Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20160830

Tell us if you would or would not and why. There are the lines. You can tell us if you would reelect your members of congress on our social media pages. Focused post on our facebook page. The headline of the Washington Post. The headline says mccain walks tightrope in tough reelection race. Alex bolton is with us to talk about that race and others. Guest good morning. Host tell us about senator mccains race. Guest he is running against kelly ward. It is a very tight race. Actually, no, it is not a tight race. He is up by 26 points over ward according to the cnn poll, but it is a very nasty race. Ward went on television recently and said mccain is too old to be reelected and she also made the point, as a former position, she said, i know the average is notn males lifespan 86 years old, which is how old mccain would be at the end of his next term if reelected. She is saying, it is time for a change, he has been in washington way too long. As i mentioned, the cnn poll showed him up by 26 points. He looks to be cruising to reelection. There was a breitbart poll that showed him only up by 4 points with 23 undecided. The cnn poll is probably more accurate, but maybe there could be a surprise. Host is support for mr. Mccain as strong as in previous cycles . Guest mccain has said this is the toughest race of his life, this is the political fight of his life. He is taking it very seriously and feels threatened. He had a primary challenge in 2010 from former republican congressman jd hayworth, a conservative talkshow host and someone who had served in congress. Hayworth was seen as a serious threat, but mccain won that primary quite handily in the end. Will ward get closer . Who knows. It looks like mccain is likely headed toward the general election after today. Host lets turn to florida and the race that features Debbie Wasserman schultz. What is the condition of her race . Guest she is running against tim canova, a law professor. Bernie sanders has endorsed him, but has not campaigned for him. Coupled with the fact that Wasserman Schultz is reviled by many sanders supporters and liberals since the hacking of the dnc servers showing that she and her staff favored Hillary Clinton in the primary. That has generated a lot of money for canova. It is still a district that favors Wasserman Schultz. She has represented this district since 2013. A recent poll shows her with a Pretty Healthy lead. This is a district that Hillary Clinton won handily over sanders in the march primary. It looks like Wasserman Schultz will probably hang on, but canova has a lot of money and is running a strong campaign. He has been on the air attacking her and she has been defended by the outside group, patriot majority. In these house primaries, it can be hard to predict because there is not much polling. Host lets stay in florida with marco rubio. How does he stand against his challenger . Guest he is up big on his challenger, about 40 points. Carlos beruff, his challenger, is running a populist campaign. The Television Ads he is running dont seem to have made a difference and beruff seems to be conceding the race. He said he does not know how to quit, but he has not been on the campaign trail much recently. Rubio is barely acknowledging his primary opponent. Looking ahead to the general election where he will murphy. Patrick murphy does not have great name id and rubio is pulling quite quite well among hispanics. Host the democratic side in florida, two sitting house members going at it for the Florida Senate seat. Guest Patrick Murphy and alan grayson. Murphy is only 33 years old and does not have a whole lot of experience. He gave money to mitt romney in the 2008 campaign. Grayson is trying to exploit that, arguing to voters that he is the real democrat or the liberal democrat, in the Elizabeth Warren wing of the party. He has been hurt by ethics scandals. Is House Ethics Committee looking into his operation of a hedge fund while he was a sitting member of congress. He has also been plagued by Domestic Abuse charges by his exwife and that cost a couple liberal groups to unendorsed him. Because of that, he is running well behind in the race, although he has higher name id than Patrick Murphy. Murphy is expected to cruise to the victory and on to the general election. Ast alex bolton giving us rundown of various primary races in arizona and florida. Thank you. Guest thanks for having me. Host if you are calling in from arizona and florida, you can do so. Onwant to give your thoughts if you would send your house or Senate Member that to congress. , republicans. 202 7488000, democrats. 202 7488002, independents. Carol saying she is going to the polls to vote for marco rubio when this program is over at 10 00. Karen buchanan talking about jeff duncan in South Carolina saying, no, my representative is jeff duncan. You can post on twitter, you can give us a call. 202 7488001, republicans. 202 7488000, democrats. 202 7488002, independents. We will start with teresa in california. Democrats line. Good morning. Which legislator are you interested in talking about . Are you there . She dropped. Lets go to lynn in utah, democrats line. Caller i would not send my u. S. Representative, chris stewart, a republican, back to congress because he does not even believe in Climate Science at all. He does not believe there is such a thing as Climate Change. Host that is the primary reason you would not send him back . Caller that is one of many, but that is the primary. Host what are his chances of reelection like . Caller i think he is running for his second or third term. Utah is probably 80 republican and his chances of being reelected are basically a slamdunk. Host are Environmental Issues top on your list . Caller that is the top reason i vote. Host ok. Lynn in utah. Lets hear from james in ohio, republican line. Caller good morning. How are you . Host im well. Go ahead. Caller i wouldnt support any of my people that are running for office as long as they are backing mr. Trump i will support any of my people that are running for office as long as they are backing mr. Trump. I like trumps policies. Host tell us about your house and Senate Members. Caller mr. Portman is the only one ive really checked out. Host that is rob portman in ohio. He supported donald trump. Caller as far as i know, he is. I talked to his office and that is the answer they give me. Host have you ever looked at a tiedlator who has themselves in a previous president ial race . Or is this the first time you have done this . Caller no, normally i checked most of them out and as long as they are backing the Second Amendment and so on and so forth, that is what i go with. Host that is james in ohio, republican line. Another james in georgia. Also on the republican line. Caller good morning, cspan. I came into this political cycle thinking that america is on the wrong track and having considered that, i live in a truly gerrymandered district. I will not be voting for my representative. However, if i have a senate , myidate on the ballot senators are both republicans. Host who are your legislators . My representative is john lewis. And senator wow, i cant think of his name right now. Host isaacson and senator lewis. Caller lewis is my representative. Host correct. Caller i would not be voting for him because he is a democrat. He would not get my vote anyway because this is a strictly democrat district. Georgia,t is james in telling us about his legislator. A previous caller mentioned guns. Eric garcias story saying that in the senate race in pennsylvania, the issue about that race could come down to guns. Despite the support for background checks, republican senator patrick to me might be the lesser of two evils in his race against democrat katie mcginty. He previously had the support of the nra in 2010. After the sandy hook shooting in 2012, he teamed up with senator joe manchin, who previously had the nra support as well, to push legislation on background checks. We talked about arizonas primary today. Sophie lives in flagstaff, arizona. Calling on airline for democrats. Caller morning. Host how are you . Caller halfasleep still, but i had to get up to watch the show. [laughter] host we started off talking about senator mccain. Are you planning to vote in the primary today . Caller im going to be voting for the primary, but i wont be voting for mccain, im afraid. There are so many reasons why , you know,ause he is really disappointed me in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to my people. I belong to the navajo tribe. We have had issues with him for years. I dont know how it happened or is the problems we have had together. Im not sure if he is still the head of the native american or something, the chairman, the subcommittee, but so far, none of it has been helping. Been one, big, giant headache for how many years now. Host were you supporting kirkpatrick in arizona . Caller yes. I will definitely, for her, yes. Host as far as issues that are concerning to you come election day, what are the most important ones . Dayer well, for election host when it comes to you voting for your house or Senate Member, what issues are most important to you . Caller i guess you could say the issues would be more or less what policies they decide to keep, you know, or to change. Mainly, it is the Health Insurance that i worry about a lot. , also worry about, of course how they can represent us in washington since, so far, like i said with mccain, nothing has really been he has not really done much for the navajo tribe. I cant speak for the other tribes in the state of arizona, but for just me, in my opinion and my mothers opinion, he is a disappointment and there is a reason why we did not vote for him when he ran against obama. Host that is sophie in arizona. Senator mccain will eventually run against the democrat ann kirkpatrick. The primary is today against kelly ward. We want to get your thoughts about whether you would vote for your legislator or send your legislator back in november. Tell us about that person and why or why not you would support that person. 202 7488001, republicans. 202 7488000, democrats. 202 7488002, independents. The Washington Post takes a look at actions by the democratsthat gets into congress. They have canceled Television Ads. Ted strickland has struggled to gain traction. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee had reserved advertising time on ohio tv stations. Political ad trackers have noticed that the democrats will not launch that campaign until september 22. They have not withdrawn support entirely from strickland. Delay in unleashing ads from the independent expenditure arm comes amid rising doubts about stricklands viability. We will hear from a resident of ohio. This is john on the democrats line. Caller thank you for taking my call, cspan. Im going to be voting what is referred to as a split ballot this year. I was a democrat and i voted for donald trump in the primary. Now, im voting against rob portman because of his votes on all of the trade deals. Whoever myagainst house of representative is. Office, im going to be voting for the other person not in office because i am voting. Areof the Trump Supporters voting to replace all of the politicians in washington. There is no reason for a person to vote for trump if they are not going to vote against the other politicians in washington. Donald trump is a businessman. He doesnt need democrats, he doesnt need republicans to run washington. As a businessman, he has worked with most democrats and republicans. Therefore, there will be no problem with him running washington with other democrats and republicans in those that we need to fill in washington. Four senator portman you said trade was the Biggest Issue for voting against him. Why is that . Said thate one man rob portman was supporting donald trump. Why did he not go to the convention . I dont know. Host lets hear from dan. Caller thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. And large, i agree with a gentleman the gentleman who just called in. It is time for us as americans to think outside the box and how we are looking at our delegation. In South Carolina, we have the typical delegation to the house and the senate that are entrenched and all of them have made commitments over the years. All our jobs have been shipped overseas. Im going to support trump this time despite being a democrat. The entrenched doneations, they have not things for us. , wee dont change things are going to elect and retain our representatives based on performance, all of us work jobs and we get evaluated. Host as far as your specific house or senate legislator, talk about that person and why you would or would not send them back to congress. Place, he is in my one of the more relatively new ones, but then we have mark sanford and some of the others that are up for reelection. Those are entrenched, lifetime, career politicians, who have made their living off of going to washington and not doing what they said and not delivering and not being accountable. We need to start requiring a job evaluation on each one of these rings and change them when they dont do what they say. That is the biggest problem we have in america. Host this is Steve Harrison off twitter. You can post on twitter, post on facebook, as well. Tell us if you would reelect your member of congress this november. Lets hear from ruth on the republican line. Caller good morning. Yes, im going to vote for mccain. He has been disappointing in a lot of ways, but being in the senate as long as he has, he is on a lot of committees and i et a lot ofhelped g he has money and things needed. The biggest disappointment on the republican side is ron paul, the speaker of the house, we might as well call him obama 2. You mean paul ryan, the house speaker. Caller yes. He has supported obama. He did not back trump. He is a disappointment. Host you said that senator mccain was a disappointment to you. How so . Caller like the other ladies that have called in. For the most part, he is not active. He does not really step up and do anything. What do you hear him doing on border control. Caller how are you doing, pedro . Host bruce, go ahead. Caller i dont want to vote for anybody here in indiana at all. There is nobody. Coats, im glad hes gone. By is basically republican. Why would anybody vote for these people . They have done nothing. If you look at their careers, they have done nothing. Why are we voting for these yoyos . We need to kick them out. We need new blood. Host when you say weve done nothing, qualify that. Caller how do you not qualify it . What have they done . Have it asked anything . They have done nothing. As far as the people in indiana, they have done nothing for the people of indiana. You can not show no one can show anything they have done other than line their pockets. Host from our democrats line, this is guy from washington. I think thee thate ought to be aware the house of representatives makes the laws. [indiscernible] host guy, im going to stop you because your signal seems to be breaking up a bit. If you would not mind trying to get a better signal, lets give you a try in just a minute or two to reestablish that. Lets hear from john in st. Paul, minnesota on the republican line. Caller good morning, cspan. Unfortunately, lived in the district represented by betty mccollum, a proud member of the democrats, hate israel contingent, along with her colleague across the river, keith ellison, and another of other luminaries, my other favorite being this quack in seattle, mcdermott. She has a safe seat and im sure she will be reelected. Host why is that issue important to you, as far as voting for her . Caller voting against her, sir. Host against her, sorry. Caller she is an antisemi. The democrats are in love with antisemites and i detest antisemites. Host amy from freeport new york. Caller i will be probably for my representative, louise slaughter. She is one of the few people in congress who actually has a degree in science, microbiology, as well as public health. She is welleducated. She has years of experience. She is in her 80s. I also really like her stance on reproductive rights. Last election cycle, when some politicians were talking about what or what is not legitimate statementmade a that, what do they expect women to do, get a receipt . It put in stark relief what women go through. Women a good advocate for and all people and im proud to have her represent me. We had a caller say he would not vote for a person because he felt like they did not do anything for the district. As far as representative slaughter, what would you say are her accomplishments other than her stance on reproductive rights . Caller ive never had to do this, but i know many people who have had issues with passports or Different Things that they have been able to call her office directly and been able to resolve their issues. I see her around my town. She is very approachable and i really admire her a lot. Host what about the former senator for new york, Hillary Clinton . Is that who you plan to support this november . Caller absolutely. I voted for her twice for senator, twice in primaries, and i will gladly vote for her a fifth time for president and a six time for a second term, hopefully. Host this is your chance to tell us who you would reelect or not to the house and the senate. 202 7488001, republicans. 202 7488000, democrats. 202 7488002, independents. In nevada congressman suffered a minor heart attack. This is in the hill this morning. Freshman representative crescent hardy was hospitalized monday night after suffering that heart attack. His Communications Director issued a statement he will make a full and speedy recovery and is expected to return next week. Congressman hardy was recently hospitalized for a minor heart attack and has undergone a routine medical procedure. Out of an abundance of caution, doctors are continuing to observe him while he makes a full and speedy recovery. To return to a full schedule later this week. Jennifer is up next in texas. I am wonderful, thank you so much for cspan. Anyone pretty much should be reelected to any house of congress at this point. We are also dissatisfied with their overall performance and i felt that time limits might solve some of these problems. Since congress will not even consider much less pass a term limit bill of any kind, it is up to the people for us to start voting them out and maybe if they only served even one term, everybody should be voted out and that way a constant source of fresh ideas and potentially noncorrupt individuals could serve the country honorably. Specifically about your legislators and why you would not vote for them again. , in my opinion, many have corrupted our system and if you look at the longterm seemss in congress it that they only pass bills that seem to benefit themselves and the era of corruption and good old boys network, it is time for it to end because look at the crisis our country is in. We have voted these people in so we do not have anyone other than ourselves to blame. Host on the senate side you did not vote for senator ted cruz in previous times . Cornyn i have voted for but only out of dislike for his competition. It is sort of like choosing the lesser of the two evils, even in state government. Host christopher up next in new jersey, democrat line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I believe that we must vote democrat in this upcoming election because the democrats truly and strongly can make progress, especially on the issues i truly care about when it comes to the rights of people with special needs in the Autism Spectrum Disorder and more portly than ever we need to ask our congress and senate to stand up and bring forth a total piece of legislation to end bullying against our youth. We watch today and we have lost too many of our youngsters with bullying and harassment and gender preference and so forth and it is time we stood up for them in the Democratic Party and vote for them this november because progress makes us go forward and be a great nation and make us stronger than ever. Host i am going to assume you voted for your senators cory what it escapes me about your house member . , indeed i would vote for them again because they speak to us and they know how to get the job done. Absolutely right. More importantly than ever we need to have a full democratic government by the people, for the people and of the people because we all exist and we exist because we want to make america great. My mother always said if you do not vote, do not complain. If you do complain, vote with your life and your heart and your soul this november 7. Host senator bob is the name i was trying to remember. Kevin from maryland. Is ar my representative leisure coming and i would absolutely vote for him on a micro level him and bank hard and actually came to visit my business and on a macro level Elijah Cummings seems to be on every committee. He is the one who seems to question the questioners rather than just accept what they have put forward. Host what is your business . Caller i am a furniture builder and manufacturer. It was part of a made in maryland program, it was a photo meethat ive still got to them and shake their hand and they seemed to care and they seemed invested in the issues we work facing and they seemed to want to make sure we were prospering. Host what about your senators would you send them back . Puter i would absolutely ben cardin in there. Host tim from ohio, republican line. Caller good morning. Got bob gibbs as my congressman and i will not be voting for him this year or whenever he runs again. He let the va lie to him about my health care and i do not think veterans need to have that kind of representation. That is the issue and you will not be voting for him again . Caller no i will not. Veterans have been getting screwed in this country. Host did you vote for him before . Consistently was this the issue that changed your mind on him . Caller yes, if the leaders of this country will not stand up to the va i do not understand why they are in there. Give us a sense of who you would send back to congress, this all comes over concerns over election systems. There is a story off of yahoo news as the fbi says foreign hackers penetrated the system and they just uncovered evidence that the hackers demonstrated election databases prompting the bureau to warn Election Officials to take new steps to enhance security of their computer systems. The fbi warning contained an it comes amid heightened concerns among u. S. Intelligence officials about the possibility of cyber intrusions, especially by russian hackers. Those concerns prompted Homeland Security secretary jeh johnson to convene a Conference Call with Election Officials on august 15 in which he offered to make state voting systems more secure including providing experts to scan for vulnerabilities. More on that available on the yahoo news website. The writer will be on the show this week. In georgia the democrat line, who is your legislator and would you vote for them again . Caller no, none of these republicans like tom price and carter, they have not done anything for black individuals in georgia. These people have gone down to working 3. 5 hours because they have not garnished medicaid for the workers. Three days out of a week minimum rage and the representatives make 174,000 to the congress and senate. Black people and poor white people are suffering in georgia because of these companies coming in here and taking advantage of the job market and working 3. 5 days because they do not want to pick up the tab of health care and it is a shame. They need to get all of the republicans out of there and they do not do anything for the people here. 5 days at minimum wage [inaudible] why didnt they pass infrastructure because of good, paying jobs. They have not passed it. In chaos. Will be the other poor nationalities in this country will suffer, hispanics, asians, they will suffer in america and we need to wake up. Theres a lot of us out here writing crying. You will see more chaos. Int lets hear from al South Carolina on the republican line. Caller it is a Beautiful Day of the state of South Carolina. The state extends from the mountains to the beautiful seashore. Tom ryan is doing a wonderful job and he is working as hard as he can and i would be proud to vote for tim scott again for the u. S. Senate. Host what would you say there are compliments are for your their accomplishments are for your state . Caller he has been trying to cent per dollar on the federal budget. It is so hard to get anything done because of housetaking a look at the race in new hampshire, the headline says there is a rating change for him because it swings toward democrats and saying the first to district has a history of flipping Party Control every four years. Regardless of who emerges from the republican primary on september 13 between representative frank into and ashooh, there is no reason to believe that either of the those code men in the position would do any better. The rollcall race rating we will hear next from steve in maryland on the republican line. Caller good morning. I am a republican in maryland and i guess i am a lone ranger. We have no choice in terms of nepotism or whatever you would call. I will vote straight republican and i will vote for donald trump and i will predict that maryland is democratic, but i think donald trump will win the state of maryland. All you have to do is drive around the state and you do not see one Hillary Clinton election sign. All you see is donald trump signs and i think he will shock the state of maryland by winning it. Host your state also has a republican governor, larry hogan. Does that factor into that . Caller i think he is doing a great job, he reduced taxes and whatever, whatever. Our state is decided by a few counties. It is been democrats for 50 years come all you have to do is look at baltimore city, the democratic machine has destroyed that city. Host larry up next. That was steve in maryland and this is larry and ohio on the democrat line. Caller good morning. Againstlike to say i am he restricted my vote my right to vote for whoever i choose. My senator, jerry brown has been a great senator then i would vote for him anytime he runs. We have a senator now running who is terrible. I hear all of the republicans seem to be the ones with four term limits. If you will elect knuckleheads texas, youuz in probably need term limits. If you vote for people out there doing a job for the working people for america like jerry brown than you would not need sharad brown than you would not need term limits. If barack obama could run again he would win hands down. Host you describe senator brown as great, what makes him great . Rearr he has worked his end off for every working man and woman in the state of ohio and united dates. He has fought time and again for antidumping laws where the chinese have been dumping steel in the United States and it has destroyed our steel industry. He fought for the car companies. Every time you look around he is working his but off to do something good for the working people of america and the state of ohio. We also have rob portman who has done everything he can to cut the throat of the american working people and the other thing, you have the republicans voting hands down anytime comes up for the veterans, the last eight veterans bills that came republicans down by. They claim they are for the veteransyet they cut throats every chance they get. Host one more call from michigan on our independent line. Caller god bless cspan. Really appreciate the work you do. I am going the straight d ticket. Voting for hillary is not enough you have to give her the power is ax the rich and trump billionaire and will not tax himself. Baby bipolar, leave that alone, no get that baby out of here. I know what bipolar is like because i am bipolar. Specifically who are your folks and why are you supporting them . Caller i hate to see them go what i have to get a straight ticket and it all has to be d. Host talking about the reelection and who you would send back to congress or not this coming november. We will change and take a look at matters on the economy with the Economic Policy institutes josh bevins. The report on why the recovery is taking so long. Later in the program, former epa official is now a lawyer representing the lead plaintiff over the fight over the Clean Power Plant and he will discuss the Obama Administrations record on coal. With the house and senate returning from summer break, on thursday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern we will preview for key issues facing congress, federal funding to combat the zika virus. Women in america want to make sure they have the ability to not get pregnant because mosquitoes ravage pregnant women. Today they turn down the very money that they argue for last may and they decided to gamble with the lives of children like this. The annual defense policy and programs bill. All of these folks are vital to the future of this nation. In a time of turmoil and a time of the greatest number of refugees since the indio world war ii. Criminal Justice Reform and gun violence legislation. Every republican and every democrat wants to see less gun violence. We must continue to work the work of gun violence. And the resolution for congress to impeach john cuffed and and commissioner of the Internal Revenue service for high crimes and misdemeanors. Will review the expected congressional debate with the senior Congressional Correspondent for the washington examiner. Join us at 8 00 eastern for congress this fall. Washington journal continues. Host our first guest is josh bevins. Josh how would you describe your organization . We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank and we make sure the interests of low income families are given their weight. Host paint the picture of where we are as far as the recovery is concerned . Guest we are getting close to a full recovery. It has taken a long time to get there. Historically,look seven years plus into recovery you are supposed to be pretty much at Something Like full employment. We are not there yet and it has taken a long time. The one thing that is noncontroversial about this report is that recovery has taken a long time. Host compare that to cycles we have had in the past, how long does it take to get there from their . Look at employment growth since the recovery began, after the recession and starting from the month of recovery it took about 51 months just to get the jobs lost during the recession. And we have to do better than that and create 120,000 jobs. Ach month that is the longest on record and that is a function of, we lost so many jobs because the Great Recession was so long, but also the pace of employment growth was quite slow and that was the slowest longest on record. Host what was different this time around than the previous cycles . Back, to take one step another thing that is uncontroversial is that the recession was caused and the recovery was hampered by insufficient aggregate command. Households and governments were not spending enough money to get everyone fully employed and get all of the factories and stores and hotels at full capacity. That is a problem we have been struggling with. You look at the sources of command, consumption spending, government spending. The thing that stands out like a sore thumb is the incredible slow pace of public spending. If you compare public spending and this recovery compared to every other postwar recovery, it is an outlier and that has put a drag on recovery and that has why that is why it has taken so long. Host in this case, spending by the federal government . Guest in the report i look at federal, state, and local spending. The mechanical source of weakness has been the state and local sector. Local policymakers have real constraints about increasing spending during a recession and they really have to balance budgets often bite state constitutions that require they do so. They cannot borrow on anywhere near the scale the federal government, federal government has a large scope of action to maintain spending during a recovery and i would say even though the largest mechanical weakness is state and local spending, the fed has the ability to do more and chose not to. Host how does the means austerity basically very slow growth in spending. I am talking about austerity on the spending side. You can raise taxes a lot and snuff purchasing power that way, we have not done that. It has been on the spending side. People isthat puzzles people have this idea in their head about the early days of the Obama Administration when one of the first acts was the american recovery investment act which was a temporary increase and spending that want meant to fight recession. That was the sink us largest legislative stimulus we have ever done in the american economy. I think it was appropriate to do and if you looked over the course of the recession, in the first year of recovery and say to the middle of 2010, public spending was rising faster than historical average. Miss, in 2011 in the summer there was a Political Drama about congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless they got spending cuts and we got those at the budget control act and since then the pace of public spending has been incredibly slow. In 2010 we got a lot of state legislators looking to republicans and lots of them, famously Sam Brownback instituted austere spending paths. Host if you want to ask questions, 2027488001 four republicans, 2027488000 for democrats, 2027488002 four independents. Cutting spending and the money does not go into the economy because the money is not there to generate a more robust economy. Host that is about it. Where you can see it tangibly is employment. Over the course of the recovery if you look at publicsector employees, that growth has been far below growth in normal times. Publicsector employment is supposed to grow over time. Take the case of teachers. We get more and more students, you should want more teachers. Shed a actually we bunch and hiring has been slow. When Public Sector employees lose their jobs they decrease their spending. Host the first call is on the republican line from michigan. Caller good morning. Bevins, i really think there is a lot of politics involved in our slow recovery. Our roads and bridges and things of that nature are deplorable and i believe that the republicans did not want to give president obama credit for increasing the employment. Also, another thing i have observed, the privatization of anything they can do. Some of our prisons, food service was privatized. Atrocious results. Maggots and things in the food is so bad that possibly we may even eliminate the privatization. Those are two things i have noticed prevalent. Thank you cspan you do a wonderful job. Guest i certainly agree with the first statement that you want to explain why the recovery has been so slow and the Political Choice we have made to really undertake the economics of fiscal austerity. I think the second part is true as well. There is a lot of stuff we could profitably spend money on, Infrastructure Investment. Both candidates have said kind words about increasing Infrastructure Spending and candidate clinton has a concrete plan to do that. I totally agree and i think we have a small recovery because we made a bad Political Choice mostly driven by the republicans in congress and state houses and i think it is obvious where you could productively spend more public money in the United States and do big Infrastructure Investments. Host West Virginia on independent line, richard go ahead. Forms we haveof to wrestle with, increasing spending is how do we bring down our deficit. Go out and Google National recovery act. One of the things that eisenhower developed the federal was to facilitate emergency transport of military. It would seem to me that is one is toor infrastructure pack in a portion of the military budget. Just wanted your thoughts on that. Two things there, one is the issue of how to pay for spending. Over the course of the recovery when demand has been so weak, it is probably best if it is a deficit finance. Stimulus works best when you do not pay for it. If we did Infrastructure Investment and raised progressive taxes on high income people come you would get a boost from stimulus but it would be blunted because you are spending with one hand to generate economy and taking command out by increasing taxes. Until we get a full recovery, it is actually most effective to do fiscal stimulus if you do not pay for it in a short run move with dedicated taxes. We will know when the strategy reaches a breaking point or when that is no longer the optimal strategy because Interest Rates will rise. Government will be borrowing a lot of money and we you will see upward pressure on Interest Rates. We are nowhere near that point right now. Interest rates are historically low and they have been falling steadily. At the moment i think we can do this spending, mostly deficit finance, especially with Infrastructure Investment. It makes sense to pay for with debt. It is smart to pay for longterm investments. On the question of how to pay for it which is a stumbling block in congress, in the short run for Infrastructure Investment you do not have to pay for it, it works best to generate jobs and recovery if you do not pay for it in the short run. In the long run, hopefully we will be back to full employment and then we will have to pay for what the government does. Until we get there, we can do this by issuing the debt. Aboutjournal talked looking at the deficit, and they have this line in editorial saying the federal deficit will therefore rise to 590 billion, the biggest since 2013. Milosevic number. Guest that is a big number, but part of the problem in reporting is they are all the numbers. The most natural way to put these in context is to express them as the total national income. If i told someone i had a debt of 100,000, they might say that is a big debt, but if i reveal i am mark zuckerberg, they will say that is a manageable debt. I would deficits actually look pretty modest. For the next three years, they are less than 3 of gdp. That will lead to no increase at all in the overall debt to gdp ratio. Even at the forecasted increase in the budget deficit the wall ,treet journal is talking about there have no tax cuts that have been proposed, there is no law that will be put in effect that is driving deficit. They are projecting the Interest Rate increases for the last six or seven years, but they have not come because the recovery has been more stubborn. Host josh bivens of the Economic Policy institute our guest. On the republican line, walter. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. I see here in an absolutely flabbergasted when you have people such as yourself that have a the air and you College Education and you say the answer is basically going to be, we have to spend more money and we might have to tax more money. The whole idea of 19 trillion in debt, the Federal Reserve, which we should not even need a Federal Reserve, but that is a whole other issue, zero Interest Rates, and you believe the idea of spending money will somehow get us out of our problem. 2 4. O back to 2 we should have a balanced Budget Amendment. We should not borrow money we dont have. We should free the royalist spirit in america by lowering the Corporate Tax rate. We have the highest in the world. The steps will simply help the economy. The idea of borrowing money from china. You said right now borrowing the money will not affect us. It is called kicking the can down the road. And it is not just republicans. Democrats also. You should not spend money you dont have. When the government takes my money, i begrudgingly give it to them and demand an x act that they are expect that they are it. Ent with we give our hardearned money to the government, and we demand that they look at that dollar and they, what can we get the biggest bang for the buck . Guest his last point first, i totally agree with. You should spend money where it has the biggest bang for the buck. One issue is in the long run. What will they spend money on the private sector will not that are better off . Roads and bridges are an obvious example. Things like medicare and social security. Failures. Huge market before those things existed, we had incredibly high rates of elderly poverty for a lot of reasons. It is important the government takes on that role. New can have that long run discussion about the proper role of government. In the short run, it is absolutely the proper role of government to make sure the economy is sitting at full employment and there are not resources being wasted in terms of workers who want jobs but cannot find them. The number one reason workers about finding jobs over the past six or seven years is because we have a shortfall of aggregate demand. Government not spending enough money to keep people employed so that is a useful role for government to do. One issue, he brought up the basically arguing households have to balance checkbooks and the government should also. That analogy can also be misleading, but there is a grain of truth to it. Households borrow a lot, and often, borrowing is quite smart. I have a mortgage on a house. I would not have been able to buy a house without a mortgage. I can afford it. It is not a large share of my income. You can apply the same to the debt. It is not forecasted to grow out of control. Are we spending inappropriately . We can have a line by line discussion of where the government spends its money, but on terms of the aggregate amount of borrowing the government is doing and whether or not it should borrow, of course you should borrow at some time. Host a twitter viewer asks can we ever recover . Recover. Think we can to me, we still have a pretty classic mechanical problem of insufficient demand that we can solve if we made different Political Choices. There is another question about presuming we ever get to full employment. Everyone who wants to get a job and get a job, and we are not constrained by spending. When you get to that place, what determines the pace of growth thereafter is just things like well trained your workforce is, how Fast Technology advances. Some people are pessimistic about that given what has happened over the past five or 10 years. I am agnostic. The slowdown has happened. Every big part of that is a symptom of our weak demand growth. The biggest reason is businesses are not investing that much in new plant and equipment. But why would they . A hotel and happier hotels are empty, you will not build a new wing. Before we get to pessimistic about longrun Growth Prospects in the u. S. , we should solve the problems in front of us. Host what do you think of that in light of the current Unemployment Rate . Is there a shift happening on the upswing as far as the economy is concerned . Guest we have made steady progress over the past seven years. It has been slow but steady. We have 70 plus undirected uninterrupted months of growth. It has been a steady recovery. We are getting there. We are within shouting distance of something that looks close to full employment. We are not there yet. It has taken long to get here and there are some headwinds that policymakers should not be and we should make a final push. We should really submit it into place. Host lets hear from john, go ahead. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Thank you for cspan. I want to ask two or three short questions. Trillion or 6 billion short, if they were to bring that money back, that we can relate. Number two, gasoline to years ago is almost five dollars per gallon. Now it is to dollars a gallon. President obama tried to get 25 to invest in infrastructure. How much would the government get and grow . I heard if you spend one dollar and infrastructure, you get seven dollars or eight dollars back. Last question. Why dont the banks of america pay that debt off and americans get the interest . Thank you very much. Guest a couple lots of points there. It is true that you have a lot of corporate profits of American Companies being held offshore. Some people said if you bring that money back, you would create a lot of jobs. At the moment, the u. S. Economy does not necessarily need the savings. We have a lot of savings and very low Interest Rates. What is giving firms from investing is not a lack of savings or capital, they just dont think customers are coming in the door. That is largely it. Because they are escaping taxation. We have something in the thatrate tax income code if you are brought to you dont have to pay the tax rate on those until they are repatriated. That has become a real loophole in our income tax system so i think we should do something we to tax those profits abroad. Money proposals that taxing those with offshore holdings in corporate profits before they are repatriated would be a good source of revenue. I agree. Taxgas tax, the federal gas funds the trust funds which does Infrastructure Investment. The Highway Trust Fund is facing a pretty chronic spending prices because we have not raise the gas tax since 1993. I would love someone to fact check me on that, but it has been a longtime. We should raise the federal gas tax or find some other way to fund the Highway Trust Fund to do some Infrastructure Investment. That is right. Ofally, i think the issue outstanding federal debt doesnt really matter in my mind who owns it so much. The important thing to know right now with federal debt is that it is largely stable over the next couple of years as a share of gdp. It should not be an impediment to doing what we need to do to finalize that recovery. Host you talk about Infrastructure Spending. Just a summary of the candidatess plans. Spendy clinton wants to 275 billion in infrastructure over five years to recreate and infrastructure bank. Donald trump said double that number to create an answer fundastructure supported by government bonds that investors and citizens can purchase. Guest you take the clinton plays specifically because it his a little more fleshed out, and it is a significant number. It would really move the dial on recovery and would be a good down payment on a real Infrastructure Investment gap in this country. I think we can do more than that and absorb it and the economy would benefit from it, but i think it is a serious number. It is on a scale of the problems facing us. One problem with it for such investment which i like about the clinton plan and that establishment of interest of bank, the recovery act was framed by supporters to solve the infrastructure problem. Will have a huge burst of Infrastructure Investment and we will solve the economy and move forward. Infrastructure investment is good for solving slowdowns. You should also do it every year. Otherwise from you get depreciation and it crumbles. The effort needs to be a permanent part of the economy. Establishing a bank that can have a steady financing role recognizes it should be a permanent feature of the american economy. Billion as09, 87 part of the package, including 40 billion in highway Public Transit movements. I am sure people are asking you after that money spent, what did we get out of it . Guest i think we got a lot of jobs. The recovery act, we now have a lot of evidence, really specific evidence that tracks the money where it went by state. The states that got more funds versus those who got less. And clearly met or exceeded expectations going in in terms of bang for buck how many jobs were created. The problem was that the decline in private demand that follow the bursting of the housing bubble was so enormous that the recovery act only felt about one third of that gap. It. Ave not done we would have seen unemployment got over 10 and what have taken longer to recover it would have taken longer to recover. And ran out to quickly. Toohe end of it ran out quickly. By the end of 2010. We did a temporary payroll tax holiday that helped. 2011, we mostly shifted fiscal policy into another mode. Host josh bivens of the Economic Policy institute our guest. Louisville, ohio, independent line, rick. Caller first of all, when 1 of the population controls more than half of the wealth, there are no economists and there are no journalists. This is all fraud. It is all embezzlement. It is all right kateri. I grew up in detroit. It is all racketeering. I can weapon detroit. We have trade laws, tax laws can antitrust laws, banking laws, labor laws. I am an accountant. I have an economics degree from a private school. Innocently this a collision of wealth, and you need laws to protect society, so that comes ronald reagan, and you have a globalization environment, and you have deregulation. There was no deregulation. They broke the laws, tax laws, trade laws. I am an accountant. I know what a Balance Sheet is. I know a derivative is. I know what a derivative is. Guest michael from arizona on the republican line, high. Hi. Caller very interesting talk you have here. I have a couple of problems. Number one, everything you said about what would help stimulate the economy to help the recovery go faster, you are saying things that congress and the white house should agree on, which is however you for it, it is turning out to be a political problem. , it doesnt have any value at all as far as cutting off overspending. How wouldu do if you enforce a balanced Budget Amendment if congress and the white house passed a legislation that puts the budget over a balance plane . A serious political problem. Just basically as a conclusion, it has been my observation as a thatong republican republicans in congress in the last eight years have done everything in their power, to my observation, to prevent the white house from succeeding in any progress, any program that they come up with. Income as a republican, i want to have a white house that is successful. If there is a liberal president , that doesnt mean that he gets his way. It has to be something worked out with congress. Basically, i dont see the republicans in congress able to do that. I dont see the democrats as any kind of an opposition to what is going on. Host thank you for calling. Thank you. Guest yes. Two main points. One, i agree a balanced Budget Amendment would be a really bad idea for the u. S. Economy a number of reasons. We most important one is, have something in the u. S. Economy that we call automatic stabilizers. It basically means when the economy starts to enter a recession, we naturally run bigger budget deficits and spend money Unemployment Benefits and food stamps. Work automatic stabilizers really well to cushion the blow over recessions and get the economy back to recovery. The balanced Budget Amendment would take away that useful feature of the u. S. Economy. I agree with the collar that it is totally superfluous. Things andntrols two how do you and how do you add a third thing that says they need to match . Does not make sense. The point at the end about obstruction of the Obama Administration, in the narrow issue of public spending and fiscal policy, that is what i see. When you look at images proposed by the Obama Administration over the last six or seven years, they have increased spending on infrastructure and job growth, and they have gone nowhere. The gop congress has refused to act on them. They refused to provide their own alternative for spurring the economy. Payroll tax holiday we had in 2011 and 2012 was a pretty bipartisan idea. It is a tax cut, but pretty what targeted and temporary. Republicans were generally about the economy would have approved of it, but they didnt. That is not really appropriate because we are hoping this is a temporary problem, the fact that we are not apple employment. Not at full employment. Through tax cuts or spending increases, there has not been much of a dialogue at all. Host efforts have been made to help through the Federal Reserve. Talk about those efforts, what is their affect, and even now that they decided they will raise Interest Rates or not, what that will do for the future recovery. Guest since the economic crisis began in 2008, the Federal Reserve has been really aggressive in trying to push the economy back to full employment. They have done a lot of things. They lowered the shortterm industry control 20. To zero. They also did quantitative easing. They bought longterm bonds directly to push down longterm Interest Rates. They have a very clear over the course of the recovery they were going to be accommodative and support recovery until we see signs we are there. Lately, they have started racing Interest Rates by a quarter point in december of 2015. There is talk another one might be coming. Good inlooks very as fiscals finishe policy makers. The analogy is often made that the recovery is flying on one engine. Just Monetary Policy helped. There has been a fiscal drag while the fed has tried to help the economy. Fiscal drag explains why we have a weak recovery even with the fed trying to work hard to boost it. If we dobe a shame nothing useful and fiscal policy that the fed starts to reign in support as well. We are not at full employment yet. Host is janet yellen taking that approach . Guest absolutely. She is definitely very balanced statements, sort of highlighting that the reason people like me that we are not apple appointment and the worries of people that think if the fed waits too long, the inflation will go up. Are notrries abou wellrounded in the data, but her actions have been supported to recovery. Realext year will be a test for just how aggressive the fed wants to be in making sure we absolutely locked in full employment. Host here is james from maine on our democrats line for josh bivens. Go ahead. Caller hi. Nice to talk to you. I am from the western foothills over here, and we have not had much of a recovery that i can see. I wonder, do you think Donald Trumps idea of fixing up the trade deals is going to stimulate the economy . Or is hillarys idea better . That is about it. I totally agree has not recovery is no reached lots of americans, even on headline measures of how well the labor market is doing, we are still not prerecession numbers. A lot better than the 10 it peaked at, but still have a point higher than average in 2005, 2006, 2007. We got a low percent. Until we do better on that measure, even for people who have jobs, they are not seeing how the pain eases in a long time, so we need to push the Unemployment Rate down to get a increases that lots of people get. I have a lot of sympathy for trade agreements we have signed. They have been pretty bad for most American Workers. We should fundamentally changed trade policy. I dont think that is a short one employment program. I dont think it will do much to move the dollar over the next two or three years, but i think it is something we can do. The one trade policy that has the potential to create some jobs in the short run is making the value ofar, the u. S. Dollar, which is currently overvalued and leads to trade deficits, we can do something about that and find a dollar consistent with more balanced trade, and that would help with our demand problem. Host david from georgia. Caller good morning. You are going to hear it a little bit for me because i am an american. I see things a lot different. 74 lost our way in 1973, 19 when mr. Nixon went over there and signed up with a chinese to get the pollution out of our country. If you look at beijing, they sent pollution over there. You move forward, he was supposed to introduce a retraining program for all of these jobs that left. Well, thanks to our crony capitalists and our franchise politics, we have not gotten it. You move a little further forward, and you had Immigration Reform with mr. Reagan after his trickledown economics, was that failed wihch that has failed. That has the wealthy can give them aid that the house that were illegal immigrants. The immigrants that are illegal are coming here to get jobs that the crony capitalists who do not want to pay taxes are getting them. They are dotting the whole issue. These are the real people who are breaking the laws. You move a little forward, and it is just franchised politics up and down the line. Congress aint working. We are at a 10 Approval Rating for congress. As an american, i believe that our congress is not in one,iance with article section two of the constitution. Everybody just goes, what . We need more voices in our congress. Host thanks, caller. Guest yes. On the issue i talk about in the report today, i would agree. Congress has made really bad decisions over the past five or six years that have not been good for the recovery. Basically, they have i dont know what their motivation is, but they decided to pretty radically restrict spending relative to its growth and other recoveries. One data i point out in the report, if you look at the past of public spending, that was a really steep recession. Unemployment peak at 11 . You look at if we follow that , we would have it at full employment close to 4 unemployment with healthy wage growth for two or three years now. We would have had much more spending, many more jobs created. Federal reserve would be raising Interest Rates because they would worry the economy is overheating. The fiscal policy half we have it is not like i comparing it to some hypothetical theoretical great policies. Policies we have pursued in the past. On that account, i would totally agree. Congress has really badly fumbled the economics of this recovery. Host if republicans put the programs into effect, are they in all the longterm, or can it be reversed . Guest they can be reversed. The biggest cuts we have seen have been on the discretionary part of the budget. To theve not been programs the formulas that let them grow each year like medicare, medicaid, social security. They have it in the discretionary part of the budget, which means they can be reversed. They get appropriated every couple of years at most. Two yearto cut 10 yea deals now. There is damage to be done by squeezing that part of the budget as well. Have all of the Public Investment done is done and that discretionary part. I have sorry, 90 is done in the discretionary part of the budget. Highway funding, investment in other infrastructure, so squeezing that part of the budget means not only are you not doing helpful Infrastructure Investment, you are squeezing the existing little bit of investment we do. It has a longrun cost as well as impeding recovery. Host don, your up next from michigan on the democrats line. Caller my question for you is very little has been talked about what happened to the minimum wage . The minimum wage right now is so low. By the time you give us the increases, by that time, it will still be too low. You have most industries in our area paying according to the minimum wage so they are paying barely a dollars . 50 an hour 8. 50 and our son have you take your money and spend it to recover the economy if you have enough money to pay her rent and mortgage . Housing costs are huge. You are talking about spurring the economy. You have to bring of the minimum wage. Nobody talks about it anymore. I was just wondering. Guest i think there is a lot of truth to that. If you look at the long run for the federal minimum wage that the first 30 years that minimum wage existed, it tended to rise almost in lockstep with overall productivity growth in the economy and that is a growth of the income generated in an average hour of work in the economy. Basically as the economy grew, lowwage workers were swept up in its wake. That stopped in the late 1960s, and we have a minimum wage today that it inflation adjusted terms is lower than it was in 1968 even know productivity in economy has doubled since then, lowwage workers are much more experienced a better educated. They have Better Capital to work with. We meet the Political Choice that we cannot afford a higher minimum wage. I think we should raise the minimum wage for lots of reasons. I think it would provide a pretty mild boost to economic recovery. It depends but bu what we raise it to. I think the animal waitress contribute to the failure of having to keep up with economy wide productivity and has contributed. I think it is a lot reasons to support a significant increase, and it would boost recovery. Host from the obvious figures that came out, the economy showed that wage growth showed a little bit of improvement, growing 2. 6 compared to 2. 2 the same time a year ago. Guest when of the key measures of whether we are at length limit is exactly how wages are doing. Wages should be rising smartly. It is still weak in historical terms. In a healthy economy, we should be seeing a phenomenal number that is not adjusted for inflation. We should see at least 3 and have a period of lowlevel 3 to let workers clawback some of the income that was distributed away from them during the years when unemployment was 9 . Been some very slight progress on boosting the pace of growth. Re wage lowfact that is simple we have not recovered. Host michael. Caller good morning. I have two questions. One is you mentioned infrastructure expenses at least five times by my count watching you. Passedis administration its stimulusill bill, they are less than 10 you can even pretend is infrastructure, significantly less than they wasted on basically solar energy, which has gone nowhere, and they should have known that, but the important is we desperately need to readjust what we are doing across the board. I agree with you totally. A lot of the trade deals are bad. They can be reworked. There is no problem with that. But i think more importantly, we need to start investing in infrastructure to get ahead of the curve. We are well behind it. Part of that is something that nobody is talking about. Our military right now is in desperate straits. Army, navy, air force, even the coast guard. They are running equipment that is 25 years out of date and falling apart. We need to start investing money. I would hang up and listen to your answer. Thank you, sir. Mentioned in a lot is morning and i totally agree on the value of Infrastructure Investment and think we should doing a lot more of it. I am definitely not an expert on the state of the Capital Stock of the military, but absolutely, we should make sure that the people doing the jobs in the military have uptodate capital to do them. We should do that as a matter of principle, and it would also have ongoing effects in helping the economy. I would say one word in defense of the recovery act. It is true that Infrastructure Investment was not a majority of the recovery act. It was probably a third or a bit less. Of the get was less than 10 if you add it all up , but it is not a majority of the recovery act. A lot of the recovery act was thely spending to stem income crisis of americans in the recession. You have 90 billion that went to states not cut back on medicaid. Basically state budgets were savaged by property Tax Collections because of the bubble. Property and included a large increase in how people can collect Unemployment Benefits. There were six jobseekers for six jobs at the worst part of the recession. We can shift more to a long run Infrastructure Investment. At a time, a lot of a dictated this spending in the recovery act is where can we alleviate because of the recession, and that seems understandable to me. Host why a recovery is taking so long and who to blame. Epi. Org. Ind more on thank you for your time. Guest thanks for having me. Host coming up, we will speak with Jeff Holmstead. About Greenhouse Gases and the Obama Administrations record on coal when we return. Cspan. Org, you can want our Public Affairs and political programming any time at your convenience on your desktop, laptop, or mobile device. Go to our homepage, cspan. Org, and click on the Library Search bar. You can type in the name of a speaker, sponsor of a bill, or a topic. Click on the prevent to watch or refine your search with our many search tools. If you are looking for our most current programs and dont want to search the library, our homepage as many programs available for your immediate viewing such as todays washington journal or the events we covered that they. That day. If you are a cspan watcher, check it out at cspan. Org. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Service by cable or satellite provider. The cspan radio app makes it easy to continue to follow the 2016 election wherever you are. In is free to download from the Apple App Store or google play. Get audio coverage and uptotheminute Schedule Information for cspan radio and cspan television plus podcast times for popular Public Affairs, words, it history programs. Stay uptodate on all of the election coverage. Cspans radio app means you will always have cspan on the go. Washington journal continues. Host our next guest is Jeff Holmstead. He was a former epa and assistant administrative for air and radiation from 2001 to 2005. Currently an attorney here in washington, d. C. , and also an attorney for the American Coalition for clean coal electricity. Good morning to you. Guest good morning. Host can you tell us a little bit about the coalition and its purpose . Guest it has existed for many many years, and it is a group of utilities and coal producers and railroads who are involved in some way in producing electricity from coal. It is a coalition that has been around for a long time. Host what are the key concerns you probably have . The Obama Administrations stance on coal. How would you describe the actions they have taken to coal producers . Guest some people would call it a war on coal. Even if you dont agree on that terminology, what we have seen over the last eight years as an unprecedented targeting of this industry. The assistance of regulations in epa history, a series of one after another, have been put in place largely designed to shut down power plants. The most recent and most aggressive and one that is clearly beyond epas Regulatory Authority is a regulation called the Clean Power Plant that is now being litigated in the d. C. Circuit court of appeals. Host the Clean Power Plan, what are the high points or the highlights . Isst the Clean Power Plan the Obama Administrations effort to restructure the way electricity is produced and consumed in the u. S. About that,estions but the Biggest Issue now is simply that epa was never given the authority to do that. Since the days of thomas edison, our states have been able to decide what types of power plants they want. Epa is now overriding that saying we want to overlook this industry and close down 30 of the coal powered power plants and replace them with other plants the epa prefers. Host the white house says that among the hopes for this plan is to establish a firstever National Carbon collision stated. 32 ould cut pollution by from 2005 levels. What is wrong with that goal . Guest whether or not you agree with that goal, the executive branch can only do those Things Congress has given them authority to do. Again, there are two questions. One, is that a worthwhile goal . This administration without congressional authorization, does it have the ability to go out and order plants to shut down . These are plants that have been operating efficiently. They are completely legal. In many cases, companies have invested billions of dollars to upgrade them, and now all of a sudden, the Administration Says those can no longer operate. That is not the way our constitutional system works. Host our guest with us to talk about coal plants and overall Environmental Issues. If you want to asking questions about this, it is 2027488001 for republicans. 2027488000 for democrats. Independents. Or one person talked about how is moving forward with the Clean Power Plan even though the president stepped in. [video clip] we will still continue to that want totes and o move forward with us and continue to provide tools and outreach, but we clearly understand that the courts will be winding to the process of working at that rule. The issue yesterday made it will take a long time for that to happen. We will respect that come up in the meantime, we will continue to address Greenhouse Gases with the authorities under the Clean Air Act that are available to us today. Host they will continue on regardless. Guest it is kind of astonishing that the administration is essentially disregarding what the Supreme Court has done and say we will plow ahead. Full speed until somebody stops us. Epa should dysregulation almost two years ago. For the first time in history, the United States Supreme Court stepped in and said that regulation cannot go into effect until we, the Supreme Court, decide whether or not it is lawful. In doing that, the Supreme Court said basically that they are serious legal questions about whether this is legal and therefore, everything should be put on hold. Epa points out it does not prevent them from doing things under voluntary basis, but the problematic thing is that the agency is informally twisting arms to try to get people to move forward on this regulation knowing it is likely to be struck down by the courts. Host a hearing takes place on this issue in late september. What will happen at the hearing, and what is the argument being heard . Guest this is a little convoluted for people not familiar with our court system. Even though the Supreme Courts was aned in, that interim measure so it still has to go through the normal court process. That means that first of all, there is a court in d. C. Called the United States Circuit Court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit, often called the second most Important Court in the land, and that court is going to hear the first challenge on the merits, meaningful briefing, arguments, and that will be before nine judges on the d. C. Circuit court of appeals. That will be held on september 27. It is coming up fairly soon. That court will then issue a decision, and that decision will be appealed for Supreme Court depending on who wins and who loses. Host what is considered a win in this case for you . Guest so far, the Supreme Court has said the rule cannot go into effect. That is not ever happen. The circuitul that court will agree with the Supreme Court that there are legal problems. They will say the rule is illegal and strike it down. If that is the case, we would expect the administration to try to appeal that to the Supreme Court. You can also post a question on our facebook and twitter pages as well. For scholars from angela. You are on with our guest, Jeff Holmstead. Go ahead. You are on. Caller yes. Thes wondering why was federal government wanting to shut down the coalfired power plant when the fracking of that insteadto put of that, it is so bad for our environment and for peoples health. Is there anything we can do . I know Hillary Clinton really pushes this fracking of natural gas to promote it. When you to get out there and get our voices heard that this is that for the water, bath for the air, bad bad for the air, bad for ourwater, health. Guest you raise a couple of issues. The first is, why is the administration targeting coal and promoting natural gas . I think it is certainly true that the administration is targeting coal. Using naturalbout we arereplace coal, enormously fortunate in this country that we have a supply of natural gas that can be produced at a low cost. The question is, can it be produced in a way that is safe to the water, to the air. My impression talking with a number of experts is it can be done safely. Where there have been issues that have been isolated, and so my perspective, and argue with a number of experts in the field even though i am not are presenting the industry, is that it can be done safely and effectively. We are fortunate that we have both a supply of low cost natural gas and a supply of lowcost coal. Host can you make the argument that if we have abundance of it, if you can because if we, could we not use natural gas to replace coal . Guest that is being done in some extent now. You would hope the market will decide which of those fuels would be used. Ofhave a very large fleet existing coal powered fireplace that are among the most efficient and cleanest in the world, and they produce electricity at a cost that is typically lower than you can get from any other source, even with but it isatural gas, interesting as you see the prices change between natural gas. Coal and natural gas. The real question is whether the government should come in and essentially prohibit one of those fuel types, and that is what we are dealing with today. Virginia. Ge an in caller what i think is that this president wants to make this country a third world country right from the start when he when he took office. What he got in office, he said he was going to take the call away from us and take it away from the power plants, and now we have Hillary Clinton coming out on national tv saying he is going to shut the coal mines down and put the coworkers at work in all of this and everything. Coal has been around from the beginning of time, i guess. We are producing more coal, more natural gas, and we have more oil than any country in the world. The oil of the world and so oil and natural gas all over the world, but this president we have wants us to be a third world country. He does not want to move us forward. That is his agenda, and that is what Hillary Clintons agenda is. Guest well, i have to agree with much of what the caller says. I have an working on these issues now for almost 30 years, and i can see that we have never , in fact im quite confident we have never had in the history of this country, and administration that targets an important u. S. Industry like this. There has been a war on coal. We have seen it not only with the Clean Power Plan but other regulations. The president and Hillary Clinton have both been pretty candid in singular like to largely eliminate coal as a fuel source because i think of the demands of some people in the Environmental Community. We hope that our system is Strong Enough to ensure that that does not happen, that we continue to have good paying jobs in the coal fields in West Virginia and elsewhere, and probably from a national perspective, it is important that we have affordable, reliable electricity. For many years, coal has been the backbone of in electricity system, which many ways is the envy of the world so i am hopeful and i think many people are working to make sure that that continues to be the case. Host on our republican line, gene is in orlando, florida. Caller yes. My thought of it is we are saying this administration is saying we have to help the environment. We all want to do that, but at the same time, they are closing down our coal plants here. The ones that are still going, we are selling to china comes to how does that help the environment . The next thing is, i am old enough to remember the lines and when you were having to pay for five dollars a gallon for gas. Why . Because of opec. Now, we have to get oil and gas independent and do it here and not depend on the world powers to dictate our economy. , obamat thing is recently went to asia. I saw his speech. The words that came out of his mouth was, he pledged 20 million to asia in the next 10 schools, business, for for infrastructure. Asia thiswe be giving money . Half of the stuff we get right now come from asia. Host thanks. Guest you have raised a number of important questions. Let me start with the first one. The point you make is exceptionally important. One of the things that everybody agrees on is these new environmental regulations, especially those targeted coalfired power plants has increased and will continue to increase the cost of electricity in the u. S. There are arguments about how much the increase will be. A lot independent analysts think it will be fairly costly in a number of states that today are the home of the most of the heavy industry in the u. S. Where we tend to have Industrial Facilities and big manufacturing plants, those tend to be located in states that have coalfired electricity. If what the president does is increase the price of that power, they cannot compete on the international stage, and has to point out, what that means is some of that manufacturing, perhaps much of that manufacturing goes to china or somewhere else, where they have lowercost electricity, and it is not that those Companies Want to abandon the united iftes, but what happens is they cannot compete because of the cost of electricity, we have no choice but to go elsewhere. The point is, you are certainly heartening the u. S. Harming the u. S. Economy and workers by shifting that overseas and not doing anything to improve the environment because the missions go overseas as well. The second point is also really important because of advances in technology. We have discovered that we have great resources in coal and natural gas and oil. Most experts agree, virtually all experts agree that those can be produced in a responsible way that protects the environment, protect Worker Health and safety, and it is absolutely true that we need to continue to develop those resources to have our own Energy Security and also to promote the Economic Development and the growth we need in the United States. Host Jeff Holmstead our guest to talk about issues concerning the Obama Administration and Clean Power Plan. Frank from clarksburg, West Virginia, independent line, hi there. Caller how are you doing today . Host you are on. Caller yes sir. Are you a friend of coal . That is the first questio. With virginia is one of the largest coal producers in the world. Coal is thethat, if answer to West Virginia not have any problems. We are the second poorest state in the United States. Go,ar as good paying jobs it is good paying for the companies that run it. That is the only friends of coal. You have to put training in here for other substantial jobs. Coal, even if youre using it to export and sending it overseas some other countries can us it for power, we should be setting an example, and we are not. Guest let me see if i can answer that. I think most people would agree that it is always good to have a diversified economy. It has certainly been a real in areas that are entirely dependent on one or a small number of industries. It is probably a good thing as you say to have diversity of different businesses and industries that support a local economy or state economy. Has not onlyal been enormously important to many families and many communities in West Virginia but also around the country. The coal that is produced in West Virginia and kentucky and wyoming and ohio, that is responsible for allowing u. S. Tosumers, u. S. Manufacturers have supply of reliable affordable electricity. We just need to make sure that we do not have policies that undercut that, that drive prices for consumers. That is why i have a friend of coal. I represent the coal industry. I represent a number of utilities that want to continue to use coal responsibly to produce reliable affordable electricity, and that is important for a whole bunch of reasons. Administration gave those in coal country who lost jobs because of the 40 million for job retraining, what do you think about the number and the effort that is being made to retrain former coworkers coal workers . Guest i have not sure where the numbers come from. I am not aware congress has appropriated substantial funds for that kind of an effort, but i support those. I think those are enormously important. We have seen a lot of cold jobs oal job solely live because of environmental regulations and competition from lowcost natural gas, and that is the way the market should work, but where there are opportunities to go in and help communities, Health Workers help workers, those are important, but the idea that 40 million or 140 million, it does not replace Economic Activity in those communities. If that number is correct, it is a symbolic gesture and a drop in the bucket in terms of the impact that we are already seeing in Coal Communities around the country. Host democrats line, here is grady. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I would wish that people would realize that we are living in a different time and a different dispensation. Everything is changing. Nothing is the same. To that . To go back no. We have to move on. The ice ages gone. Everything is changing, but some people want to keep trying to live in the past. A lot these people that want to live in the past, mr. Kimye i andg at you mr. , looking at you, i assume youre getting a lot of money from the coal industry. You look at the coal industry and i go in the hospitals, and today, i find babies connected to oxygen tanks. You see more human beings that go in everyery grocery store, we have to clean up the air. Natural gas and clean it up, we need to clean it up. If you really love those coal you need to explain it to them and work with the government to retrain them and give them better jobs so they will not be dying in those graveyards they are working in. Please, mister. Please. America loves money. The love of money is killing us. With the love of money about loving human beings. We always are talking about saving money. Money is made to be spent. We have to balance the budget we dont love people anymore. Host thanks. Apologies for cutting you off. Guest of course, i agree. Everyone agrees that we need to ensure that we have clean air for all of our citizens. Something you said is really not right. You suggest the air is getting worse, that you are seeing more cases of asthma or whatever it you that can tell throughout the United States, air quality is much better than it has been since the late 1960s and in many cases before that. We have substantially cleaner air by any measure, whether you are talking southern california, north carolina, the whole eastern seaboard, because of byorts that have been made Environmental Protection agency, and by industries. Can continue to have lowcost reliable, affordable electricity while continuing to improve air quality. Enormously important thing. I have spent much of my career working on effective airquality regulations. Air and alsolean have affordable, reliable electricity, and we are not talking about the technologies of the past. Were talking about modern highefficiency coalfired power plants that are being built around the world, because those are the most effective way to provide affordable, reliable electricity. I think it is a mistake to say we are talking about a technology of the past. The technology is continuing to be used and built around the world. To 1993, he was associate counsel to former president George H W Bush and was involved in the has a job the Clean Air Act amendment of 1990. Republican line. Caller good morning. I have spent a lot of time working in the utility industry. I am an electrical engineer. Our electricity is the most capital intensive industry of all industries. Inhave more money invested our electric system than we do in the other piece of infrastructure in this country. Your guest should highlight that all of our power is either nuclear or coal. To take your pick. Going to fill the need for aroundtheclock power or anythingr sun besides Something Like a coal plant or nuclear plant. When are we going to build another coal plant in this country . Instead of going the opposite way of trying to shut the ones we have it reminds me of what cars and, take the crush them in the crushers even though theyre perfectly good somesable, almost like type of soviet union move. The second point i have is, how do you combat this idea that all onks that knowyw nothing about the electric industry are going to say they want Sparkling Clean water, clean fresh air, so lets shut down all the coal plants without knowing the full impact it will like tripling and quadrupling your electric bill, america wake up. Guest he makes several important points. This may not be the right time to dive into all of the specifics, but the key point he made is that we do need a certain amount of what is called availableower, power 24 hours a day to keep things operating and keep things running. Then you have other Power Sources that can be fired up very quickly when demand is higher in the afternoon when it is hot outside. Years, coal and nuclear has provided that baseload power. We really do not have a substitute for that. As you say, wind and solar can be effective in certain applications. I do think we have had a real problem for the last eight years that the administration has been entirely focused on the demands of the Environmental Community without also having the kind of expertise needed to talk to what it really takes to keep the lights on and to make sure that we have reliable power that is provided at an affordable price. Coal continues to be a very important part of that story. From north carolina, independent line. Go ahead. I live about a mile from a power plant. When i first moved here, you could see yellow streaks in the sky and everything. I was a construction worker and were done that very same power plant. We need to keep investing in clean coal technology. Kinds scrubbers and all of things on this powerplant, and now there is nothing in there. People do not know what they are talking about. A lot of the byproducts of coal, cement loads, and i think now they are making she dropped out of it. Dot is the epa going to about the admissions . Who is going to regulate that . Guest let me address that first point. If you look at a power plant that was built maybe in the 1980s compared to one built today, you are looking at a modern plant that is maybe 95 cleaner. There are control technologies called a scrubber or a catalytic converter for a power plant, and these big filters dramatically reduce the pollution. That is why, as a result of those technologies installed around the country, we have much did 10 air today than we years ago, 15 years ago, and especially 20 years ago. There was a challenge when it comes to Carbon Dioxide, considered a greenhouse gas. At this point, we do not have a control technology, but there is a Promising Technology under development. The hope is that in the foreseeable future, we will be able to have that technology, not only to deal with the regular pollutants, the things a cause breathing and health problems, and also have a way to deal with co2 emissions. That is important not only in the United States, but given the fact that cold continues to be the Biggest Energy source in the world and continuing to grow, it is important that those technologies be developed for the u. S. And the rest of the world. Host the president is heading to asia and expected to make speeches about Climate Change. What do the issues mean for the coal industry longterm . Thingswell, one of the that i think it number of independent analysts have pointed out is, you know, it is one thing to make a little go promises and it is a different thing to actually comply here at we have seen statements from people around the world emissions ofreduce Greenhouse Gases, and at the same time, they have made similar statements in the past and the emissions have continued to grow. It is because they want to continue to provide a standard of living for their people. To bring people out of poverty, still Something Like 1. 5 billion people in the world that do not have any access to electricity. Half a million or more have only very intermittent access. As countries around the world tried to provide electricity to those people, by far the least expensive way to do that is to use coal. Until we collectively figure out a way to produce electricity at a cost that is comparable to that, we will continue to have coalfired power plants. That is just the way things will be, notwithstanding pronouncements from clinical leaders. Problem, technology not a problem of having another agreement and another announcement from the president. Host john lives in johnston, pennsylvania, democrat line. Caller yes, i have a comment , who exmayor bloomberg blamed a coalfired plant in pittsylvania for pollution in new york city, which i find is very disingenuous, considering new york city is surrounded by three Major International airports. There is the jet fuel. That is never brought up, live the way, pollution brought up by jet fuel. That is my comment. Thank you. Guest i am not sure there is really a question there. In case you had not noticed, there are a lot of Politics Around these issues. Politiciansu see who recognize that they have an air quality problem, and it is always easy to blame somebody else. The problems in major cities are really not tied, a very small extent, to these big facilities in other states. It is mostly what is going on there with cars, trucks, and buses. Thankfully, those engines are being cleaned up. Vehicles, airer quality is improving in new york city and really everywhere throughout the United States. In most places, that continues to be primarily a local issue caused by what we call mobile sources, cars, trucks, and engines, and not by power plants that are hundreds of miles away. Host joe in cleveland, ohio, republican line. Caller i would like to give a different perspective. Lets say we have two planets identical, side by side, everything exactly as it is on this current planet. The doers are on one planet, creators of homes, businesses, and money, everything that keeps industry going. You have another planet of the money changers, politicians, and the regulators. I wonder which one would survive and who would want to be living on which planet. The problem we have here is we have a group of people that want to destroy a lifestyle that is growing. Were still learning how to live on this planet. This planet is placed around some the call the sun and the solar system in the universe that is nowhere near what it was yesterday. We kiddingl are about this . It is stupid how we talk about how we are to destroy each other. The destroyers are the ones who sit on their butt and never create a damn thing. It is the money changers screwing up around people who want to reproductive and live in a good country. I thank you for your time. Uest i just had one thing we certainly need to have a productive economy, and you look at what you and i enjoy today compared to the way people lived 200 years ago, 100 years, even 50 years ago. Much of our ability to have the things that we enjoyed that make our lives more pleasant and productive has to do with having energy, whether it is energy for cars, whether it is energy to produce electricity. And so the ability to use coal and natural gas and oil have really provided the foundation for modern economies and modern societies. We need to figure out a way to continue to do that, whil. Host can you summarize what Hillary Clinton and donald trump have proposed is a better approach . Guest Hillary Clinton has famously said that, under her administration, coal jobs would continue to be destroyed. To her credit, she has proposed at least some kind of Government Program funding to try to help those displaced workers. Unfortunately, that will never be enough. I do not doubt her since, but anybody who knows these issues recognizes that that is not going to replace the kind of fulltime, good paying jobs around the country that we have. Donald trump has said he will eliminate the Clean Power Plan and will do what he can to help the coal industry around the country. He seems to be very sincere about that, as well. There are economic forces, as well, competition between natural gas and coal. But if we let the market work, we will find a solution i think really works for American Workers and american consumers. Host debbie in albuquerque, new mexico, independent line. Caller hi, i heard a comment about waiting on a Supreme Court decision. If they rule against obama and he does not listen to it, i mean , what can the Supreme Court do . 1832 when a case in they took land in georgia from the cherokee indians, and the court ruled against jackson back then. He said, well, let them and force it. If obama decides to do the same thing, technically, what could they do . This is about the future, not about money and clean air and clean water. This idea that the last thing is court, thatupreme is not what the constitution and jefferson really wanted. I am perplexed how we always turnaround, and it is up to the Supreme Court, so what is the point of having congress and the senate . I will take my response off air. Thank you very much. Guest i guess that i would say, thankfully, we still do believe in the rule of law in our country. I agree that there has sometimes been abuses by various president s who have gone beyond with the constitution authorizes them to do. I should be clear that what the Supreme Court did is something called a stay of the world. They did not a stay of the rule. They said it looks like it might be illegal, so we will put it on hold until we can fully rule on the merits. Im confident that if the Supreme Court ruled on the and strikes it down as illegal, the Obama Administration or any other administration would not try to implement it. In my criticism of the Obama Administration for moving forward, i need to be clear that what they are doing is not necessarily inconsistent with the Supreme Court. It is certainly inconsistent with at least the spirit of that ruling. But i think if the Supreme Court ultimately does strike down the Clean Power Plan, i do not think any administration would try to or be able to implement it. Host democrat line, san antonio, texas, don. Caller yes, i would like to ask the gentleman why he thinks mr. Obama would be against the Coal Companies or that industry. It seems to me that he is a person who has listened to all of the different sides and has decided, for some reason, that coal is not a good thing for us to continue to use. So i think that comes from the scientific community, which tells us that if we do not do something about the Carbon Dioxide problem, future generations are going to suffer tremendously. And think about our own standard all above what is going to happen in the future, it is just not right. I would be willing to cut back on standard of living. I think maybe we do live too high on the hog. We have to do something. It seems to me that coal is the worst as far as producing Carbon Dioxide for the air. That maybe thing is our population is just too large tiered we cannot have this population and everybody live at the standard of living that we want to live at in the United States. Guest i think he shares a perspective with a lot of the environmental activists in the country who believe we should have population controls, who believe that somehow there is something about humanity that is unhealthy for the planet. I just disagree with that. I agree that Carbon Dioxide and the issue of Global Warming is a real and serious issue, that demands our attention and demands an appropriate response. The point that gets lost, and i think it is important. I hate to sound like im getting on my soapbox here, but no matter how much the president may care about this issue, we have a constitutional system of government that does not make him the dictator of what can and cannot be done. The president does not have the authority to require u. S. Industries to shut down just because he thinks that is a good idea. Can offer appropriate regulations but only based on the Authorities Congress have given him. So put aside all the questions about whether it is a reduction in u. S. Emissions that will somehow save the planet, put that aside and just say, if you believe in the rule of law, you have to be troubled by the president taking unilateral action to do something that no one has ever tried to do before, i want toy to say, reshape this industry and shut down these plants and require that other plans be built. That is a power we have never given our president. Texas,aren from roanoke, republican line. Caller hello, i appreciate you letting me call in. I have five points that are real quick. Evenmparison to the world, before the regulations, wasnt our coal the cleanest coal in the world . And never two pot, if these regulations continue and coal is lost, isnt it going to be more of a burden upon the lower income, the poor, the middleclass people, rather than the rich people who can afford it . Three, i have heard all this on news wind solar panels are put up, there are Many Companies buying them from china. They are cheaper. And the number four is concerning the wind industry. I have heard that the ivernments or the states, dont know which, is paying these Wind Companies to stop running their windmills and they are very concerned about the bald eagles that are running into the windmills. The idea between coal, and thend of course, the others, the nuclear, i would like an answer on that, please. Host we only have time for one. Guest she raises a number of good points, but let me focus on the second point, which is enormously important. All these regulations increase the cost of our electricity. For you, for me, may having our electricity bills go up like 10 to 25 is not a real hardship, but for some people, it is a hardship. You have People Living closer to the poverty line who already pay a significant proportion of their total disposable income on energy. Increaseases, when you those power bills, you are forcing them to make difficult decisions about paying the rent or buying medication. Some people say that you are exaggerating this, but that is what we are already singing, especially in parts of europe, where they have taken genetics steps. If you are in germany today, you are paying roughly twice of what we paying here for electricity because of these irresponsible environmental regulations. I do not want the United States to go down that same path. We need to do some thing that is much more sensible and much more respectful of people, and they need to have electricity. , thanks forolmstead your time. Guest my pleasure. Thank you. Host we will finish off the program with open calls. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. We will take those in just a moment when washington journal continues. American history tv airs on cspan3 every weekend, telling the american story through events, interviews, and visit to historic locations. This month, American History tv is in prime time on cspan3. Features include lectures in history, visits to College Classrooms to hear lectures by top history professors, american artifacts looks at the treasures at u. S. Historic sites, museums. Reel america, revealing the 20th century through archival films and newsreel. The civil war, were you hear about the people who shaped the civil war and reconstruction. The presidency focuses on u. S. President s and first ladies. Learn about their politics, policies, and legacies at all this month on prime time every week and on American History tv on the span3. On cspan3. This month, were showing booktv programs during the week in prime time. Takes on cspan2 Public Affairs programming and focuses on the latest Nonfiction Book releases. Signature programs are indepth, look at one authors work with questions from viewers. It airs the first sunday of every month at noon eastern. Afterwords is a conversation between an author of a newly released Nonfiction Book in an interview, a journalist, Public Policy maker, or legislature, often with an opposing viewpoint. It is every saturday attack clock p. M. Eastern. Across the take you country visiting book festivals, author events, and book parties, where authors talk about their latest work spirit booktv is the only National Network devoted exclusively to nonfiction works. Booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Washington journal continues. Host again, open phones. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. The wall street journal highlights portions of the president s Upcoming Trip to asia to he will meet leaders of china and turkey. Meetings will take place on the sidelines of the group of 20 summit in china. Mr. Obama will speak to the russian president during the summit about syria and ukraine, but no formal meeting is scheduled. Mr. Obamas meeting with the head of turkey will focus merely on the failed coup there. The u. S. Touest for extradite a cleric living in pennsylvania, who the government says was behind the coup attempt, has strained relations between the two allies. And they will talk about the turkishled operation in syria that took place recently. The meetings with the china leader will cover an array of differences between the u. S. And china, including tensions in the south china sea, economy, human rights, and cyber security. The New York Times talks about debate preparation coming up for the president ial candidates. Talking, Hillary Clintons advisers talking to Donald Trumps ghostwriter, getting inside about mr. Trumps deepest insecurities. Her team is getting advice from psychology experts to help create a personality profile of mr. Trump. As she pours over this research with her debate team, most theytly for several hours, are searching for someone that can rattle her. Mr. Trump is doing the opposite, spending hours with his debate team of the last two sundays. Conceal hisy disdain for laborious and theatrical practice sessions. I believe you can prep too much for these things, he said in an interview last week. You can sound phony. Brenda is up first, republican line. Caller hello. I just do not understand how people can even think of electing Hillary Clinton as president of the United States when she has pretty much failed at everything she has done and is reaping the benefits of the clinton foundation. She was an attorney and arkansas and refused to give up the Rose Law Firm records until they were found mysteriously much later. She became the wife of the president , bill clinton. They ran over the white house. The travel department, she kept irs records of people and went through them, and then she became senator. She is an attorney, but yet, she does not think that she has to follow the rules as far as government emails and the security of our country. Host gotcha. David is up next from san francisco, california, democrat line. Caller yes, referring to the previous caller and the epa, i do not think i heard it mentioned that there are inhome backup Power Systems using batteries that would lessen the as ano have backup powers essential source, and that would make alternative sources of energy more affordable and lower the costs. Another point is that the in tong, givingin environmentalists, well, the environmentalists are not looking for clean water just for clean water. It is because of Health Consequences, and these Health Consequences hit the poorest the hardest. A great deal of literature is showing the effects of air pollution and Water Pollution having a disproportionate effect on poor communities. So having clean air and clean t segmentss the poores in our society, too. Host linda from connecticut, republican line. Caller hi. I just wanted to recommend a book. I was listening to Jeff Holmstead, and i thought people who might find this book called fueling freedom exposing the mad war on energy. For anybody interested in energy, i think that would be a wonderful book for them to read. Thank you. Host the opinion section of usa today looks at president ial candidates and what they should be releasing as was Health Records are concerned. The editors say, what president ial candidates have revealed in the past about their health is almost always sparse. It is important the disclosure should not be left to the whims of each candidate. Running ins, when 1992, concealed a recurrence of cancer here at he later regretted having his own was at the forward a smart idea, an Expert Commission to decide which medical records should be exposed. Donald trump makes his case as far as medical records are concerned. He says, the reason i raised the issue of an Adequate Health disclosures is because secretary clinton has been hiding from press scrutiny, and americans are wondering why here at he says, i did not come to the conclusion on this matter. I ask people to draw their own conclusions. I hope secretary clinton is perfectly healthy, and i hope i have performed a Public Service. Those opinions can be seen on usa today this morning. From new hampshire, independent line. Go ahead. Caller yes, in regard to the gentleman you just had on, you know, they keep talking about this Climate Change and the co2 and all of that, but if you look over your shoulder, you will see that we have a mechanism that takes co2 out of the atmosphere called green trees, grass, weeds, everything that grows. The Agriculture Department reported this years corn crop was going to produce 7 more oxygen than the entire rain forest in south america. If it is going to produce 7 more oxygen, then didnt it take in 3. 5 more carbon . Why are we never talking about of the,s are . That is all i have to say. Host lancaster, pennsylvania, paul is up next, democrat. Aller good morning i wonder if anybody has studied history and gone back to the power plants that burned coal, diesel engines three stories high. [indiscernible] power for moscow and st. Petersburg. Has anybody mentioned or looked at that yet . Host if you go to the front page of the arizona daily sun and the orlando sentinel, they talk about primaries being held in both those states today, talking about the races. Earlier, we talked about the major races in the people involved. A breakdown of the results, you can see that tonight on cspan. A special program looking at the results in arizona and florida. If you want more information on the ss on that special program tonight that looks at the numbers that came in and the results and things of that nature, go to our website, informationfor more about the programming. Learn more about the primaries that take place today. Dale in new jersey, independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just got the tail end of the last segment talking about alternative energy and how it leads to high prices for consumers. This is something that is often raised, a point against solar energy. I have solar panels, so i produce electricity. The way new jersey is set up is any excess electricity that i atduce gets sold to the grid the lowest price they pay for it. If i consume more electricity than i produce in solar, i pay 22 cents a kilowatt hour, including production costs and transport. Could be more, could be less. For the extra that i produce, i get paid one penny a kilowatt hour. That is one cent. So i am being reimbursed at the price they pay for electric electric. Werproduced so if they are so concerned about consumers paying high prices, then why are they not concerned for this basically 9000 percent, what is that, a 1000 market . If they really want to reduce prices, shouldnt electricity be more closely priced to five cents a kilowatt hour for poor people . Host how much investment did you have to make to set of solar panels on your house . Caller well, i bought it at the peak, and i did it because it was some thing i longed believed in and my wife and i had extra money at the time. My outlay at that time was about 70,000 for a 10 kilowatts system. Sameays, you can buy those components for about 10,000 to 15,000. If your average electric bill then that2000 a year, would basically breakeven in about six or seven years, and you also get solar Energy Credits that are sold. When i initially bought my system, those are very but when Chris Christie came in, he basically allow the Utility Companies to start massproducing electricity and big grid providers. So they drove down the price of it. From a stability standpoint i am an electrical engineer by degree, so from a stability standpoint, from a Homeland Security standpoint, having a distributed system with solar is much better than being able to distribute in cases of emergency, etc. Those were some of the reasons that i bit the bullet. Host i hope this is not ignorant can you store electricity from your own set of . Caller no, i cannot. But that is because i have what is called a grid push system. Gridtied system, so if i produce extra, it goes to the grid. I could add backup batteries. Elon musk, from solar city and tesla, he is selling batteries now. If you get a solar city system, 2000 ortra 1500 or 3000, he will put in batteries, as well, so if you have a blackout in your area, you can still have electricity during the outage. Host gotcha. Caller in a gridtype system, once the grid goes down, for safety concerns, you do not want to be pushing it which is city out to the grid, or you can electrocute alignment. So the systems are designed to shut off as soon as the grid falls off. Host thank you for the explanation. Bonnie is up next, republican line. Caller good morning. Donald trump keeps talking about Hillary Clintons foundation, the money and all. But nobody says anything about him using trump towers. He raised the rent five times. 167,000 a month to use trump towers. Also, how much is he charging for his Corporate Jet to haul his whole family, including his grandchildren, around on extended vacations . And what about them all staying in hotels . He gets paid double for his own children to stay in these hotels. To me, he is using the Campaign Funds as Trump Charity for his own. He is in it for the money, nothing else. I dont believe he wanted to be president. He wont make a good president , because he is an apprentice. What do they do . A bunch of hasbeen movie stars. What kind of job that they do after they won . It is unreal. I do not believe it. I do not know how people can say he wants to be president and he wants to make america that are well, america is better. It is the people in it, greeting people. Next fromry is up rock rapids, iowa. Caller hi, i really want to thank bonnie for what she had to say. I appreciate what she said to choose probably one of the few people and United States who has not fallen prey to conspiracy theories. What is going on . I do not understand. Everybody seems to believe every little foolish issue that is out there about murders, about this, and im not talking about like lives matters. I think that is an important issue. But i am talking about Donald Trumps campaign. To one thing i would like say is his constituents, when they talk to reporters, are the rudest, most interrupting group of people i have ever had the displeasure to watch. So if donald trump promotes that, which he did in the primaries, shame on him and shame on them. Thank you for listening. Host bonnie, if you are still listening, and she asked about the spending by the trump campaign. The wall street journal had a story out yesterday looking at the various arms of mr. Trumps companies that have received Campaign Funds. It has a chart made by the trump up campaigns related affiliates. It includes as specialties, tag air, Trump Tower Commercial llc, you can including find that on the wall street journal online. Linda from georgia, democrat line. Caller hi, this is linda from suwanee, georgia. Thank you for taking my call. I recently a retired teacher here, and i have had time to do some research. Looking at the baton rouge meods in louisiana made start looking up information about Climate Change, and it is not looking good. Orse are articles written by talked about, climatologists have found methane leaking off the coast of siberia. Arctic iseet at the almost completely gone in the summer. The new York Attorney general is suing exxon mobil for misleading the public back in the 1970s and 1980 is a from research they did. And the Rockefeller Foundation isnt that kind of funny . Because John D Rockefeller is the one that had standard oil. They are dumping all of their exxon mobil stocks now. If you go on the website, you can find out that they have made a pretty strong argument against how theyil and deceived the public about Climate Change. Anybody can go online and read these articles. This is not falsehoods or some kind of made up story or conspiracy theory. Named natalia,n a russian scientist, and she is working with the United States in alaska and off the coast of russia. They are investigating these methane plumes coming out of the ocean, and it is something we need to be very concerned about. Host that is linda in suwanee, georgia, talking about Climate Change. The Washington Times this morning looks at the rate of Syrian Refugees coming into the United States. 10,000 currently in the United States, while 30,000 more wait. Thanll have let more 12,000 Syrian Refugees in by the of the fiscal year. The u. N. High commissioner for refugees has cleared at least 46,000 people since 2013. Only about 12,000 of those have been accepted so far, leaving more than 30,000 available. New hampshire is next, democrat line. Caller hey, good morning, cspan. Thank you for taking my call. Listen, the republicans are great at making up their own facts. All you have to do is take a look at china. There are days when they cannot even go outside because the air pollution is so bad because of the coalfired plants and other vehicles they continue to put on the road. They see it now, and they are starting to figure it out for themselves. But we dont want to be like that. We do not want to get it to that point to where you cannot even step outside and take a breath of air. It is right in front of your face. You have just got to look at it. There is no way that the things that man have done to the atmosphere has not affected it. That is why we had acid rain a while back ago. We have cut down on our omissions, and we we have cut down on our emissions and have somewhat done away with it for president obama, i have got to say that republicans have said that this president has been such a terrible president , this president is such a terrible president , but when he leaves in another two month, he will be leaving this country at about 1000 times better of a condition than our last republican president did. He has not been that bad of a president. Fuel prices have gone down since he has been in here and we are no longer reliant on saudi arabia for all our fuel. This president gets an a with me. Host robert in north carolina, republican line. The last few callers, the typical progressive line of everything, Global Warming and all this garbage. Not that i do not believe in it, but whether it is manmade is another question. The main thing i wanted to talk about was about the coal industry. Economies boom on cheap energy, whether you are a first world country like ourselves or an emerging economy. You have got to have cheap energy. There is no reason why coal cannot be producer and this country and used cleanly. Absolutely ridiculous. I guess your gentleman josh is a keynesian economic fan by what he was saying. Minimum wage, you know, was never meant to be a living wage. It was meant for people to enter into the market, mainly young people, to gain experience so they can move on up. Minimumre reliant on wage to have a living wage, you have done something wrong. Part of the problem in this country is the way Government Policies are run, stifling economic growth. If you want to stem late the economy and get rid of income inequality, you need to cut spending. Get rid of regulations that stifle innovation. Legislators are in detroit today talking about police issues. Washington times says that the working Group Meeting is led by the House Judiciary Committee and the ranking member. A comes less than a month after the attorney general visited to engage an cage Law Enforcement and the community. Lawmakers expect to meet with local officials, including the wayne county prosecutor and sheriff. They say much of the hard work needed to solve the problem must have been at the local level. Lawmakers expect to meet with andl officials representatives from the Police Officers association of michigan and the American Civil Liberties union to discuss how they are addressing issues between Law Enforcement and community members, as well as what challenges remain at officials hope to devise federal policy lists solutions to address some of the problems at the local level. Calvin in ohio, democrat. Caller yeah, hello . Host go ahead. Caller i just want to talk about all the air time that donald trump has been getting on msnbc, and all these republicans keep talking about liberal channels. Is the major news and tv owned by neocons. That run thecons washington journal. ,ecause the cable Companies Run owned by neocons. So i dont know why these republicans keep coming up with this story about liberal channels, liberal news. Most of it is owned by neocons. Is up next,y virginia, independent line. Caller i would like to hear more about geothermal industry. Everyone talks about cold and clean air, but we need geothermal industry. It is free, unlimited, and very clean. Host how does it work, and why do you think it is able to replace the current source of energy we use . Caller because it is clean, free, and unlimited that is how it is able to replace the current sources. You drill or a deep into the earth. Costlyoing to be upfront, but unlimited supplies forever for free. Think he can replace the current needs the u. S. Has is far as Energy Sources . Use it ins they iceland and california. Oh, yes, of course. Host republican line. This is steve. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. It is hard to get through. I would like to talk to the folks about calling cabinet ernik and his, we hel call it, silent protest has very much been in the news. I would like to see him cool it, because he cannot do that to our National Anthem. Too many people take too much pride in it. I am for the oppressed. Everyone is here but you cannot do it in this manner. You see him in one photo where he is a nice cleancut young man, and the next minute, he has got hair and looks like he picked it from his Harley Davidson ride. Come on, colin. Play football. That is what you are therefore. 116 million in a contract certainly would give you some leeway. I am not saying you cannot have your own opinion, but please, you are using that as a venue for your silent protest. That is all i have got to say. Mym not going to burn jersey, but on the other hand, a lot of people are. Thank you very much. Host waterloo, iowa, independent line. Caller good morning, sir. I wanted to comment on the Global Warming situation and our. Efugee crisis Global Warming, i heard a lot of people say a lot of things about it. A person whoou, as studied it i am a minister by trade, but as a person who has studied Global Warming, and i have been fortunate enough to so i canot of things, honestly tell you that Global Warming is real. One lady called and was trying to explain thermal energy. That is a good, clean source. Iceland, by using thermal energy, if it was over here, they could supply the whole United States with clean energy. The reason why it is able to do that is because the earth has magma under there. It is lava once it comes out. It heats up. Heats the water, brings it up, and that is clean energy. China with all that smog, that is why so many people have cancer. You can look at hawaii, the big island. So many people over there are getting sick. Even though it is paradise, you lay, you pay. You can tell by the glaciers melting, sea temperatures rising, natural catastrophes, the earth is a very delicate place. We are missing it up. You are letting the genie out of the bottle. The ocean carries currents around the world. Not only does it circulate the oxygen for us, but it carries other things, too. Host belleville, pennsylvania, republican line. Caller good morning. I would like to comment on the 10,000 refugees. The 10,000 refugees out of the 10,000 refugees, 52 were christians here. Thought it was the christians being persecuted. That means 9945 of sunni muslims are coming in. I do not understand it i thought it was christians being persecuted. If someone can make me aware of something different, thank you. Host so the number of christian and muslim refugees should change then . Caller yes, the christians, arent they the ones being persecuted . Why dont they have more christians coming in . Host should it be all christians or some muslims or an equal amount of both . Caller whoever is being persecuted. Thought there was something and nohen it is only 52, one is talking about any of this. From clinton, maryland at first, a story from the wall street journal this morning that isks about the turkish, what going on between turkey and Syrian Forces on the border. The headline says the offensive it says itunched, blindsided the u. S. , saying the white house is preparing to have American Special forces join the turks, they pull the trigger unilaterally without giving officials in washington advanced warning. Issuedhes, the pentagon a blunt call for them to stand down. Turksls say the decision undercut a behindthescenes effort to clear rival Syrian Kurdish elements out of the conflicts on first and created a new challenge for the u. S. As two of its most important partners fight against each other. It adds a new layer of tensions between washington and turkey, on top of this sparked by turkeys president since the coup attempt. Maryland, democrat line. Caller my hat is off to mr. Kaepernick. He is taken it upon himself to highlight some of the values that some of the problems minority groups are having in this country, even though it will cost them some money, i am sure. The nfl, they have the right not to stand for the National Anthem if they choose to. Has doneot think he anything wrong. He has just exercised his right as an american to protest. To him becauseff he stands to lose a lot. I hope other athletes support him, because money is not everything. Stopbout his hair, worrying about what people look like an worry about the character. He is more than just a football player. He is a person who cares about the people and himself. I take my hat off to him. From california, republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I cannot resist making a comment about colin kaepernick. I have noticed how oppressed and hisdvantaged colin and minority teammates are. I can only dream of being that oppressed and disadvantaged. You know, it has come politically correct on college campuses, particularly among the liberal elite, the hollywood elite, to bash the United States and talk about all the problems that we have. But there is an old adage actions speak louder than words. When i look at how people are voting with their feet, i see a lot of people, particularly people of color, trying desperately to get into this country, and very few, if any, trying to leave. I do not even see colin trying to leave even though he has the means to do it. Maybe colin can tell us which country it is that offers more opportunity than the United States. On our wife and i went honeymoon, we visited several countries where the populations were almost exclusively nonwhite, and we would ask them, because we honestly wanted to you honestly think about the United States of america . And the word we heard over and over again was opportunity. The United States is regarded among people of color around the world as the land of opportunity. Host that is dave in california. Open phones. Kansas, democrats line. Caller hi. I am calling in to make a comment about Nuclear Power and peace. Been used everas since the 1950s for Power Generation, and the technology is really up there right now. The biggest trend right now is to use fuels derived by the decommissioning of icbms, either for russia or the United States. The treaties and agreements for limiting the weapons of mass destruction as long as this to decommission these weapons of mass destruction and turn that into usable power with no real side effects and with of the modern technology we have for a clean, safe Power Generation situation tot can be expanded developed countries and the nondeveloped countries. One of the big things about this is once the fuels are mixed with lowgrade uranium, they cannot really be tampered with. Host thanks. The republican governor of maine, Portland Press herald this money, saying that the governor raised the possibility today that he may not finish a second term amid mounting pressures from democrats a members of his own party. Options,king at all the republican governor says. These things are beyond my ability. I am not saying i will not finish it and not saying i am going to finish it. E apologizes repeatedly there was a threatening voicemail last week. He plans to invite the representative to a meeting to talk thursday. Theres, i just lost it or is no excuse, the governor says it is unacceptable, totally my fault. One more quick call. Gary caller good morning. Anm calling in regards to issue. As africanamerican independent, my spiel on this is that nobody has are you there . Ok, nobody is paying any attention to what is being depicted right now. Nation, to aof a new birth of a nation that talks