Secretary of defense for the state of israel . I will take your answer off the air. Host that was part of the discussion yesterday. Guest absolutely. There was a lot of time spent on israel yesterday. It is a huge foreignpolicy issue for the. They happen to be in the middle of an environment that is unsettled and without clear paths forward. It is a core interest of the United States. Again, it is a scenario where politicians feel strongly and American Voters feel extremely strongly. There were some differences of opinion but got explored yesterday. Again, that is part of the point of the hearing process of a confirmation progress process, getting into areas where people have concerns. Host one of the exchanges about israel, democrat from rhode island. Interviews and speeches, i have always said i am a supporter of israel. In some cases, i have said a i am a strong supporter. I think it is in my book that we have a special relationship with israel. We always have. So i have never voted against israel ever in the 12 years i was in the senate. Additional supplemental appropriations, the record is very clear. I might add, as long as were on the subject, senator mel nelson may have a clear view of this, there have been a couple of recent statements made by the current israeli ambassador to the United States, the former ambassador and now the former deputy minister that were fairly positive about me. Host here is maryland, the republican line. Caller good morning. I just wanted to say that i think he is a good choice. I think he tries to be objective. His point yesterday about iraq was very well taken that the war should not have happened in the first place. Regardless of whether or not the surge or not. It was based on lies. Perception area deception. It was a tragedy. The other thing i found interesting, the israeli i found it interesting to watch all these interactions going on. When you look at the middle east, it is a complex issue. What is happening in palestine is a tragedy because you do have military occupations going on. These peoples plans are being taken away. I think it is refreshing to get somebody who can be honest about that and say hey, listen, there are two signs signs sides and they are wrong. Guest that is one of the main selling points about chuck hagel. He is a pragmatist. One of the reasons the president nominated him was that i think he is reading the tenor of the electorate to say this is the kind of person that we want an office, that there is and a large proportion of the electorate it is ideal ideologically driven and we want more leaders to look at things objectively and with an open mind. I think that was one of the primary reasons why they are very enthusiastic about senator hagels nomination. I think your point is well taken. Host editors of the New York Times asked, it is clear hagel is in the mainstream. The usa today ads of this host Richmond Virginia on the independent line. Caller i am wondering which American People they are talking about. My sentiments are that the colors before me their comments before me, the American People are wondering about what these politicians are basing their assumptions on as far as hagel is concerned. He used to be a parity decent sounding person decent sounding person. He is not making sense anymore. Thank you. Host isaac from new york, democrat line. Caller good morning. I just wanted to comment on hagel and the perspective of young democrats. To hear this man talk was really astounding. I am quite critical of the Obama Administration in terms of things i have done. In terms of hagels nomination, i am very impressed. His views on foreignpolicy almost seemed to dip too far beyond this era. My only feel is that the Political Parties will bring this ideology down simply because a lot of people are not prepared for it. Thank you and have a good day. Guest i think i would beg to differ about the too far beyond this era. I had the privilege of working for former secretary of state george schultz. In my estimation, senator hagels views are consistent with secretary schultz, whom i think is one of the giants of our time. I think they have the same sort of outlook of trying to be pragmatic and take a look at things from multiple dimensions and informed judgments based on the conditions of the time. I think we have had many people of this particular persuasion. We have been fortunate in our country to have many leaders like senator hagel. I share your hope that we continue to have them going forward. Host future of afghanistan. How did hagel handle that . Guest he was in a bind. He handled it as well as he could have. That is one of the things he will face going forward, should he become secretary. I think we are aligning ourselves up for an Administration Push to bring troops out more quickly than probably the military leaders on the ground will want. So he will likely find himself in a situation where he has to represent those military views to the white house, along with his own judgment. That, i think, will be a tricky road for him to navigate. Host johnson city tennessee, or public in line. Caller yes. I want to make a comment. I think obama and handle hagel percent ace two state solution. Is that correct or not . Guest at some point, that is their ultimate goal, yes. Caller dont you think that would make the situation worse, they are trying to divide it . The bible says that god is against that. Dividing the land of israel. Guest i think that is a whole separate show on what to do in that region. It is far too complex to get into at this point. Senator hagel has been very clear that he supports the president s approach to the region. Host talk about when senators are getting prepared. Do they get a briefing book . How is that done . Guest they get some of that from the administration. The Committee Takes a set slightly different approach. The Committee Staff will also look at that. It is not the committees job to rubber stamp the nominees. They will take their own look and prepare their own materials for specific members that they asked but also generally for the committee. Certainly in an instance like this, i think the republican staff its also both the recipient of and for repairing desperate bearing materials. Host arkansas, independent line. I do not push the button. Go ahead. Start over. Caller ok. I would like to ask about the troop surge. Did senator hagel say it was wrong at the time . And if he said that, why did he not say yes, i said that, i was wrong. You proved me wrong and go on with trying to do whatever he is supposed to do instead of sitting there and beating around the bush instead of saying, yes, i said that and i was wrong. Our politicians do not seem to be able to say i was wrong at any time. They always give a big answer for the yes or no. Host that leads to some responses to that that the senator dave. It goes like this guest i think that is perhaps a stronger characterization but not a totally unfair one. He did say i stand by those words because i said them, as i recall. It was in response to that question. I apologize. I have not seen the full context of that speech. When he then went on to say, elegantly, was that his characterization related to the war as a whole rather than the surge specifically. I think i personally shared his judgment that whether or not the war as a whole will be perceived as a good or bad choice in the historical rear view mirror remains to be seen. I think that is what he was trying to say was we dont we have not reached a final judgment on that. From an operational and technical perspective, the search was perceived to be successful. I suspect he may wish he had acknowledged that. He also was trying to say that it was more competent than that. I have an happened to spend a lot of time in iraq. Success such as that was at the time had a thousand different fathers and a lot of different versions of how it came about to include was it just the surge or some commendation of other factors. Some combination of other factors. He did not answer well but he did acknowledge and he did say he stands by his words. He tried to put it in a bigger context. Host lancaster, ohio. Democrat. Caller good morning. I would like to know one thing or two things. Host go ahead. Caller i would like to know how has john mccain can question this man like he is not too good. Another thing, they are only doing this because of who the president is. They are open with that. Host we will leave it there. Guest i think john mccain i think what you see is a real passion for the issues that he was questioning him about. He is a passionate man. He is someone who cares deeply and that was evident yesterday. I think he is someone who takes things personally and very much to heart. And again, the iraq war was something he felt acutely and was very outspoken on and has been throughout the execution of that war. I think you could see that yesterday. Host she is a Senior Adviser for the center for studies. If you want to watch senator hagels hearing in total, i invite you to go to our cspan Video Library at www. C span. Org. Thank you very much. Coming up, it is our regular look at america by the numbers. They will look at how americans across the country are doing financially. We will be right back. My cartoons depict native humor. When i first started this cartoon, they were native characters in native situations. My audience was geared towards natives. In the last four or five years, they have become more universal where they spilled out into the mainstream or dominant culture. It is more universal now. I am inspired by people that i grew up with, my friends and family. Members of my tribe. Just basically watching people and some things they do. It is surprising if you Pay Attention to what people do and what people say area and there is a lot of humor that you can find in that and make your own twists. People who have read my cartoons for the first time, i hope they take the appreciation of the native culture and the native way of life. It is not always to. Depicted correctly in the cinema or in books. But this cartoon is coming from a genuine native american, and these are my views. Even though may not agree with some cartoons or my views, i hope they can appreciate it because it is coming from a real person that has grown up on the reservation and has seen the dominant culture and lived with the dominant culture. So some of the stuff that i learned from that, i put back in my cartoons. Cartoonist, one of the authors you will meet this weekend at book tv and cspans look behind the history of santa fe. Saturday at noon eastern on c span twos book tv and sunday at five on American History tv on cspan three. Washington journal continues. Host america by the numbers. Two guests are joining us. He is with the bureau of and that Economic Analysis. Also joining us for this discussion, neil irwin of the washington post. Welcome. Ets start with you in the paper today, there is a line about personal incomes. It says that the Congress Report reported 2. 6 from the month before and the month goes upward. Can you give detail about this report and what it is about . Guest sure. We put out a personal income report every month. In december, we had a larger than usual increase. There were special factors going on. In particular, the number of companies paid out dividends in anticipation of tax law changes. Also, some companies paid out special bonuses. That did lead to an unusually strong number for december. But, you know, in general, it was a temporary kind of thing. We would not expect those things. Host how did the year look . Guest overall, we had an increase of 3. 5 for the year. 12. 2012. That is a good increase. It is a little below the long term trends. Host when is a personal income, is that takehome pay or are there several factors associated . Guest there are a number of factors involved. Within personal income, we have wages and salaries which account for more than half of the total. We also have Small Business income, things like rental income and also Investment Income in terms of interest and dividends and so forth. There is transfer income, Social Security and unemployment and so forth. There is a variety of types of income. It is an allencompassing. Host a boost as far as money is concerned. What does that say overall, not only from how people personally did but how does it into the economy . Guest we are seeing an economy that is recovering slowly from the crisis and recession of 2008 and 2009. We can put a number of side for a minute because that is about Investment Income. Even over the long time horizon, we are seeing incomes rise. People are earning more money. People are starting to put people back to work. Certainly, this is not a happy days are here again and everything is fine. We are not healed but it is making progress in that direction. Host take a look at a lot of factors. It look at wages and income and rental income. You look at Investment Income as a whole. That paints a picture of where americans are financially. Guest thats right. You cant buy the things you need if you dont have income. For some, that is a paycheck from their job or from retirees, Social Security benefits. Or for people who have invested a lot, it might be invested Investment Income dividends. Wherever it comes from, that is the core of how you buy the things you need and want. Host our guests will take a look at these numbers. Call the lines if you want to join in on the conversation. If you are doing better, give us a call at this number. You can send us a tweet reflecting those categories, if you want. You can also send us an email at. It shows an annual percent change. When you take a look at the percent change in 2011, it is a 5. 1 . You take a look at 2012, tell us what happened in between. Guest there was a bit of a slowdown in 2012 impaired to 2011. 2011, we did have some boost in particular the payroll tax and some other kinds of things. But still, we are seeing steady growth. This is the third Consecutive Year that personal income has grown. You can see the early drop during 2008 and 2009. That was during the recession. We are getting growth, but you can see we are below the trends that we were on before the recession. I think relative to the typical increase that we had before the recession we are still well below that trend. Host what would you add as far as these numbers are concerned . Guest the economy was going along into thousand eight and 2009 and it hit a bump and dropped. The economy has been expanding in both personal incomes and growing and expanding since the middle of 2009. It has not been growing fast enough to make up that lost ground. It has been growing at about the same case historically. It got on the same path rather than accelerating and going up. We have not had a catchup effect. That is why you still have eight percent unemployment and the people feel like they are not earning they would like. Host mr. Moulton referred to the payroll tax cut. Does that affect how future numbers are, in your opinion . Guest aftertax income. The payroll tax is what pays for Social Security. At the end of 2010, it was cant cut to give americans more money in their pockets. It is two percent of worker pay for most workers. That was allowed to expire at the end of december. That first paycheck in january for all americans was Something Like two percent lower than it would have been in december. That is less takehome pay and less money you have to spend. We will see that on on the consumption side in 2013. Guest he summarized it very well. Host what information do you take to make these charts happen . Guest these are part of the National Accounts which are designed to cover the entire economy. It we have within that a household corporate sector and so forth. We are drawing data from hundreds of different sources. We have administrative records for payroll as will a survey. We are bringing together a lot of different data sources. Host our first call, rockville, maryland. Ben, tell us why you are doing better. Caller i got a new job about six years ago six weeks ago. I got my background and i landed a better job. Host what field do you work in . Caller property management. It seems like in my previous job, a lot of the action that was happening in making the economy recover is all happening at the Community Bank level. The Community Banks that get the value of this local business whereas the larger banks want the national tenants. It is the Community Banks that look at a person as a whole and say, yes, property a is not doing great but property be is doing excellent. It is the Community Banks that have developed that relationship from the ground up. I did not see it as a National Bank level. Why are we putting more money into the Community Banks . I dont understand it. Guest it is an interesting point. We have seen a lot of this in the economy. Small banks all over the country. There were quite a few banks that went under. Those that are left are pretty strong. They have capital and depositors. People did not want to deposit their money and one of the megabanks went to their bank down the street. As the caller said, they tend to have a good understanding of the local market and the real estate conditions and what sort of demand is out there. They can make loans on projects that may be a jpmorgan or citibank would not take a look at. It is a strength to the economy. The u. S. Banking system has been resilient. Any your, it is more dominated by these large megabanks that are enormous. Maybe it is a source of strength for the american economy. Host garden city, new york. Hello. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have a question. I would like to look at actually, if your guest can talk about at a more granular level, yes, personal income has increased. Can you break it down to