Say egypt has been a very important element in the stability of the middle east over the past 25 years. It is hard to calibrate. California gregoire they are, where theyre going. The president of egypt was proposing sweeping constitutional changes a few weeks ago. It is very unclear. Whether you freeze the kind of aid at this point or slowdown is a very legitimate question. Host the news of the morning, latest Unemployment Rate remains unchanged. 7. 8 . The economy adding 155,000 jobs in december. This from the bureau of labor statistics. Reaction . Guest the Unemployment Rate is too high. I do not think that is the number we should focus on. We should focus on the number of new jobs. The Unemployment Rate can take up or down depending how many people are looking for work. It is not necessarily directly a reflection of the improvement of the economy. 155,000 is okay, not great. It takes 80,000 or 90,000 jobs i cannot remember the exact number just to breakeven. It is in the plus territory, but it is not great. I spent eight years, 24 hours a day thinking about economic development. There is no one thing that you can do. There is no one simple answer. Some people say, it is just a lower taxes. In my experience, youve got to do a lot of things. I have a friend up in maine who used to say, there is no silver bullet. Here is often silver buckshot weve got to look at regulation. Yet got to look at the mess of our tax code. It is time for a comprehensive rewrite. There is not a comprehensive look of the tax code since 1986. My view is that we should are to start with a blank sheet of paper, get rid of all exemptions and deductions and tax expenditures. Simplify it, lower the rates, and go from there. Right now the only people who like it or the accountants and lawyers. Host you are calling from massachusetts, neighboring state, when the of the job barney frank said he is interested in serving in the senate on an interim basis. Comment . Guest what he noted is that this is going to be an important 3 or four months. The idea of having somebody in that seed with some experience and knowledge of the issues make some sense. It is going to be a democrat appointed to that seat. I would not presume to suggest to the governor who he should appoint. The idea of having somebody who could step in with a great deal of knowledge and background is not wholly rational. I have also heard that my friend Michael Dukakis was being considered for the seat in there. He is a wonderful guy who i think would make a real contribution. That will be up to governor patrick. It is going to be an important period. Even if it is interim, that one vote could be important. Host and facebook, it, president obama thought raising the debt ceiling was a bad idea facebook comment, president obama thought raising the debt ceiling was a bad idea when bush was president and said he would not vote for it, but later voted present. Guest with this a filibuster debate that is going on now in the senate between the republicans and democrats, if you go back and read the comments, they were reversed in 2005 when the democrats were filibustering george bushs traditional nominations. I think it is important to do these things on their merits. I think senator obamas vote was a mistake. If there is any truth in this town, it is that there is no dearth of blame to go around. Host how much time did you take to consider the caucus . Guest i did not make a decision during the campaign. I was asked a question almost exclusively by washington journalists. I was virtually never ask the question by people in maine. Most people in maine did not care. They said, go down there and try to get something done. One guy yelled across the diner, i did not care who you caucus with. Do not care who you caucus with. I am with you all the way. The first question was, could i be entirely independent, not join either caucus and be a free agent. That had some appeal, but based on my study of the senate rules, president s, talking to knowledgeable people, that would have been almost impossible. I wouldnt have been very effective. Then the question was, if youre going to caucus, which side. It was made easier because the democrats were in the majority. That may pragmatic sense. Finally, the important thing to me was determining whether the democrats or republicans would allow me to be independent, would tolerate my not always being a dependable Party Line Vote. I talked to joe lieberman, independent from connecticut. I talk to George Mitchell, former majority leader from maine. A really determined i would be allowed to be independent. I had a lengthy conversation with harry reid. I became a short i assured myself assured myself that if i do not vote the party line, i am not going to lose my committee assignments. That was the decision i made. It was not an easy one. Caucusing, from my point of view i did not have to sign anything. There is no blood oath. It is that is who i am going to be meeting with. But i am going to call it as i see it. Host senator angus king, justin is on the phone, las vegas. Caller can you support in remarks as a way to get congressman to talk to each other again earmarks as a way to get congressmen to talk to each other again . Guest earmarks and corker are in the same category. Pork are in teh samhe same category. The idea of these tiny things going into a larger appropriations bill that nobody knows about or sees i do not think is a good idea. I think this process should be opened. There should be a justification for it. It should be part of an open process. The second part of your question, getting congressman to talk to each other is really important. One of the problems here i did not know if youre watching earlier, but i mentioned that i work here almost 40 years ago is relationships. One of the things that has changed is that the Airline Service is so much better, everyone goes home for the weekend. Families are back home. The relationships are not built. That is one of the things that makes it hard to get anything done. I am convinced that this fiscal cliff negotiation that occurred over the weekend and was largely based on the fact that joe biden had been in the senate for Something Like 35 years 38 years, i think. And he knew Mitch Mcconnell. They talk to each other without a lot of nonsense. Those relationships are crucial. It sounds silly to talk about, how does the congress function as a reflection of where people have their families and where they live, but i think it is a reality. Host next caller is on our line for independents from massachusetts. Caller congratulations, senator, on being elected to the u. S. Senate. A couple of things i like to bring to your attention. I may cspan i am a cspan junie. Junkie. Nothing is ever getting done, because it seems like theres always one person, preferably the one from connecticut i am sorry, kentucky that always seems that he wants to block everything that is going on, and at crazy amendments to some bill but could not mean anything. All those things add up to not getting anything done in the senate. I hope that we can change these rules a little bit so we can have some progress in the senate and not just have everything go dead and nothing happens. Guest i am absolutely with you. I do not know the extent to which i will be able to have an influence on that, but i was fortunate enough to be appointed to the rules committee, the committee that deals with these kinds of things, that also deals with Campaign Finance reform, something i am interested in. The filibuster yesterday that you had to go to the floor and stand up and talk. Used to be that you had to go to the floor and stand up and talk. Now all you have to do is call the majority leader and say, we object. The talking filibuster says that if you want to filibuster, come to the floor and talk. That is the way it has historically been done. More recently, there has been this of the screen filibuster where it is not really clear who is behind it or why. It is impeding our ability to get anything done. The senate was created to slow the process down, but not to stop it. Not to freeze it. I am a great believer in the senate as a protector of minority rights in small states, but not to the point that we cannot get anything done. Particularly with the problems facing the country, weve got to be able to move forward. I am with you. You may have seen earlier, harry reid yesterday talk about discussions he is having with Mitch Mcconnell. I am certainly interested in following those discussions, and public money was something. If they do not, i hope we can put it to a vote early in this session and try to make a change. Host when you ran for governor, you defeated the former governor, and susan collins, who is now your colleague. Guestguest i did defeat joe br. And also susan collins. She was elected to the u. S. Senate in 1996. Will become good friends. She was most gracious. We have become good friends. She was most gracious. She is a very able senator, very smart, and absolutely ferocious when she gets into an issue. Host did senator snowesnowe give you any advice . Guest paradise was, stay the course. Her advice was, stay the course. When you walk into one of these situations, it is kind of daunting. It struck me in the middle of the campaign. Georgealso georgia m mitchells. Those are some very big shoes. It is encouraging, exciting, and challenging. Host entitlements and spending, and want to get your comments. [video clip] as the president pointed out, Health Care Entitlement programs. But as i said, taxes cannot go high enough to keep pace with the amount of money the projected to spend on them without crushing our economy. The best way to reform these programs is to make them work better. That is not exploding because these programs exist. It is exploding because they are inefficient. They were created in a different era. The era of black and white tv. They should be updated for the age of the ipad. We should want to fix them, not just because you want to lower the debt, but because we want to strengthen and improve these programs themselves. Host how do you do that . Guest of wonder if that is the first time that the word ipad has been used on the floor of the United States senate. He is right. He is not entirely right, but i think is right generally that spending has to be part of this equation. Historically it as an 20 of gdp. 3 of gdp is a very large number. We have got to look at all of these issues. We have got to look at everything. The biggest problem there is an awful lot of confusion between Social Security and medicare peopl. Social security is in relatively good shape. That was modified back in the 1980s. They understood the actuarial impact of the changes taking place. A Social Security can be set on an actual early sound course for the next 75 years with relatively small changes. Actuarially sound course for the next 75 years with relatively small changes. Healthcare cost growth is what is sinking us. How that is what we have to focus on. Weve got to talk about how we pay for health care. Our whole system is based on feeforservice. You cannot get paid to keep me healthy. You cannot get paid to council me about my eating habits are smoking habits. I think we need to move towards a system that compensates the medical system for help instead of. Illness. There are some pilot programs in the Affordable Care act the talk about changing the way we compensate for health care that may haven a long onerun more influence and importance to the Health Care System and parts of the Affordable Care act of god and all the publicity. Than parts of the Affordable Care act that have gotten all the publicity. The drug benefit that is in medicare was passed without a dime of funding. It just happened. Very large expenditure. The bill that created it prohibited the federal government from negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies for good prices on volume. Think of the volumes of drugs that medicare is buying. That is ridiculous. Va negotiates. Medicated negotiates. Medicaid negotiates. It would save the taxpayers a lot of money and put medicare on more steady footing. Fundamentally, we of got to be talking about, how do we slow down the growth of healthcare spending. Host now senator from maine, angus king, independent, thank you for stopping by. Were going to look at the latest unemployment numbers. The rates staying essentially unchanged at 7. 8 . Will be joined by the Senior Editor for National Public radio, maryland geewax. It is friday morning, january 4. Well be back in a moment. It is true that a peoples history is a result of how it is synthesizing the work of a great many other historians. What had happened in the 1960s with the counterculture was that a whole new generation of young historians had come up. They were reevaluating all aspects of our past. Martin duberman, saturday night at 10 00 eastern. Roger williams, while he was member of the clergy, was also incredibly trained and learned in civil law, and worked coarser cook in the British Parliament in the star chamber. His views of separation of church and state argued in texts like this. This is where we really see Roger Williams talking about the idea of freedom of religion. He is very much showing at this point why he is different and why his thinking is different and why rhode island will be different from massachusetts. He was creating a land where people could come to worship as they chose, and would always be protected by civil law. This did not sit well with england or with massachusetts. By an act of parliament, all of the copies of this were said to be burned. Luckily, this copy was not. More from rhode island state capital,. Behindthescenes, the history of literary life of providence. Saturday at noon eastern. Sunday at 5 00 on cspan3. On fridays, we look at america by the numbers. Q. What to look the latest Unemployment Rate, which has remained unchanged we want to look at the latest Unemployment Rate, which has remained unchanged, 7. 8 . Guest the economy has enough underlying momentum that it was able to withstand the fiscal cliff, all this controversy in washington, as well as Hurricane Sandy. There was some pretty bigwaits on the economy, and yet is still continued weight on the economy, and yet it still continued dto churto churn ahea. Every month, we have traded on average 153,000 jobs. Created on average 153,000 jobs. Host in a country with well over 3 million americans, theyre more than 12,000,002 are currently out of work. Almost 5 million longterm unemployed. The discouraged worker, about 1. 1 million. Guest it is good that the economy kept churning along, but it is bad the we have such a lousy economy. We believe to create Something Like 350,000 we need to create Something Like 350,000 jobs to get unemployment down to 6 . Were falling short every single month. It is a recovery. We were in such a deep hole that it has been really difficult to dig out of this whole. Hole. If youre looking and reasons for optimism, you can look at this and say, good. If youre one of those 12 Million People who does not have a job, this is a disappointing report because it is not stronger. It is not enough to start to jobs werel the lost. Host if you are unemployed or underemployed, call us at 202 5853882. For those of you who are unemployed, were dividing our phone lines regionally. You can send us an email or join us on our Facebook Page or twitter d. Com cspanwj. When do you think youll get to the point that were creating these 300,000 or 400,000 jobs . Guest there is a pretty consistent story here. Health care is good. As the Affordable Health care act kicks in, there will be more people with insurance. There is good reason to believe that we will see continued growth in Health Care Jobs. Well that is great, Health Care Jobs is not an engine of growth the way that manufacturing jobs would be. What youre looking for is when we will have that turnaround when construction really comes back, manufacturing really comes back. You have seen some hints of that. There are numbers in here that are somewhat encouraging. New Home Construction is up. This report shows that Building Construction is up. All those have been great in 2012 autos have been great in 2012. When the year began in january of 2012, the average age of a car on the road was nearly 11 years old. There were a lot of people other who really need to get a new car. Out there who really needed to get a new car. Maybe those manufacturing jobs will continue to grow. Aerospace, if we can get the sequestration settled and figured out, we should be able to see more jobs in those kinds of industries. There is a reason for hope for 2013. Honestly, if Congress Continues to push the political crises where we go into another debt ceiling crisis, it is possible it could still be derailed. If there is not a giant political crisis, there should be good reason to think that jobs will pick up in 2013. Host Marilyn Geewax for a long sr. Business editor for npr. Our line for unemployed. Caller do you think that allowing companies i know the government cannot do much in a way of drafting policy or legislation that prevents companies from using a backdrop checks and Credit History cannot hire people i will be honest with you. Do not hire people i will be honest with you. In our current situation, maybe doing something in the way of Incentivizing Companies to hire people with these histories, with and that helped to bring these unemployment numbers up . Wouldnt that help to bring these unemployment numbers up . Guest to have touched on a big iss