host: on capitol hill, the joint economic committee meets later this morning to question the commissioner in charge of those labor statistics numbers to find out what it all means for the nation's economy and a recession. it is friday morning, june 5.

we are going to begin this morning by talking about the economy. there is an editorial in site "the washington post" called "no laughing matter, why the u.s. needs to get serious now about the long-term budget deficits. we will get your phone calls on this issue as well. 202-737-0001 on our line for republicans. 202-737-0002 if you are a democrat. and if you are an independent, 202-628-0205. among the front page stories in "the new york times," traveling with the president. we will talk about what came from the news conference with president obama and german chancellor angela merkel this morning. from "the new york times," the editorial points out that is neither surprising nor irreversibly dangerous that the total federal debt held by the

-- held by the public looks as if 57% of gross domestic product by the end of fiscal year 2009, well above the previous four decades average of 40%. what is more alarming is that barring any major spending cuts or tax increases, president obama's budget could drive that figure to 82% by the year 2019, that according to the congressional budget office. let's hear from jerry on the issue of the deficit and the overall national debt. he is calling on the independent line from columbus, ohio. caller: good morning, steve. i just wanted to mention that we are not really getting the true unemployment figures. i wish you would get the fellow on that wrote that money, kevin phillips. host: actually, i have his book on my desk, and we are trying to schedule them.

caller: wonderful. i get these people calling in sorry for general motors. why do they have a homer to begin with? why did they spend $5 billion on saturn when they had four good cards -- chevrolet, cadillac, pontiac, and oldsmobile? the idiocy of some of the officers of these companies is appalling. steve, thank you for the call. you do a great job, and thank you for c-span. i look forward to camp films being on. host: terrific. there is a story front page -- i look forward to kevin phillips being on. host: terrific. go ahead, craig. caller: i have followed the deficits for years and i always wondered, why the republicans are so into this now. bush ran up $6 trillion worth of debt, and they did not make one

people. before that, bush 43 only contributed $1 trillion. reagan contributed $four trillion. host: these headlines, "penske is close to buying saturn." detroit business line and roger penske led the downtown cleanup program and revive the grand prix racing on belle isle, gm is close to selling its saturn division to penske in a deal that could keep the brand alive and allow a new manufacturer to provide vehicles to the dealer network, according to people briefed on the matter. this is on the front page of " the detroit free press."

gm has been trying to find a buyer for saddam. earlier this week, the automaker said it had 16 interested parties. -- a buyer for saturn. earlier this week, the automaker said it had 16 interested parties. jess felony is joining us from -- let me start with a comment from angela merkel in which she said that the speech made by the president opened the door to the arab world. how so, from your standpoint? caller: i think just by the simple fact that barack hussain obama stood on a stage in cairo as the american president. i was really surprised yesterday reading the newspapers here and seeing the tv coverage in both cairo, and then as we traveled, the images of people watching his speech were quite interesting.

on the front page of the international tribune this morning, there is a picture of two members of hamas watching the speech. their pictures of people all throughout the region turned -- turned into that, certainly more on radio. i think it is a new beginning. at least that is the hope. the question is what is next, and no one really has an answer for that. host: some of the other stories this morning -- what he might need in dealing with angela merkel, also coming up in that press coverage. caller: the issue of what to do with the detainees at guantanamo bay. that was one of the many issues discussed in that meeting, a bilateral meeting with president obama and chancellor merkel. there was not a resolution, that he thought this was several months away from being resolved.

the chancellor said that she was pleased that he was working through -- working toward closing it. at issue is, how many and how that would happen. that was one of the many issues discussed. interestingly, a lot of it has been reviewed -- a lot of -- a lot has been written about the relationship between the chancellor and the new american president. the reporters from the german press and the american press traveling along said that their relationship was just fine, and president obama sort of publicly chided some german reporters when he said, "stop it, there are plenty of real problems to discuss, we do not need to create one." so it looks like they have a warm relationship. these things are always a matter of perception, so who knows how it actually is? host: let me also ask you about the economy because the last time these two leaders met was in london, the economic summit in april. it also came up today in the

backdrop here in this country. we're going to get the latest unemployment numbers, which will show another increase, possibly up to 9.2%, although the commerce department is indicating the unemployment picture may be stabilizing now. what came up in the discussions between angela merkel and president obama? caller: we are not exactly sure the specifics of the discussions. they had so much on their plate including middle east peace and the guantanamo base. president obama said that he enjoyed hearing some of the ideas, he called it the intellectual talks from the chancellor on what has happened with the automotive industry here in germany. but as far as specific as to what types of global financial regulations will come out of that, we were not given that many specifics from their

meeting. in fact, the two were spending all day together, so we are likely to learn more about what came of it. it is certainly one of the most pressing issues for the two leaders and their countries. host: i want to share with our audience one of the many photographs in the paper this morning, from "the new york post." the president toward the pyramids in egypt and he leaves tonight for paris. he will be in the normandy region tomorrow. , sightseeing on this trip? caller: and considerable amount of sightseeing. the speech yesterday was the focal point at cairo university, but after that he went to see the pyramids and the sphinx. he said if the cameras were not traveling along he would have liked to have ridden a camel. but he thought that the image of writing a camel would not have been a good one. it has really been a pretty tight schedule with meetings and speeches and what not, but as he heads off to france tonight, he

will be joined over the weekend by his wife, michelle obama, and his two daughters. the majority of the trip from country to country has been more work than play. host: one of the photographs in the washington post this morning, for those who lost their lives on the d-day invasion. a lot of people remember the words of ronald reagan on the 40th anniversary -- will we hear similar words today from this president? caller: i think we will hear similar words. this president -- i expect him to talk about his grandfather and his uncle will be traveling from chicago to be at the enormity event. he will be traveling on a plane

with senator dole and mrs. dole. the speech has been written by the president's chief speech writer. it will give a final farewell, perhaps, too many of these veterans. the reason there is a big celebration or commemoration of the 65th anniversary is that, year by year, the number of living veterans of course falls off, so by the 75th, there will be considerably fewer. forward to a big speech tomorrow from president obama to mark the 65th anniversary of that day. host: multipoint our audience to the front page of "the new york times," the ps "addressing muslims, a blunt obama takes on mideast issues." jeff, thank you for being with us. later this morning we will talk

to -- we will take on the editorials with regard to the president's speech yesterday. our focus for the next 20 minutes is from "the washinton post" editorial, "no laughing matter." the chairman of the federal reserve, ben bernanke, considerably more decorous then the chinese students in testimony before congress wednesday. but only slightly less skeptical. "maintaining the confidence of the financial markets requires that we as a nation begin planning now for the restoration of fiscal balance. the editorial says it is serious to time -- is a serious time to get serious about deficit. caller: good morning. i do not understand it. i thought that we had a debt approaching 12 trillion dollars right now, and if i understand

the gross domestic product of our nation, it is in the 14-15 trillion dollar range. so i do not understand where they get the 40%, the 80%, the round numbers. host: the numbers can become blurry, but it is the year-to- year deficit, the overall debt. you are right, the last i saw, the overall debt was $11.9 trillion. caller: i still do not understand what you just said. we go $12 trillion. our gdp is $14 trillion or $15 trillion. so how do we get 40% or 50% out of that? host: are you talking about gdp per year? caller: yes, gdp per year. host: yes, and we are looking at the year-to-year $on$1 trillionr

to $2 trillion year to year sine the 1950's. caller: we had to refinance this year i believe $3 trillion in just in one year. host: and china has taken a lot of that debt from us? caller: i understand that. ross perot has been able to explain to the public, and people like me, a lawyer who majored in economics, do not understand this. the paper is not doing their job, or somehow or other us regular folks do not to understand what is going on, and that is why we cannot comprehend it. host: we will look at doing a segment in the next couple of days on your question, terry. caller: thank you very much. host: there is a graph below the editorial in "the washinton post," "the debt held by the public as a percentage of gross

domestic product." going back to the late 1950's and early 1960's, you can see how he has changed over the years, going up considerably as -- how it has changed over the years, gone up considerably, 82% of gross domestic product compared to where it is right now, at about 40% to 50%. barry is next from north carolina. welcome to the program. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say that, well, first of all, i believe that -- first of all, i just wanted to say that the deficits, the way they were created -- well, that is how they create the wealthy. every cycle, they will run everything into debt, and they will create all whole other class of wealthy. like this last time with the war, overcharging on medicaid. that will allow doctors to do overcharging on all types of government programs.

they create a whole other class of wealth that way. i do not know how we're going to pay it off other than more inflation because every 30 years there is another period of inflation where they create a whole other class of wealthy. here is the problem. how are we going to keep this economy going? because china only buys our debt because we spend more than we loan from them, so once that gets to where we are no longer viable because we spend more or because we loan more than we buy from them, because we are buying more goods right now than we are loaning money from them, so the only way is going to come out is that money is going to stay up there until the whole world decide you can only have what you need kind of society, and all of the world is going to go one day into that kind of society. so when do we change? host: this morning in "the wall

street journal," the opinion page, "pelosi's pork problem." picture a freight train roaring down the tracks, picture house speaker nancy pelosi positioning her party on the rails. picture a growing stream of nervous souls diving for the week. a picture of this and you have a sense of the democrats earmark corruption problem. this particular train has the name of john murtha emblazoned on the side. republicans got tossed in 2006 in part for failing to police the earmarks at the center of the jack abramoff corruption scandals. mrs. pelosi is leaving her members exposed to in earmarked mess that might leave abramoff looking like -- and 18 term democrat who in the past two years alone has directed $78 million to pma companies and has

so far not been accused of wrongdoing and has proclaimed his innocence. the feds are picking up speed. federal agents have raided pma, as well as a defense contractor to which mr. murtha had directed year marks. indianapolis representative peter visclosky disclosed he had received subpoenas in connection with pma. you can read more on page 18 of "wall street journal." carmen is next for montana. on the issue of deficits, is it time to get serious? caller: i think so, steve. it is time to get serious until we have a lot of policies that bring us into deep debt. we have the policy to go and fight for freedom -- actually, going to fight for oil companies. if you go to the v.a. hospitals

and you see these young women and men with half their heads gblown off, it gives me flashback and i will not go back any more. we will ask ourselves, if we are fighting for freedom, who are we fighting for? when the spoils are divvied up, it looks like we just secured over 300 years for the oil companies. these people are mega rich already, and you go to the v.a. hospitals and see the horror there, what is happening to the whole country, everything is in shambles. we have corrected -- we have collected make up profits already. but the worst thing is, americans keep swallowing the fact that we have to pay for these wars after other people come in, like corporations. we clear the land of its ownership and then we go ahead and exploit the resources underneath.

host: did you serve in the military? caller: yes, i was in the marine forces in vietnam. i was alarmed when i first started telling people about it in 1968, how the corporations are actually enslaving us. when you look at another part of -- of a bad policy decisions, sending all our food down to mexico. mexicans cannot afford to eat, so they send part of their family up here. what that does is it it collapses labor movements and unions, disrupt our society and things like that. all they have to do is make sure that the mexicans can eat a decent price down there, and they will not come up here. host: the editorial this morning in "the washington post" is "no laughing matter." there is a chart below looking at the debt held by the public as a percentage of the gross domestic product. also more numbers coming out this morning, the may unemployment figures.

as we said at the top of the program, the president is in germany today. he flies to paris tonight. he will be greeted by his wife, michelle obama, who is flying over there today to be part of the ceremony tomorrow. we will have live coverage from the normandy region of france as the 65th anniversary of the d- day invasion is commemorated. next is scott. welcome to the program. caller: i enjoy your show immensely. you were talking about what would be good for eliminating deficits. the biggest thing is for the congress to limit themselves to article i section room and eighrowm8 -- 18 or 19 hours depg on how you divide them up, the

power to tell us where we are going to get our energy from, doling money out to people supposedly in need, other governments, to fund the united nations and to fund schools. all of that is outside of their powers as the constitution divided -- defines it. it is a crime against the constitution by doing more than that. in central oklahoma we have a gentleman, r j harris, who is willing to obey the constitution. we have a guy named tom cole who has very much not obeid it in the last several years, and we are ready for a change in oklahoma. that will really help reduce deficits. host: thank you for the phone call. you can also send us a weetweett twitter.com.

"i disagree, spending is crucial now as it was to fdr." a couple of other headlines from the state newspaper in south carolina. "state to get disputed $700 million." governor sanford ordered to accept the money. from the atlanta journal constitution, "obama in egypt: a new beginning." from "the boston globe," "a fresh start." we also want to share with you headlines from overseas. in great britain, a lot of focus on prime minister gordon brown. "a smooth assassin," as one of gordon brown's cabinet members says we need to save labor as the focus continues on whether or not court and brown will step down. according to news reports this morning, he will -- whether or

not gordon brown will step down. according to news reports this morning, he says, no, he will not step down. next caller, good morning. caller: well, i guess i will have to say that cheney was proved wrong again. evidently deficits do matter, and after, you know, eight years of the bush administration basically wrecking our economy, the minute a democrat gets elected, we are now told that these deficits and this debt are very, very important, and we have to immediately start taking action to get this reduced. i do agree long term that we need to take care of deficits, but i think first thing has been that we need to get our economy going again. that is important. when they do look at the deficits, they do not need to be cutting our social security benefits and our medicare and medicaid because that seems to be the drum beat going on now. we can take the money away from the military contractors, we can

close military bases all over the world that we do not need. we need to take care of business here at home, we need to take care of our people here. we need to stop policing the world, and that is all i've got to say. host: one of the tweets from our web site, "as my granddad used to tell me, figures like, and liars -- figures lie, and liars figure." "the faster than expected growth in the size of the military has forced the pentagon to overspent its budget and seek an extra $1.60 billion from congress to make up for overspending. representative john murtha says that the emergency request reflects poor planning."

and the piece. out that he is not a fan of obama's pitch on health care. "obama wants to give a little known panel, the medicare in an advisory commission, more power to come up with recommendations to control costs in the government of medicare program. congressman -- congress would then be required to vote on those recommendations." peter is joining us from kentucky. good morning to you. caller: good morning, peter. thank you and everyone of your callers @ c-span poor providing america -- for providing america with the truth. to get to the point because i know there are other people waiting to talk to you, we need to literally hold both the democrats and republican representatives that were voted in accountable.

they need to be held responsible for the actions that they take behind closed doors. as they said in the old- fashioned way, this is a heck of a way to run air railroad, running the deficit into the ground with his lavish spending, rhetoric that we are going to change things, we are going to do this and that, and then they turn around and take care of defense contractors and they are spending money on projects that bring votes back home. i am directing this both at the democrats and republicans. i am independent and proud of it, sir. i want to tell you democrats and republicans out there, there's going to be a change and there will be a third-party rising from the ranks because everyone that i have spoken to, sir, and i am going to wrap this up because i know you are on a time thing -- but the thing i would

like to say is this. the democrats and republicans have had their opportunity, had their chances for the last 40 years, and it is time now for those of us in the independent bracket to have our chance at it. we want fiscal responsibility, we want business taking care of at home -- taking care of at home, we want those things that are of concern to americans taking care of. one more word before i get off the phone -- it is time to look at america and her sovereignty. it is time to look at america from the viewpoint of a nationalist. it is time to be national and it is time to be american, and it is time to bring back the republic and bring an end to the empire of the republicans and the liberal state of the

democrats. caller: thank you, peter. this e-mail from phil in oklahoma city. "all we have to do is issue u.s. currency. federal reserve notes are debt- base. u.s. treasury notes are not that based. federal reserve notes would -- our last call is from angel in virginia. > caller: what a lot of people did not realize is that we started two wars and created more government. homeland security, we can do away with that and cut them down to like 5%, put them under the umbrella of the cia. we can do all kinds of cutting. that is what we need to start doing. i agree with the last caller. we probably do need a third party. i have never been on board