danger to him does arise. From what i was told thursday night, he gave a wellreceived speech to the conference. He said, i did not have the votes. His speech was wellreceived by them. He is well liked by those members. As of right now, he is not in in any immediate danger right now. Depending on he is not in any immediate danger right now. Host will call on our line for independents. Caller i have hit some number crunching. These entitlements get to me. I have prayed 182,000 in Social Security over my working years. If you add taxes to it, it is 376,000. At 62, if i can retire, i would have paid 840,000. At 64, i would receive 8020 18 200. The 8,200. 8,200. That is not entitlements. That is what is owed to people who have worked all their lives. I think if these people put us over the cliff, it is treason. Guest i am not sure what numbers those are. Host it seems that his basic concern is that he would not get out of it when he has paid into it. Guest it depends on how long we live in our life span. On the average, the system is designed that you get out what you pay into it. I guess i would say that the numbers vary for every individual in what they are paying nothing get out. For what it is worth, with the caller is talking about, Social Security sends the form out every year and tells you how much you have paid into the system per year and it goes back through your work history and it tells you what your expected benefits are. You can do the same calculations the caller is doing. Host we have this week. Hasnt Republican Party the would ask policies from reagan shifted to lower income working people . Republican Party Policies shifted to lower income working people having the burden . Guest working people pay an extraordinary percentage of the income tax burden. They pay a vast majority of the income tax burden. I do not know what the shift has been. Over the last three decades, an increasing number of people have no income tax burden on the lower end because of the proliferation of these deductions like Child Tax Credit and Home Mortgage deduction. If these people with so many things they get to take off from their taxes that they simply do not have to pay income taxes at the end of the a. That is a big issue. When you are talking about simply do not have income tax at the end of the year. You are talking about trying to get more revenue. You are talking about an ever smaller turnout you are trying to squeeze blood out of. Host our last call for stephen comes from mark on our republican line. Caller i am concerned about if taxes go up again. It is not to the point of trying to take care of a child and get him into college trying to pay for medication both my wife and i need. Host mark . We have lost mark. Stephen diana, dinan, have the last word. Guest caller is talking about taxes getting too high and he is unable to afford those things. President obama is offering government assistance for a number of things like College Tuition tax credits, Health Care Drug bills. This is the fundamental debate. Is it better to have low benefits in society where an individual vents to make those decisions and will suffer by not individual gets to make those decisions for a society where the government is able to pay for more of those benefits and provide assistance for college at the expense of higher taxes. That is underlying the fiscal cliff and everything going on on capitol hill behind us. That is the philosophical question. I tax, high benefits or a low tax, low benefits. Host the president is on his way to high this weekend. I am assuming Speaker Boehner is going to high and majority leader reid is going to nevada. Will there be any discussions between anybody over the next week or so . When do we expect these five banks these guys will come back to wrap this up . Guest they will come back and wrap up the supplemental bill hand and a couple of pieces of legislation they have to do supplemental bill has and a couple of pieces of legislation they have to do anyway. U. S. Something all of us on capitol hill are dying to find out. When you ask something of a who worked on capitol hill are dying to find out. At the presents post office press conference, someone yelled, when are you coming back . We want to have the longest section possible. Host thanks for being on the program. We will continue talking about we are joined by the authors of the nearly released the book, the end of the line. Glenn thrush and jonathan martin. Live it 7 00 eastern and cspan. As president obama begins his second term, what is the most important issue to consider in 2013 . Make a short video about your message to the president up. Cspan a student can competition. A chance to win 5,000. The deadline is january 18. Go to studentcam. Org. The National Institute of drug abuse director talks about the abuse of Prescription Drugs like adderoll. I want to welcome everybody here and thank you for being here. We are monitoring the future, it is a way for us to get a pulse of the drug use among high school students. Also, very importantly about their perceptions. Through this information we can have prescripts this year we have indicators that are going to work the negative side, indicators that are going towards the positive side. I will start with those on the negative side because i think we need to Pay Attention to them in order to prevent them from going up. That relates to marijuana use. We have seen significant increases in the use of marijuana among the teenagers, highschool students, and indeed, significant high levels of daily use marijuana. 6. 5 of 12th graders are using Marijuana Daily and only 44 of 12th graders received daily marijuana use as a risky. We have seen through our surveys done a significant increase in the number of admissions for marijuana abuse that has increased as well as increases in the admission for emergency medicine from the department. The increases in use of marijuana are being felt in terms of their consequences. Another indicator that is worrisome is a relatively recent they came into the market relatively recently are already abused by 11 of 12th graders in the past year, which is an extremely high number if you think about it. Considering you have on the one side marijuana increases and on the other we are recognizing that were going into an era being favored. I always get axed the question, why worry about marijuana since alcohol and nicotine are more wary some . People like to place one drug against the other. My necessary is my opinion is you do not need to place one against the other. The higher you make it available, the more people that will be exposed to it. We also know that the use of marijuana during adolescence is actually bad for the function of the human brain that translates into worst outcomes. With respect to the indicators that are going in the right direction, many are decreasing because this is good news. Of the illicit drugs and alcohol and nicotine continue to go down among teenagers. Across all of the grades, nicotine is the lowest the prevalence rates have been since the inception of the measurements. For alcohol were seeing decreases and alcohol use across all ages. We know that alcohol and nicotine are the drugs that cause the greatest rates of mortality. These are quite wonderful use news that identifies the success of the prevention efforts. We have been able to decrease alcohol and tobacco use and the young people because of an aggressive campaign. With respect to indicators that have not changed much is the pattern we are seeing a Prescription Medication throughout the country. The use of pain medication that contains opium because of a high rate of overdose and death. As it relates to fight it then vicodin, it has gone down. It is currently 7. 5 the past year. Those of oxycodin remains steady. As much as these drugs are highly addictive, it continues to be a major priority with respect to prevention. We are seeing an increase in the abuse of stimulant medications which are used for attention deficit disorder, in particular adderall, a drug that is highly addictive. Is being used to improve cognitive performance. Were seeing increases in 2009, 7. 9 of 12th graders admit to the use of adderall for nonmedical purposes. As we try to determine what do they tell us, i think they are identified areas where we need to Pay Attention and not become complacent. Regardless of our perception on whether the drug is worse than the other, we do recognize the more available a drug is regardless of its addictive per potential, the worse the outcomes. Do we want to be seeing the rates with legal drugs for drugs like marijuana or do we want to do prevention efforts that can avoid all of the human cost and the medical consequences. Thank you very much. Thank you. I fail to mention that dr. Volkow has been the director since 2003 and has led efforts to make sure drug abuse is known as a chronic brain condition. We appreciate the leaders of the doctor has taken in a leading us. The next speaker is dr. Howard oh. Koh. He oversees a number of offices including the office of the Surgeon General and the department of Human Health Services and serves as a Senior Public Health adviser. With that, dr. Koh. [applause] thank you very much for inviting me to this very important conference. I want to express my gratitude to you and dr. Volkoh, dr. Kerikowske. A special thanks to dr. Jonathan because monitoring the future is a treasure for Public Health. It is a great pleasure for me to be here. At we should remember that of all these agents, tobacco remains the leading cause of premature and preventable death in the united states. Smoking kills more than 1200 americans every day. For every tobacco related death, there are two a new replacement cigarette smokers under the age of 26. It is tragic these replacement smokers are kids who start when they are not fully ready to make an informed choice. You have heard, and it is true, tobacco addiction is a pediatric disease. Three out of fort teens who smoke continued to smoke into an adult would. A typical smoker loses 13 or 14 years of life. Today we announced that cigarette use among the youth is dropping, and that is very positive news. That still means nearly 1 in 5 Highschool Seniors, 17. 1 , are still using cigarettes in the past month. We should remember that kids are not just replacement cigarette users, they also use an array of other deadly Tobacco Products as well. The industry continues to create many Tobacco Products that you find appealing. Some cigarettes sized cigars include fruit and candy flavor unlike strawberry and grape. Kids have access to the latest smokeless Tobacco Products that are specialists or dissolve like mints. These are appealing to people because they can be used at school or at home in front of mom and dad and not be detected. These products, too, cause nicotine addiction and can lead to serious disease and even death. The data announced today suggests a considerable amount of use of other Tobacco Products, more than onequarter of males, 27. 1 using small cigars. For the use of other Tobacco Products such as hookah is high. 18. 5 of Highschool Seniors report using a hookah in the past year. While the declines in its cigarette use is interesting, we must do over all more to help kids be tobacco free. The significant use of other Tobacco Products threaten to offset the gains made in the declines a in cigarette use today. What shall we do . We know what works, supporting comprehensive tobacco free policies, fully supporting implementation of the historic 2009 family smoking prevention and Tobacco Control act, expanding the Tobacco Services and using media to encourage people, especially young the kids to live a tobacco free. Last month the department of health and Human Services unveiled a website for our department. Please visit it. We are pleased to note recently our food and Drug Administration announced an award of nine contracts with a budget of up to 600 million over five years to develop a sustainable Public HealthEducation Campaign to address the pervasive Public Health problem of tobacco use in kids. We are looking forward to coming back to you again for the future to tell you how this campaign will be unveiled, how it will be launched, and how we focus on many parts of the youth population to send a message of prevention. Overall, the survey is sti