washington journal for august the third. potential attacks by al qaeda has part of the state department to issue a worldwide alert for travelers. the attacks may occur before the end of august with north africa and the middle east been the focus of that threat. wall street journal reporting that a bill is being proposed that would double the amount of guest worker visas. turning to the economy, the unemployment figure is at 7.4%

with 162,000 jobs created in august. that is the economy nationwide. we want to get your take on the economy. is it getting better or worse yet go and how much washington how -- or worse yet go and how much does washington -- influence does washington have. again, for our first 45 minutes on the to get your take economy. you can call us on those lines. if you want to reach out to us on social media, twitter @ cspanwj. on facebook we have about 13 comments. you can always send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. here are the figures from the front page of the wall street journal --

it also talks about the unemployment figure, standing at 7.4%. that is dropping from 7.6%. here to give us a little bit of the numbers and what the numbers a reporter from "the wall street journal." aside from the actual numbers, what is the real story behind these figures? guest: good morning. the real concern is where these jobs are being created. we are seeing a lot of job growth in areas that typically have low wages like retailers, we are not seeing big growth in even the medical area where you need an advanced degree and the jobs pay better.

the positive was the unemployment rate dropped but a big reason it dropped was because the labor force shrunk. saying, i don't think i am going to find a job and i will no longer look. leisure and hospitality meeting at 10%. a lot of the sectors depending on the overall strength of the economy. guest: that is correct. what is surprising to me among those industries is construction. we have heard a lot of positive news over the past year about the housing market. when the housing market -- building homes tends to help construction jobs. we have not seen what you would have expected. we only see a three percent increase in construction output in the past year. that has been curtained -- that has been a concern because there could be a slow down.

that could make buyers a little bit more cautious. host: one of the larger conversations taking place is taking a look at these numbers and then the reaction from the federal reserve, what the future lies as far as helping the economy. because of these numbers now that they are out? guest: absolutely. the federal reserve is providing a stimulus to the u.s. economy but they have sent some pretty clear signals that it would like to pull back on that. the federal reserve said they would only take that step back if they see a pretty strong labor market. determineseport whether we are getting positive numbers in the right direction. this is a tough one to read. the big point of the federal reserve is they would like to see the unemployment rate to all about seven percent -- fall to

about seven percent. what they're doi is they are buying massive amounts of mortgage and treasury bonds. we are seeing movement to lower the unemployment rate. some officials yesterday said they might not pull back on the stimulus just because the on employment rate is reaching the slower threshold. soecially if it is not doing for the right reason. wall street looks at this very closely. bonds helps push down interest rates and makes stocks more attractive. that has been part of the reason we see such a great drop in stock prices. a lot of talk about sequestration and putting out budgets that deal with austerity measures. because legislators react to them, is what happening on

capitol hill some type of indicator on with future holds as far as how jobs are created and unemployment figures? is very quiet -- is there a connection between the two? guest: there are a couple of different ways. for the economy to strengthen, one positive thing that could happen would be more certainty out of washington. it seems like we are not moving in that direction. that is a concern. businesses and consumers like more certainty on what is going .o happen with taxes with all the contentious nature of -- that might be even a struggle. with sequestration we are seeing in impact on the labor market from federal employees. certainly the number people of

-- certainly the number of people working for the government has increased. we saw the people working part- time for the federal government increase sharply because a lot of workers are asking -- are being asked to take furloughs. if you want to read -- host: if you want to read his writings you can find it on the wall street journal. we want to get your take and your view on the economy for our first 45 minutes. give us a call. you can also reach out to us on social media on twitter, facebook, and you can also send us an e-mail at journal@c- span.org. let a star with brad who is

joining us on the republican line for michigan. give us your take, your view on the economy. caller: we have been shipping jobs overseas now for -- since clinton has been in office. some is coming back because of different situations. they want a middle class over there. getting all these kids out of college now and you get a degree in microbiology you can get a job. some of these kids get out with degrees that -- it is not applicable. they are not going to be able to get a job. couple ofthey had a spots where trades are still having a hard time whining people. they are all retiring out. -- there is nobody trained to come in and guide them. they tell kids not going to manufacturing. now they are having a shortage.

it is hard to get a good rounded machine. you have to look for a long time. host: how long have you been doing that job? caller: 30 years. your are you worried about job going away and being unable to find similar work? yes, you watch tv and sometimes you get nervous. i am just outside detroit. i have always been able to find a job and my skill trade. it may not pay what i wanted to. that's what i want it to. wanteday not pay what i to. host: detroit is getting a lot of attention as far as bankruptcy issues and what it means as far as michigan's economy. do you think it has a spillover effect? bad.r: it is pretty i am underwater right now.

i bought a condo and refinanced it. up --ndo beneath me went went for 21,000. one guys a realtor and said that value is coming back up. it is going to take a while and i understand that. host: things do not happen overnight. that is brad america look tonight -- on our -- that is brad on our republican line. next caller -- caller: let because he, as a prospective college student, i am seeing some improvement. tennesseeobama was in to try and compromise with the republicans. boehnerans, under john and the tea party that is pushing the tax deal come ever since they got into 2011 -- ident obama has not

something that was explicitly endorsed from 35%. need to obviously return to manufacturing. in 2012 that we need to have american manufacturing. one thing i think we can do is look back at american jobs act that the president submits it the congress three years ago. republicans say we cannot spend. atently i have been looking economic policies of president bill clinton and his budget. i was looking for copies of his he talks about investing in education and healthcare. neither of the things he proposed during the 1990s -- if we follow

what obama is saying and do what bill clinton wanted in the 1990s we could resurface the market economy. host: a couple of comments from facebook this morning -- this is how you join this conversation. a twitter conversation is taking place about the economy, as well --

brian is joining us on the phone. independent line, hello. the aspect of the economy that does not get talked about a lot is the lack of demand. money is very cheap, companies should be going gangbusters, but the demand is not there. notreason the demand is theirs because the american working class and middle class have been feet down -- been beaten down on their ouija on their wage levels. ever since globalization and -- and free-trade come ever since congress has taken over the american working class has been beaten down. it just keeps declining. we never tied together. after this last financial boned

up -- last financial blow up. now wall street is back on top. the stock market has doubled, the upper classes doing extremely well and the problem is all the wealth and the economy is concentrating into fewer and fewer pockets. how do you resolve that? caller: the number one thing the average people have to do is get control of their congressman. congress only response to money. theythink they have money can go out and advertise and by the vote and secure their career. if the average people stop listening to the bs that wall street and the congressman put out and get control of their congressman and make them see the way -- see things the way they are, then i think the

average working man could have a chance. host: jim from north dakota on the republican line. i called you before a couple of months ago, i have been out here twice in 2012. i am one of the modern day tom jones. i decided to take a chance. i called once before to give a report to the people out there. speak to the people -- i don't speak for the people of north dakota. themulated rid quickly to german and norwegian people of the area. because you are a transplant, what is the economy like? inler: i am still staying the motel. i am in the east, not the west.

i cannot get out to the west because there is no place to live. out -- i am going out there with a construction company to get a taste of it. my last job in pennsylvania was scrubbing toilets for $9.50 per hour, even though i had been in construction. giving me, forn the first time of my life, a counter offer. i'd never had the concept of a counter offer were i gave them what i want. that made me feel pretty good. you hope for a better world and you change it yourself. i just not understand these people who call up about obama or some kind of government think creating jobs. you cannot create anything, you have to create it for yourself. i met a guy who got here from guy down byknow a

the red river from north carolina who left his family guysd to weld, i met black come in from detroit and chicago, people living in hotels and in their cars. this guy's going to give 11 million illegal invaders citizenship. i do not understand were all these people who are coming, the 1.3 million people who are coming here illegally, where are they getting jobs? advertising in for amery county position, he had 70 calls for a helper to build fencing and landscaping. there are white guys in black guys, i do not understand the disconnect the politicians have. they do not understand how many desperate people there are. host: paul from twitter says this --

this is from "the financial times," about travel warning being issued in light of what this headline reflects -- the leading to the crowd on the house intelligence committee was quoted --

the view of the economy and my the unemployment figures being northed yesterday -- royalton, ohio, democrats line. thank you for taking my call. i am frustrated with the economy. there are several reasons but the one i am going to talk about is the congress. election their focus was supposed to be on jobs, but they continue to focus on the health care bill. not focusing on jobs. they is no reason why can't pass the infrastructure thign to get the economy going. the roads are falling apart, the

bridges are falling down, so i would like them to focus on jobs. the other thing that really bothers me is the corporations. as we have said from you arerts, corporations making more money than ever before. they are not sharing their wealth appropriately with workers. the money is not going to the common man. that is evident in all of the reporting. over, as well as with the congress. the congress work -- the congress worries about their jobs first. the wall street journal has this to add on the figures yesterday, saying the number of americans working or looking for work fell by 37,000 in july. salt lake city, utah,

independent line, good morning. caller: thank you for having me. weind of like the economy have in the united states. i noticed a lot of different ideas that i adapted. i was overseas and stationed in germany. , we wentnt to berlin to berlin for a several occasions and munich. we saw young children -- it seems -- i felt a happier five. a young child came up to me and asked -- terry, hagerstown, republican line. me, the economy is doing great because i work in the department for a major mortgage service. people do not have jobs. they do not have an income. they are filing bankruptcy and foreclosures and trying to do a short sale.

they're trying to give the house back to the investor. y? because of obama's economic policy. to the caller in ohio, i would like to remind her that thanks to obamacare we are becoming a part-time workforce. -- go to aie theater movie theater and asked the employees there. they used to be full-time workers and a lot of them are now part time. as far as infrastructure spending, what was that trillion dollars stimulus that obama and democrats passed through? republicans do care about jobs. we want to get people back to work. lady in ohio,the she wants food stamps as some sort of handout. this economy is in trouble. thatast comment will be the only reason the stock market is storing is because -- the economy is not that good, but fortunately i am doing well. politico has a story

looking at the affordable care act. lawmakers and staff can breathe easy --

off of twitter -- mark is up next on our democrats line, arizona. the problem with the economy started in 2011 when we overseas.obs we created a false economy with the real estate market. we never had a job since 2001. it was a false economy for almost seven years. there were no jobs here. education we are supposed to give these people after nafta never happened. if it did the jobs were not there because we are a service nation now. we used to be an economy that

was built around manufacturing. it is so simple. big business has taken our country. that is all i have to say. david is up next from purling, new york on the democratic line. caller: i want to thank all of the callers that are calling in because there are so many good things that are being said. i am so glad to know that this country isn't completely stupid. sorry to say that. government is not going to correct our problems alone. much of the stuff sponsor him state problems and i live in new york state and i have a realtor selling my home. she is out of manhattan and she owns a farm out of upstate new york. i asked her about her property and asked how she is paying for things. she gets a subsidy.

we have watershed problems because i live in what -- i live in upstate new york and the city is concerned about our reservoirs. the city has been buying up land at an enormous rate. the are getting money from federal government from subsidies to do so. i will give you another example. i'm a little nervous but i could give you example after example. there are too many subsidies being given out to people falsely within the states for many things. this really what needs to stop. big business left this country, it is not coming back, and everybody ran to work for government. state and federal government. we cannot afford to keep doing this. getting better through any major think that the federal government can do. the states have to take this upon themselves and stop getting ismselves -- the government

way too big. thank you very much. states being the topic of the national governors association meeting in minneapolis to talk about the economy over all. we are going to feature the government of utah later on in this program. the two-day meeting will be aired on c-span. you can see various meetings about the issues on the economy. that is live at 10:00 today. you can hear from mayor anthony fox, the transportation .ecretary you will also hear from a resistive bill shuster and they .ill talk about infrastructure later on at 2:30 you will learn about the call -- about the global economy is part of the meeting. you'll hear how things are eating dealt with in global issues.

all part of the national governors association summer meeting. you can see that live today at two: nerdy and also catch up later on our c-span library. later0 and also catch up -- at 2:30 and catch up later on our c-span library. our next caller -- caller: the facts are in the the speculation started with oil. a dollar per was gallon i was in construction. i was vice president of the union. i was out of work for two years. gasoline is at three dollars per gallon. it it devastated the economy. three wholesale places in pennsylvania went out of business.

the speculation on gasoline is four dollars per gallon now where i am. the middle-class and the poor to not have any money. it doesn't matter what products you make. it doesn't matter what you do. is so much.living we do not have the money to spend. people are not spending money. is way to fix this problem you have to stop the speculation . have to possess the perils of oil -- the barrels of oil. they raise theow place of oil -- they raise the price of oil. that is what has caused the economy to be so bad. the caller mentioned gasoline. there is a story in the business

section to my taking a look at americans who buy cars powered by gas and have a battery backup. this is out of detroit, saying when automakers rolled out new electric cars years ago -- you can read the rest of that in "the new york times."

from florida, democrats line. the economy is not doing as well as it could be doing if the americans past the jobs act. that would put people back to work in building infrastructure. that would've had a ripple effect throughout the economy. it doesn't take highly skilled workers. it could be at a higher wage. they are getting minimum wage jobs now. warren buffett stated that they inuld tax at 22% of gdp read 2012 we taxed 15.4% of gdp. amount thee lowest federal government collected in the last 60 years. the tax money is not coming in. to generate enough revenue to create public service jobs. i think it would be a lot better

if they did that. host: from twitter -- if you're just joining us we are having a conversation about your view of the economy. this comes after the release of the unappointed figures yesterday. we want to get your take on it, especially where you live. if you want to give us a call on this topic -- you saw the skype -- the literature us earlier today. -- the twitter address earlier today. mark is from miami florida. hello.

caller: i would like to court -- to quote a short paragraph from charles murphy, freedom is important because it naturally respects the power of the government. once it has been granted to interferenceithout the number of things the government can do plummets. do you want to add your personal take on the economy? think thepersonally economy is improving. i am not well educated in the subject, but if you asked me what i'd like to say, i'd like to say i think congress is removing laws instead of passing laws. host: that is mark from miami, florida. if you watch gubernatorial

politics, this is out of the virginia governor's race --

from new mexico, talking about your view of the economy, republican line. caller: i think the economy is in the tank and it will stay there. i don't mean democrats and republicans, i mean both. until they get wise and they start doing things that will help the economy -- host: such as? caller: until a certain things that help the economy rather themselves. what?doing things such as caller: you are just talking about people coming from outside of the country and setting up here. the kind of money they take away in taxes makes it so they don't want to come here. you have yahoo that has billions of dollars outside the country. they made it outside the country. if they bring it here and try to invested the first thing the government takes is 35% off the top.

there is no country in the world that would do something like that. color before talk about infrastructure. our bridges are falling down. our bridges are not falling down to the one that fell down in washington state had a big truck running through the superstructure of it. there was nothing wrong with the bridge. the one that was in missouri that was down, and going to fall down from the day they built it. what you think about proposals that the president put out earlier this week where he would lower the corporate tax rate if money would be reinvested in job programs like infrastructure. the problem is the government wants to tell companies where they're going to invest their money in. the people in washington do not have a clue how to run a business. it is totally nuts. businesses alone, let them build what they want to bill, let than thrilled with it want to drill. buildld what they want to

come a let them drill what they want to drill. the only place they are drilling a lot more oil is in the dakotas in private land. just let them alone. he has been delaying the pipeline for the last five years. ,s soon as they opened it 40,000 jobs just building it. here's greg from dallas, texas. it is kind of hard to look at the economy positively when the leaders are passion the economy. -- are dashing the economy. i would like to add that i work for a company or basically do a job for two people.

doingof companies are that. they have a small workforce and the get more profits. why would you want to hire? owner, i would probably try to do that to. as far as obamacare, how can it be affecting people so much without even being in effect? i think that is a lot of hogwash. thank you for your time. richard from washington dc, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. economy is the way congress and major corporations wanted to be. they repealed glass-steagall act -- which isy call an insurance subsidy. they call it obamacare to throw people off. people need to realize that

congress and corporations work hand-in-hand. a want this economy to crash. wall street in the banks are doing good. did you hear how bad people are doing. -- yet you hear how bad people are doing. anything for the people of this country, there is nothing there for you. the only way people can get out of the situations is they need to start doing their own jobs, self-employed businesses, finance themselves, and leave the corporations alone. otherwise we're going to go on the way we are going, corporations get richer and richer. that was richard. here's the washington post --

stewart important in, south carolina, republican line. stuart, republican line, south carolina. caller: i have been listening to everyone calling. it seems a everybody has the same attitude. everybody is complaining. you listen to the politicians daily. obamas agenda is working. everything is turning a corner. everybody calling in with so many complaints about so many things when so many things are doing much better than they were? the reality is as far as the gasoline --re and

we already pay a tax for the infrastructure and roads in our systems. truck drivers pay high premiums for infrastructures throughout the country. routine and daily where we are living today is pretty much out of control. with that in mind, how would you rate the economy e -- the economy? caller: i am in the floor covering business in south carolina. a prime example of the illegal immigration of this country. we have a construction builder as a license. 30 people onto the table every week. it is unbelievable. it cuts the middleman out.

i have a small floor covering business. you cannot compete. it is unbelievable. when you listen to politicians, it is so out of control and there is nobody doing anything about it. before the, to me middle-class american is in the dumper. income is so far down from where it was. i madesh was in office more money in my lifetime than i have ever made. i have been in this business since i was 10 years old. our next calls from a michigan on the democrats line. one thing that has wrecked this economy is the push toward supplies by economics. the end result is the corporations and anyone at the top, they have the money but it is not fueling the economy. he have to go to a demand-side

economics, give the money back to the working class, do something to make these trade policies that allow these businesses to go overseas -- whatever it takes to bring jobs back here in america so that the working class may be offered better jobs. once they have jobs they may be able to spend money, that will fuel the economy. their shortsightedness on the fact that when ronald reagan says we will become a service sector economy instead of a manufacturing economy, that is the road we are on. we have to stop listening to the same people who keep telling us to give breaks to the businesses and stuff like that. host: we will take one more call on the independent line from michigan. caller: i agree with the last couple of callers. they are pretty much right.

the elite have taken over everything. it is called a cf s site that is being placed in the center of town, a catastrophic site. we have one here. as soon as that thing blows it is going to completely destroy our town. they set this thing up right across the street from a high school. so when that thing blows it is good to completely wipe out our high school. that is the last call we will take on that topic. talkll change gears and about congress, specifically what they are doing over the summer and what to expect when they reconvene in september. we will take a look at that activity. as part of our coverage of the governors association's summer meeting, we will be joined by gary herbert. he is the republican from lou,

-- from utah. we will talk about issues of economics in his state and also take your questions about what is going on nationwide. we want to clue you in on our booktv weekend. nevada.s is all weekend law both of our channels on booktv and american history tv will show you aspects of that city. it will feature carson city. here's a look at the infamous king of comstock, a story of former u.s. senator and how he profited from the silver mining boom in nevada. >> there were these huge ridges appear. one of the things they thought would really make money would be mills to process the order. everybody started building mills. they overbuilt them. that was one of the first thing that sharon saw.

sharon started loaning money to these guys building the mills, two percent per month. that is 24% per year. that have been loaning money earlier, they were charging five percent per month interest. everybody switched over to the bank of california. ,s soon as they could not pay as soon as they were not in good working order, sharon foreclosed on them. the bank ended up owning seven mills. and other partners ended up creating what was known as the brink crowd or bank rain. they buy those mills from the bank at a cut rate.

sharon continues foreclosing on other mills. eventually they own 17 mills in the bank rain. >> washington may be gridlocked theseays but the governors are not. we have to grapple with the needs of our citizens and figure out solutions to the key issues today, putting people to work, improving schools, healthcare, infrastructure, homeland security, all of these issues. collects more live coverage of the national governors association's annual meeting in the walkie. tomorrow, live at noon up on c- span two, the tv's in depth come a your questions for author and head of pediatric neurosurgery, ben carson. on c-span three's american 19 68 from the assassinations of martin luther king jr. and ted kennedy. that sunday at 1:00.

>> "washington journal" continues. politicaling as a reporter from politico, talking about the august recess -- what happened on both the house and senate side with all of these met -- with all of these efforts going nowhere? guest guest: congress forgot how to vote this week. at aw an attempt confirmation of an etf director. than fiveem more hours, they had to leave the ine open, have a senator fly from north dakota to get enough people on the house side. they were supposed to take up transportation, housing, and appropriations bill, we realize that the last minute they did not have enough votes. they had to yank that bill off the floor. there were a number of things going on this week in congress

that shows that they were not able to get things done that they had planned before they head home for the august recess. the house voted for the 40th time to either completely repeal or partially repealed the obama care health -- affordable health care law. the senate did move a couple of nominations they had been waiting on. host: is it fair to say part of the reason both sides -- these austerity measures any sequestration measures, the penning on peoples attitudes, should we follow these rules were not yet go -- or not? caller: we have been watching austerity measures, proposals to cut spending died when enough conservatives in the house would not get behind the bill. on this appropriation, the conservatives claimed victory. they cut $4 billion the low the sequestration level -- below the sequestration level. it was the moderates who said it was too far. they would not vote for it. host: who do we define as

moderate? guest: the tuesday morning group still exists. they are a more moderate wing of the caucus. noise fortheir own the first time in this legislation. people makinghe news was howl rodgers. he talked about what you just talked about. tell people who he is, what he said, and why it matters. chairman of the the committee that moves this legislation. he released a statement that was very surprising for us that follow congress. very critical of the -- of those who pulled it and those that backed the lower numbers. said it is not going to happen in september. he said there was just too much going on this week, they were going to vote on the obama care bill, they had to go home by friday at noon. they said they would getto in s.

you pick sequestration, you have not picked some of these problems. he does not think the political will is there to get it done in september. host: ginger is here to talk about congress this week. if you have questions you can talk to her on the phone at -- you can send her a tweet if you wanted to answer a question or make a comment. you can also send us an e-mail. i know we're supposed to talk about august but let us move to september real quick. come september, a couple of major issues come up with talk about the working timeframe of september and some of these deadlines that have to be met. guest: congress has gone home for the entirety of the month of august. they do not come back until after labor day. they have big deadlines coming up when they get back. there is nine legislative days

left until the government runs out of funding. they cease to have the money to operate anymore. deadline is pressing on them. particularly because there is no sign of a deal now. there is no sign they have worked out some type of agreement to prevent eight -- to prevent passing a continuing resolution in september. that is a real pressing deadline. host: come september they have to solve these issues in nine days and we will see what happens then. any indication from leadership about the strategies? caller: we see two different strategies growing. the debt ceiling is looming. likely to have an october deadline. the debt ceiling is more of a looming target. it is like trying to plan when you're going to max out your credit cards without knowing how much money you're going to spend every day. all of these are going to get rolled in together. the conservatives in the republican party want to us to use a piece of legislation to

pressure the white house. partialnding or a repeal of the obama care law. other people in the republican party say we cannot shut down government and we need to come in with better things to negotiate, particularly cuts. likely they will be pushing some cuts for entitlement programs. question about august. we could talk about specifics but at least give us an overall arching view. i would just bounce off of the national journal headline this week -- what does commerce do over recess? best: this is going to important for legislation, one is the immigration bill. home,w that lawmakers go have town hall meetings, meet with their constituents. historically they have been able to push lawmakers one way or another. the immigration is going to be one of them. there are republicans and a house that her noncommittal that

have to go one way or another, how they feel about the senate passed bill. a big uproar in either direction from these members and their constituents could change the bill. they are going to be talking about their agenda and we know the house is going to be talking about budget cuts. the are going to become king about spending cuts and tax cut. they're going to be going to the middle class and say we put forward a budget that we thought was fair to you, talking about the president's grand bargain proposal and sell that to the poachers. we learned about what happens this week, august, september. the full month are available to you. we will show them periodically as we go throughout the morning. here's roger from san diego, california on the independent line. caller: i want to speak directly to ms. gibson, with the august -- ss host: lewis from jacksonville,

florida. republican line. caller: from what i see as a republican, since the republican -- y became the majority host: stop listening to the tv and just go ahead. caller: in the republican party we try to get the medical for the public. up --e issues that come suddenly we have a black president the white toys cannot get together. host: we are going to leave it there. the specifics. the republicans are going out and talking about issues concerning the economy. on the democratic side, changes going to be one of the big topics of discussion. -- on the democratic side,

climate change is going to be one of the big topics. they think that the american people are coming around to their side. climate change is a real issue that should be addressed. talk about lot of this in 2010 with the cap and trade bill did it cost so many problems for the moderate members of both sides of the aisles. both parties walked away and stopped talking about it. you remember the townhall meetings of 2010. trying tooing to be revive that on the democratic side. in the last three years there have been a lot of movement. the cap and trade bill was pressured. your power bill was going to go up. at that time it was not something that the american people wanted to hear anything about. now they are talking about reducing emissions and regulations. going out and selling that to the american people is something else we are going to hear a lot from democrats. we will also hear whether

the president will take some action on the keystone xl pipeline. caller: [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] president obama has what seems to be a signal on what he is going to do with it. a decision would give them something to talk about. if he didn't build the pipeline, it would be a cry from environmentalists and republicans who say that the president is not creating jobs. it is going to be a different method we hear from both sides. author going to be talking about it. a likelihood we will have a decision before september? guest: we could get a decision in the next month. it is likely but not written in stone at this point. georgia,m atlanta republicans line. caller: thank you for taking my

call. the first comment is ever since reagan we had this supply economics. clinton allowed the wto, which essentially took that closed labor force and made it an open labor force for all of our corporations. now we have an open labor force that includes one billion chinese workers. clinton allowed china into the wto our jumper numbers -- our job numbers have declined. obama is on pace to be more than 3 million, but still slow growth. that is because china -- clinton allowed china into the to the tl. i want her to discuss that. that is comment number one. number two, the media controls the hearts and minds of the people. yet is using speculation as a

weapon today instead of informing the public of what has happened in the past and analyzing what has happened. they just guess what is going to happen in the future. i want you to comment on how the media creates expectations among the public. host: we will leave it there. there: it is interesting, is a trade agreement that is being considered. it would deal with some control in asian countries. the administration has been negotiating this trade. -- itm, japan, not china will make our trading more competitive in that region. some -- that is close to some type of agreement. one of the issues that is bubbling below the surface that is likely going to become more of an issue in the next couple of months when we return in the fall that it is going to have to have legislative approval. there could be some big changes for the industry for cars and

electronics coming across the pacific or materials we are sending over there. there's big news on the trade front when congress comes back. host: guest: he really emphasized theapts to competitive in parts of southeast asia. we do trade a good deal, lowering our trade with some countries that would make us positioned to snd goods overseas and bring goods that we want. so he made these trade agreements a high priority. host: independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you're on. go ahead. caller: i have a question for ginger. if a t question is that company sees their employee, all -- gives them a raise or

lets them go or resource action based on their quality of work and the need of the business, so the way i'm seeing the congress and the productivity of the congress, i mean, compared to the previous congress i know that there's a huge difference in terms of their productivity, how -- any comment that you can make on that? guest: this is the less productive congress than the previous we've seen. you're correct there. we see two different spins on that. they pass less bills they've made less laws. we have a divided government, the senate controlled by the democrats. speaker boehner says it's a good thing less regulations, taxes. we saw minority leader pelosi get up yesterday and say they've gone from being the do

nothing congress to the make things worse congress. she's arguing that the lack of action is hurting the american people. and we were talking about earlier the nine days they're going to have left when they return in september to get us a continuing resolution done, the debt ceiling looming likely in october. those things need to get done and they haven't done it and that's her argument. so people are correct they are a less productive congress than in the past. but both sides would argue that's either a good thing or bad thing. host: the speaker talked about the frustration that some had about spending levels but did say the sequestration was going to remain in place. >> the appropriators, they've had a tough job over the last couple of years. they've take an lot of tough votes in their committee. so i understand the frustration that they are dealing with. but i just want to make clear, the sequestration is going to remain in effect until the

president agrees to cut some reforms that will allow us to remove it. the president insisted on the sequester, none of us wanted it, none of us like it. there are smarter ways to cut spending. the house has moved twice over the last year-and-a-half to replace the sequester. -- aw no action host: sorry for the sound cutoff. but to the point the president insisted on sequestration. that is the house speaker's take. >> there's a lot of messaging that's gone on. nobody wants to take ownership of it and nobody wants to keep it. everyone wants to get rid of it but no one's done anything to get rid of it. there are members of his caucus who like the sequestration and think it should stay in place. that's likely why you've seen it sthay that way.

a number of conservatives who want it to stay that way and they've used their clout to make sure no bills move forward. host: are we talking tea party? guest: we're talking tea party type conservatives. there is a wing in that caucus that is fairly conservative. there's a number of members, we saw them vote against john boehner for the speaker role. we saw them kill plan b. how quickly we forget that side, we move it to another one. but there are a group of tea party, very more conservative than the rest of their caucus members who do like it, who think it's ok that it stays that way maybe tweak here or there around the edges but leaving it mostly in part. so it's easy to say you don't like the sequestration. it's harder to say what are you going to do about it? zile host: if they face shutdown then debt ceiling issues, how do we bring those types around

to keep the voting block together? guest: surprisingly enough newt gingrich, who oversaw the last time we had a government shutdown that was pushed by houseeplins when he was the and those politics were very bad for republicans. they brought the republicans the joke read my lips. also not allowed to shut down government any more. so there will be some who will not be wayed that way. there are those who will not vote for a bill because they worry about the politics. but there are a number of republicans who are likely to be moved over when they remember how bad that was for them. host: billy. guest: good morning. i think it's time to change the fiscal year in 1974 when the congressional budget act was put into place they changed it from july 1 to october 1. with the august recess there's just not enough time for the two houses to do all the 12

individual appropriation bills. we're getting these omnibus bills a year after year. it should be moved to january. they should have time to do the bills, allow our representatives the opportunity to amend them work them out between the house and senate. it would also give the president when he submits his budget in february the ability to offer recissions. now, if he wents to cut back spending himself he's already more than halfway into the fiscal year. he could never really cut spending. it's time to change the timetable. host: i'm -- guest: i'm sorry to say this would be like the college student who gets an extension and waits until the next deadline. the house passed four of the 12 appropriation bills and this was after making a big deal about regular order. they wanted a budget passed. they passed a budget and then everything if he will apart and then when they were passing

budgets were months later. they won't take the budgets to conference which means there is no agreement. they started writing appropriation bills without bauget. which means there is a lot of distance between those pieces of legislation too and with only four of them they're not going to get them brought together. we talk about deadlines in january or september or july. they have had months they could have done it if they wanted before august. they haven't. so i think that moving it would likely be of little difference in this situation. ost: a viewer contributes. guest: there are a number of bills that have headed over. but we talk about what can get done and what can't. both sides passed pieces of legislation that will never see the light of day in the other chamber. the senate pass add gun bill that's gone virtually nowhere or -- they didn't pass a gun bill.

they took up the gun bill that was never going to get anywhere in the house. they've taken up legislation on the immigration bill that isn't going to go anywhere in the house. and the house has passed a number of pieces of legislation to reduce the size of government that aren't going to go anywhere. the big problem is that neither side is talking to each other and talking about bills that have a lot of comprehensive reform they have a lot of bipartisanship. so yes, there are bills on reid's desk and boehner's desk. those bills are going nowhere. host: stupe why do student -- why do student loans work so well? guest: it took a month but they expired on july 1, they didn't get it done until august. then there was lots of partisan back and forth on that one. but it was like the fiscal cliff. there was a real life impact that was going to happen when people started taking out their loans. people go back to school, loans normally come out the first,

second week of classes. when that happen and people saw 6.8% interest rates that was going to be a real effect and they got it done in time to prevent that. often this congress needs a real hard deadline. host: wisconsin, democrat's line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a question about the immigration bill. i do live in wisconsin and there are a lot of democrats that are against this bill. and i want to know why the democrats they're for this immigration bill which we are paying for immigrants to come here and take our jobs. also, 24 bill is going to cost trillion of dollars when we say that we have no money. thank you. guest: there's a lot of discussion, two really good questions about the immigration bill, what's happened to it, who is backing it in the senate we saw full senate backing. likely to see almost all full

democratic backing in the house. this is a bill that sort of defies partisan lines sometimes. and it's not really a conservative versus liberal bill. those sort of ideologies don't get into this legislation as much as some other bills do. as for the cost, that's going to be a big debating point if the house ever really starts talking about the comprehensive bill passed by the senate. there are costs in it. there's an increase in border patrol. there's an increase in some of the other costs. supporters of the legislation say, look, when you add this many people to the league working rules who can go get a job, pay their taxes, pay social security, pay their income taxes, that the benefit is going to outway any of the cost in the bill. cbo scored it that way. there are series that have done that say the opposite. so the cost of legislation is going to be a big point of

contention. host: there's a story this they're hat says crafting a bill that would double the amount of guest worker visas. guest: that's a place where partisan. s not so he worked in a group of eight in the house that was bipartisan to try to come up with a deal. and the guest worker program is something that a lot of people identified that has been listed as legislation. there are a number of places that don't have the people to do the job. host: there are -- from our independent line. caller: i think it should be made law that congress should do the work five days a week 50

weeks a year. i mean, it's about time to get something. why should we pay their health care? they're part-time employees. and as far as congress getting something done, how come every time a trade bill comes up they can do it overnight and celebrate and we haven't won a trade deal since the boston tea party? i mean, are they stupid or are they paid off? guest: congress will tell you they're working when they go home. remember it's going to be in your district next week. you can find them. that's why they go home. but there's always when the other party in the minority the ability to say they're not working away from washington and not getting anything done. we're going to hear that from dextew weeks.

sometimes they make extra loud shows about it. the house democrats could all show up one day. a lot of room for both sides to be critical. host: warner said congress should stay in. granted he's in virginia. guest: he has a quick drive down the road. i think he stays at home when they're in session. so but yeah, they could both -- we saw ms. pelosi say we're ready to work, stay, get things done. a lot of members are going to be saying that in press releases while they're in the next couple of weeks. so it's an easy argument to make when you're in the minority. guest: host: afe of twitter thrazz question about if the 2014 election maneuvering is seeping in. guest: it was seeping in about two days after the last round. there's starting to be more talk though.

a lot of discussion that these big bells, grand bargain, immigration bill, any of these things can't get done after january. that once we get into the election year they're just going to be impossible. and they're acting that way in responding as such. they're trying to get things done quickly. or they're putting their positions in place. we saw israel, the house campaign committee saying they're obstructionists and if they're going to be obstructionists we're going to run that way. host: you mentioned nancy pelosi. she held a briefing for reporters, talking about republicans not producing bills or jobs. >> how do you explain to the american people that today congress will go into an august recess and after more than six months in this congress this republican congress we still have no jobs bill, we have no budget bill, and we have the

threat of shutting down government and not raising the debt ceiling without repealing the affordable care act? this was a do nothing congress and now it has gone to something worse. it is an aimless congress that is falling into chaos to make matters worse congress. we should not leave until we address the challenges that we ace. guest: pelosi was really dragging that message. that's what she started with. this was her message that she was going to stand up and make in front of the camera calling them the make matters worse congress, chaotic. and talking about congress as a whole she also talked earlier this week after a meeting with the president that the public gets lost on sort of the inside the beltway fighting about

obstruction, fighting about process. and that they're trying to make that a message that people understand, that the voters understand, and that looking ahead to 2014 that the voters blame republicans for things not getting done. host: dayton, ohio. greg, good morning. democrat's line. caller: yes. i believe that the congress isn't doing a thing. and nothing will change until 2014. and the same people that went out to vote for barack obama for 2012 need to get off their butt and get out here and vote for 2014 because this congress is not operating with president obama. and as far as the immigration bill, it's -- the immigration people, i mean, if they pass that bill and say they're going to come and give them jobs, congress is not creating jobs.

they're not putting jobs out here for them to have. so 2014 is the thing. we have to get out here and change this house of representatives in order for us o get anything done. guest: 2014 is going to be the challenge and you alluded to, which is how do democrats get their voters to get excited without the president on the ballot in 2008 and 2012, particularly in 2008 being wave elections president obama drove a lot of people to the polls, didn't see that happen in 2010. the next mid-term elections how do they motivate people? and we see them looking really far ahead and trying to plan for that, trying to win more seats. but the tricky thing here is that they've gone through a round of redistricting in their way. most of that redistricting was overseen by republicans.

there are not as many districts as the democrats are going to take. the republicans have a lot more safer districts. as a result winning back control of the house for democrats in 2014 is going to be a real uphill battle. and holding on to the senate be tough for them. there's a number of retirements, democrats in red states up for reelection. it's going to be a big piece to chew off for democrats in 2014. ost: an e-mail asked guest: the senate is traditionally the place of last product. they have the filibuster. they can stop things with almost one member. they have been stopping things. we've seen the senate moving more legislation that has the potential to maybe be considered by the bipartisan immigration bill being the prime example.

the senate is moving a little more. i hate to use the word obstructionist. it's so loaded and we try to stay away from the terms that have connotation. the house is not moving things. they're not taking up bills. but this isn't surprising. they're the opposite party. they don't want these to happen. they're not going to move them. host: joe from massachusetts. caller: i guess the question and a comment. the redistricting, i notice the republicans keep shrinking their districts down and getting small ear and smaller. is that legal? and at some point will a state with 2 million people and four representatives have three representing 99% of the people and one representing 500? and the border guards, why aren't we using our military? it would be a perfect training ground for their spotting

terrorist in the middle east that are trying to sneak across borders. why are we paying new people when we could be traininour military for future aconhat is we know will lead in other countries? so this redistricting, if you have a small group, let's say a district only contains ku klux klan members what kind of representive will you get when he goes home to his home state he's not going to change his mind on the bill when he's only talking about people that think like thim. if districts contain op both republicans and democrats, moderates would be elected. guest: on your second point, sending troops to the border, i wish the pentagon paid me to consult because i think they pay people pretty well to consult. but i don't know how all of that works and i don't know what they're looking at. there is a lot of questions that are being had as they deescalate numbers in afghanistan and iraq, they pull people back. what they do here and what they're going to do forward,

i'm sure that's something the pentagon has considered. on the issue of redistricting, there are some laws. you can't have a state that has 1% of the population represented by three people. they have to be equally proportioned. but the congress and constitution have left that up to the people. states do it in different ways. jersey has a bipartisan commission. louisiana and texas do it through their legislators. and we have the political element of a legislator drawing lines that's when you end up with these funny districts. but there's a lot of evidence that you're right that a district that doesn't have many moderates, the reduction of moderates, is being driven by redistricting, that aren't competitive. there are a number of districts that only have to worry about voters coming from their side of the aisle. all they have to worry about is

a primary opponent and keeping their base happy. host: talk about the nsa, snowden, what's the future of privacy and security issues? guest: this congress is going to take them up. we saw representtive rutchersburger was telling us yesterday before they headed home and they had a meeting at the white house to talk about the nsa that there appears to be an appetite for some type of additional layers of oversight. but we're going to see intel committee members and leadership, both parties on both sides of the building defending that nsa program. they're the people who get to read and see the things that are class fid that the rest of us don't and keep insisting the program is important and needs to be there. it will be a little bit of a fight, a disagreement moving forward. host: rod is next. caller: i had a question about congressman watt and the likelihood of him getting full

enate confirmation to head the fhfa and what's so important about mel watt getting full senate confirmation? guest: i haven't been following that appointment very closely. we just saw some real stickler appointments going through the senate. he members of the nlrb, some in the e.p.a., atf. there are a number that the whouse made top priorities -- white house make top priority. so we've been caught up a think a lot in washington watching those move and waiting in the we get to the next round when we come back in september. host: tomorrow from ohio. caller: i hear everybody talk about our forefathers.

i think if they were here today most of our congress or senators and some of our presidents would probably be tried for economic treason. i do agree with the republicans on one, immigration. this cow -- because i'm american, not a racist. you let 20 million people in to our country to lower our wages and you send 50 million jobs over to foreign countries where we've got to compete against people who make $37 a month. this is why our cities are broke, this is why our country is broke. and anybody that doesn't see that must be a completemore moran. so thank you because i think i'm smarter than 99% of you idiots. host: guest: jobs are a big issue. we talk about jobs both sides of the aisle moving forward. the immigration bill is part of that job discussion. how does it affect jobs? what does it do to the job

situation? and we hear democrats talking about republicans aren't doing enough to create jobs and republicans talk about democrats aren't doing enough and the jobs message is still resonating with voters, still something people care a lot about and still something they're going to be talking a lot about. host: tina, republican line. caller: i appreciate we all think we're so smart but i don't know that we consider how smart we are. in light of the 12 million that should increase the tax revenue, there's quite a bit of bally hoo right now that will happen. i don't think i agree. i think a lot are working fraudulently already using somebody else's tax id number. but what about the babies who are not alive over the last 40 years? guest: abortion has been an issue that has been discussed in this congress. they've been talking about it

more than we saw in previous congresses. we saw a bill move through the house. a return to that discussion on a federal level when originally that bill was only supposed to affect the district of columbia but expanded to affect the whole country in the senate there are a number of republican whose are going to try to bring it up there. marco rubio leading the charge to reconsider that legislation. so a topic that for several years hadn't been discussed very heavily on a federal level getting a resurgence in congress. host: talk about the emergence of these two gentlemen in the senate. especially when it comes to issues of the affordable care act. guest: they're like pals. they came in together, they hang out. and they agree ideologically together. they get along really well. so it's made for a very interesting duo. they work together on a number of bills that they think are important. sort of been, we saw ted cruise

fighting the budget and mike lee came to back him up. they're really pushing for this obama care defund in the continuing resolution. they're pushing for some other measures. and the two of them who talk about the conservative wing of the house republican caucus, a little bit smaller on the senate side it's ted cruz and mike lee. host: there's a picture of them in the "washington post" this morning. haron from kingston, illinois. caller: ted cruz they're so bad for our country. the obstructionists in congress is unbelievable. they shouldn't take a vacation. they should earn their vacation before they go on recess. and i can't believe mitch mcconnell our whole country's been wrecked since he announced he was going to go against the president and it's so bad for our country. they're traitors to our country.

i can't believe mike huckabee bashes everybody and makes us look so bad. host: we hear that from a number of democrats. the position that they feel the other side is bashing the president. this has been a period of time marked by real partisan divide. people look at a different reason why everyone sort of moved away from the middle on both sides but we see it and we see more of that division and that partisan disagreement in congress. and really members of congress meeting that divide. host: there's a story this morning. guest: that's going to be the

race all of us are watching. being in leadership could -- puts members of congress in an interesting position. they're the head of the caucus that report tots whole country and then they represent their states. and sometimes that puts them in really unusual positions. host: how did he get there? guest: how did he get to leadership? host: at least where the race is now a toss-up. guest: there was a fear early on in the mcconnell camp that they were going to get challenged by a tea party opponent, that he wasn't conservative enough, that working with the president was going to make him vulnerable. they did a lot of groundwork to make sure that didn't happen. potential candidates, meeting with them, making sure they weren't going to challenge them. hiring who rand paul's campaign manager. and then it came from the left. grimes is very popular.

he going to raise money. the natial party is going to watch him spend a lot of money. but it's porblet that mitch mcconnell might be one of the most aggressive campaigners in congress. and he's not going to go down easily. host: one more call. dan, independent line. caller: i've got a question for you. when are we going to hear from erik holder on this issue of legalization or the feds backing off of the marijuana laws? guest: the white house has been really quiet on the issue of legal liesing marijuana. all these states voted this last election to either decriminalize or medical marijuana. there were a number who passed full legalization. this is one of those issues where the liberal lines sort of says ok. the white house hasn't gotten in line with that. they seem to be showing evidence that they were back ago way. they were still trying to

figure out the law would let them back off or if they were compelled to enforce them. there was some discussion in congress. hasn't gotten off the ground about making it so states could decide these things. it could be early next year before we see an answer. host: if you had to tell people to keep an eye on this or a couple things what would you tell them? guest: the continuing resolution. nine legislative days to get this done, whether or not government shuts down. the immigration bill, do pieces move, do members come back with a different outlook. that's the real bill that has the ability to go home hear from voters and have them make up their minds about what they're going to do. host: ginger gibson, you can see her writing obthe politico website and we thank you for your time. guest: thanks for having me. host: coming up later in the program, part of the coverage of the summer meeting, the republican from utah will join

us. later on in the program we'll hear from the government accountability office. they released a report this week on activities by the tsa specifically about employee misconduct at the tsa and we'll get the findings of that report. when we come back we'll have a short session of open phone and we will take that right after his.

>> we are going to do a short session of open phones. if you want to give us a call the numbers are on your screen. ou can send us an e-mail, or

twitter. the atlanta journal constitution this morning has a story that's reflected in many of the papers about this terror travel alert issued by the state department because the united states intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operativeses discussing attacks against u.s. interests in the middle east and africa. if you turn to the pages of the los angeles times, their lead story deals with their prison population and the decision by the supreme court.

host: first on our republican line. go ahead. caller: i think there are two

areas that get mentioned occasionally but just simply i think have affected our economy in such a way that they don't get the amount of attention nationwide that they should. and one is when bill clinton got away with glass spiegel and i feel that was the reason for the housing bubble. that really destroyed our economy when our economy was going along really well until the last year the bush administration and simply because of the bubble that it created in the housing economy and with barney frank pushing through wanting everyone to have a house it destroyed our economy. and that had nothing to do with bush. and one other thing. that i think just really destroyed our -- a lot of our economy was 9/11 and the fact that bill clinton would not let

the intelligence community communicate between each other and that led to not only did he have a chance to take out bin laden and didn't but we couldn't communicate with each other and i think that had a direct relationship with what happened. host: democrat's line. craig. caller: good morning. i would like to more like a producer's statement. i want to know does c-span feel that the callers that are calling in now that the nsa revelation's have been out, do they feel confident enough to state frankly to the public any more as far as are they a little more reluctant now that possibly their calls are being listened in to and one more production idea. i had a friend who was on public assistance ten years ago. he happened to hit a small lottery prize and he had to return half of that prize to

them. to the government. i would like to know how many people who win any windfall whether it's inheritance or through lottery wins, how much does the government recoop on money that previous or current welfare recipients have to pay back and what does that add up to? we always hear about the government giving out must be. i'm sure what they recoup is a drop in the bucket as opposed to what they get back but i'd like to know. maybe they could do something with that. taunching for taking my call. host: mark, hello. guest: question. or a statement, really. regarding the keystone pipeline. this is a way to get around the stalemate. you never hear the media talk about this, nobody mentions it.

they already biled built a new peline that feeds the jynt wrb refinery near st. louis across the mississippi river and to the refinery. all they have to do is double up on that pipeline, ship the oil down. might cost more in the long run but who know what is they're paying for land leases to the gulf coast. so it's a way to get around the problem. the right of way is already there. you never hear anybody mention it. host: a couple of international stories for you. from the financial times this morning,

host: john from boston, massachusetts. caller: i've been watching for a while, what i've learned about politics is sometimes we have a problem i think in this country it's not so much the country any more it has become love of party. i've been watching and no matter what politician you look at in the united states, no matter state or federal, it's become love of party. and where -- they represent the people.shouldn't they doing the

for the people? host: doug from springfield. good morning. caller: good morning. my question would be i appreciate you guys and everything you do. i would like some answers to why all of the scandals that have been going on, whether it be benghazi, fast and furious, what not, why hasn't the president been held accountable for all these things that are going on and why hasn't he been put up for impeachment for not doing his job? zool the "new york times" report this is morning.

host: up next, russ from connecticut. caller: i want to make a comment about obamacare and what's going on about that. i think the thing that i've never seen mentioned and the biggest problem that the republicans have and the things that the republicans are scared to death over is that obamacare is going to work and that people are going to like it. and the republicans have to be sure they torpedo this whole thing before anybody has a chance to find out that the program is good, it's solid, and it really works.

host: the republicans i think make the argument about cost issues. do those cost issues concern you as far as it going forward? caller: i am extremely concerned about cost issues for health care generally. it goes way beyond what's going on with obamacare. the fact is that medicare is in deep financial trouble. they talk about the panels i think that's going to be coming in to play with obamacare? the fact is that without some kind of a panel, medicare seems to be in a position where it's simply going to run until it runs out of money. and i think a panel is a better alternative than being faced with complete bankruptcy and having no system at all. yes, i am concerned about costs. and i think that -- ok. ok. every time somebody without insurance goes into a hospital and has to get some kind of

emergency care and is sick and starts to build up bills in the ten, hundred thousand dollar range, who is paying for that? these are costs and they're either being borne by insurance companies or they're being borne by taxpayers. somebody is paying for those bills for people without insurance. host: another international story from the "new york times" as well.

host: we're doing open phones until we get to talk to the governor of arkansas. edith. caller: my question is, i'm wondering, after people work all their life in case of a spouse dies -- i'm not talking about medicare or any of those things. i'm talking about on a job for a company and they stay there long enough to retire. if the spouse dies if they have worked years, like 40 years and there's a retirement, the

spouse that's left is only able to draw half of that retirement. to me that's unfair. if both spouses have worked all their life, that spouse should be able to draw the full retirement to keep them in the standard of living that they are used to. because a lot of times spouses are left with a lot of medical bills that still has to be paid off. i'm not talking about social security. because whoever is left living, if they worked longer, that's the only social security they will be able to draw. but i'm speaking of a retirement from a job. that spouse should be able to draw that full retirement to keep them in the same standard of living that they are used to.

host: barbara from new york. caller: i wanted o to say how ms. gibson was an excellent guest. my other thing is a couple months ago somebody called and asked why "washington journal" doesn't include the independents in the rotetation for the top line. it seems to me there are more independents in this country than either republicans or democrats and "washington journal" always claims that you're trying to be fair. so i think it would only be fair to include independents, give us the top line every two months or three months, whatever it is. the other thing is, instead of bringing politicians on -- i know you bring journalists and analysts on and have them in a round thablee. but instead of bring them on one behind the other, how about bringing a republican and democratic senator one at the the house of representatives? ? roundtables.

so that we can see -- instead of having them have -- do a mono log we can see an actual engagement and dialogue between the two branches. host: let me answerou as far as that conc. sometimes we do, depending on the situation and topic we do bring them side by side. you're right. a lot of them appear by themselves. as producers we find that is because of scheduling issues only because sometimes with congress and especially when they're in session having a limited amount of time that they can dedicate the media appearances, logistically sometimes it's hard to put those together. ideally it would be great to have the side by side conversation like you would like to see and we've done that in the past. that probably goes to that more than anything else. thank you for your suggestion on the phone line aspect as well. while i've got you on the phone, what do you think about what's been happening as far as congress is concerned especially as you heard ms. gibson talk about what you might see over the summer especially as we head towards september? guest: i think like most of the

country i'm dismayed at what i'm seeing. and somebody called earlier and said that think about how this country looks to other countries. we look totally dysfunctional. it's just appalling. and i agree with everybody who said that congress should not be on vacation or recess or whatever it is they claim to be on. they could stay in washington and get the people's business done. that's what they're being paid to do. that's what the rest of us have to do. i'm very, very disgusted quite frankly with this congress. host: thanks for your call. ken up next from connecticut republican line. caller: i had the caller from connecticut talking about the health care, the obama care. and i've been in connecticut my whole life. that's obviously a call that doesn't pay for the health care because i work for the guy making $5 more than me who gets

free health care and i have to pay $23 more a week for mine to supplement all these people. connecticut is the biggest welfare state that probably there is. it's squeezing out the middle. talk about saving the middle class they're squeezing us out. we're also the highest taxed state in the country for gas, sales tax, for everything and all they do is create new taxes and to help pay for things like health care and help pay for the welfare and food stamp program. and it's ashame that they talk about saving the middle class but they're not doing anything about it. host: joe, from massachusetts. democratic line. good morning. caller: a little bit about those who think the got is going to lower the cost of health care. i would like you to think about what they all have in common. public housing, public education, and public hospitals. if you think the public can run something better, what about

washington? that's kind of my comment. host: mark from massachusetts. independent line. caller: good morning. i actually haven't been paying that close attention to congress. but as far as the health care debate goes, you know, everybody says costs are the cost of it and this and that and personally i'm self-employed and i love the health care that we have here because otherwise it would be super expensive for me to get for an individual, self-employed. but also, how about the cost? the 800 pound gorlea is the cost of health care itself. that came omething out last week giving birth costs three times than ten years ago. host: this from the "washington post."

host: good morning. charl efro maryland republican line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i want to talk about the health care failure that we were talking about.

i'm not very educated here but it seems like the bill was passed in the senate and because it was passed, i don't think that's legal for one. you know? we're talking about defunding it. to me that seems like a very realistic thing since everyone is getting an exemption. how can the president exempt big business and then not exempt everyone else? he doesn't i think have that authority. nd it seems to be so unfair. i just thinks we need to start over. there's good parts in it. i agree. but this is a train wreck as someone else said. thanks. host: that was charlie from maryland. he will be the last call on this topic. in milwaukee it's the annualnao

summer meeting which takes place in milwaukee joining us. our guest this morning on the "washington journal" he is governor gary herbert the republican governor from the state of utah. thanks for joining us this morning. host: thank you. it's an honor to be with you this morning host: there's so many questions can we get a sense about your tate and how they're complementing the affordable care act? guest: i think health care reform is certainly something everybody has been talking about for many years. it's kind of the water cooler topic of the day. i think we haven't defined very well what we mean by health care reform. we have now inartfully as it's been put together the affordable care act and it's causing a lot of uncertainty, there's certainly a lot of questions. in utah we've tried to do a state approach. we've been talking about health

care reform and actually created an exchange a number of years ago before the affordable care act came into place. we had a health care exchange, summits, we're trying to make sure that we look at health care reform from the standpoint of improving quality, lowering costs, and improving accessibility. and frankly the outcomes in utah have been pretty good. we have the lowest cost health care in america and one of the i fifth or sixth rated quality of health care in the nation. so the contrast between costs to quality is pretty good in utah and we feel good about the path that we're going on as a state. host: the governor is with us only for a short amount of time this morning. but if you want to ask him questions about health care, about these issues especially as the governors meet in milwaukee, here's your chance to do so. the numbers are on the bottom f your screen.

the tribune this week put out a statement about how the affordable care act. what's been propose bid your state? guest: you mean medicaid expansion? medicaid really has been a challenge for the states for a number of years. in fact republican and democrat alike have lamented that it's causing increasing challenges for our budgets. the rising costs of health care, that's part of the impletuss about talk about health care reform. with the supreme court ruling the medicaid expansion is now optional for the states. i'm concerned about the ongoing costs to the states and the tax pare with medicaid expansion. the benefits seem to me to be at least a little more robust rranted.be what would be

when you have 400% of poverty where family of four making $95,000 a year qualifies for a subsidy for their health care, it does cause me wonder. i also reject the notion that this is just free money. well, the federal government's going to pay for it 100% for the first three years which is not exactly true. there are administrative costs that are going to be involved in administratoring the health care expansion. but after that of course the federal money gets smaller and over about a 10-year period of time with medicaid expansion it will cost the state of utah about $250 million of extra money but it will cost the taxpayers of utah about $3.2 billion. so there's some concerns there. that being said i have not made a decision. i don't want this to be a partisan issue. i want us to look at the benefits of the people of utah if we do in fact medicaid

expansion i'm looking at the options i have a workforce, task force out there looking at that that's goig to give recommendations at my health care summit this september and then we'll work with the legislator to decide what is in the best interest of the people of utah whether we do medicaid expansion, look at some other alternative to take care of those community that is need some health care assistance, or pass on medicaid expansion altogether. host: what time frame do you have to make the decision by? guest: well, i'll get the report from my task force will come at my health care summit i think on september 26 in utah and then we'll look at the options after that recommendation comes. i think we'll make the decision by this legislative session which starts in january of 2014. host: governor with us for a little bit. where does utah rate with the general health of its citizen and in costs versus other

industrial countries? est: well, we are the lowest cost health care in america by virtually every rating system. so we are a low cost as i mentioned, high quality. we've got nonprofits as well as profit hospitals. we have good doctors and physicians. physician assistance and nurses. so we have good quality of health care in utah at a lower cost than most any place in america. so access and quality is good. compared to the industrialized nations around the world i'm sure we spend more money than others. that's been part of the lament. but we have i would caution people about being too critical. i had a family that lived in canada. when the premiers in canada had health problems such as cancers or heart problems, they

generally come to america to get their healthcare. our survival rates in america are better than any country in the world when it comes to those critical issues like cancers and heart problems. we have great quality healthcare. that is partly why it costs more money. it is a complex issue, a debate that is ongoing. we should have the states lead out on health care. i wish the administration in said,gton would have let's look the states be the innovators, the creators of new processes and programs -- let innovators,e the the creators of new processes and programs, rather than a wise -- one size fits all. we have a special line for utah residents.

the first call is from sheila on our republican line. caller: governor, i'm concerned that are businesses going to 29 hours a week. business, there is a that has gone to just 29 hours. if we have this happening where people's hours are cut, we're not going to have the tax base supply thehelp affordable care act, nor for education or anything else. to me, this affordable care act is a bad thing for our citizens. it was not ever enacted in a bipartisan way. it was all partisan. i don't know how you get away from that. think we are in doomsday with this act going forward.

it has clearly been a divisive issue for the country. if i was going to be critical, i'm going to try to not be too partisan -- i wish it had come to the states. when i became governor i walked into the middle of this and ask, when do we have an opportunity to give input as states on the health care reform act? the answer was a we have not been .nvited to give input trad -- wethe most impacted are the most impacted. it has nottunate been bipartisan. there's a lot of questions and uncertainty out there. the phrase we hear all the time, what are the unintended consequences of our actions? what we're finding out here is the unintended consequences are

that many out there in the marketplace are reducing their hours below 30. i met with the university president not too long ago who talk in terms of -- adjunct professors will be kept back to 29 hours trad. people like senator max baucus who says, this is a train wreck. the business community hesitating on what they're going to do. there's a lot of questions being aske we don't have answers to. labor unions are saying, we are cone about cutting back on , this will hurt the labor force, as the lady has mentioned. we have a lot of concerns out there as far as, what are the realities going to be in the marketplace with the implementation of the affordable care act. it causes pele concerned.

a caller on our democratic line. how big is the uninsured problem in utah? in illinois it is a problem. if we see somebody dying in the corner, we take care of them. the most expensive care in the emergency room. care act actually going to save me money. that's part of the idea of having the states take the lead. every state has a different demographic and unique challenges. in utah we have a younger population. we are probably the youngest state in america as opposed to

arizona or florida. healthcare needs in those respective states will be different. our uninsured in utah is just around 14% or below. you national average is 16%. -- the national average is 16%. half of the uninsured in utah could probably afford to get coverage if they went to go get it. the uncertainty of knowing what the costs are going to be. one of the unintended consequences in my state is we have a lot of life science businesses which are going to be taxed on research and development and of the medical

device that saves people's lives, which will now cost them more to produce, which will probably have a detrimental effect on helping people. the outcome is probably one of diminishment when it comes to improving people's healthcare outcomes. i wish the states had more of an opportunity. at the end of the day, we have a lot of reform. there are probably 7% of people in utah who probably really need help with healthcare. kurt is on our independent line in georgia. caller: i'm impressed by the governor's comments this morning. i have not seen him on a national spotlight before. i think he's very well spoken and i like what i hear from him.

is how he feels the federal government has changed in their role as far as weight -- taking away powers from the .tate i think he may have a great future in the republican party. i like hearing these kinds of .omments i would like to hear him comment on the power of the federal government and how it has changed. thank you. the federal government was set up -- part of the federalism approach of the constitution is to have a balance between states and centralized government. we needed to have a strong centralized govern.there is a ra

centralized strong government. in our constitution, we have right of powers of the federal government that was limited. all the other states -- powers are given to the states and people. if you take the combined budgets of the states and add them up, it is about $2.2 trillion yet we trillionng a $3.2 budget in washington. we have grown this centralize government beyond probably what was envisioned by our founding fathers. the overreachnors of the federal government into the states' domain is becoming a bit of a burden. medicaid has become the budget the discussion on

reform. the regulations that are burdensome. in focus we should have government should be on providing economic opportunity for the private sector, to create wealth, which creates jobs. in washington, d.c. they have taken their eye off the ball. administration came into washington, d.c. as we are going into the throes of a recession. the focus should have solely been on the economy. we went down these roads that have caused us to have struggle and a recovery that has been very slow. the health care act has just added to that uncertainty. i believe the federal government has gone beyond what it should , running $1 trillion deficit each year is not sustainable.

we have to get back to some fiscal restraints and let the states take their appropriate role. henderson, tennessee. this is joshua on our independent line. in colorado, since they legalized marijuana, violent from has gone back 400% what i read in "the observer." the one peoples public trust for closed our banks and corporate governance. if you can comment on the stc fratti aoo i talked to governor

hickenlooper in colorado. most of the elected officials that were concerned and opposed to the legalization of marijuana. the war on drugs has been a failure. i know there is a libertarian element in the republican party. i think for drugs and alcohol, substance abuse of those kinds, education, awareness of the downsides of that behavior needs to be emphasized. it seems like you always have we havee of drugs -- always had abuse of drugs and alcohol. we're learning more about those substances and having a healthy lifestyle. utah has always been in the top four or five as far as healthiest states in america. at part of that is probably our lifestyle. we have less substance abuse, less alcohol consumption, less

tobacco use, which gives us a better, healthier lifestyle. our outdoor recreation. we need to emphasize positive health care out there and take on more individual responsibility. i think we are trying to give the government the care ofbility to take my health. i don't think that's the way. i need to take care of my health. a question about the danger -- data center in utah. in light of reports we have heard about the center, your thoughts about having that data center in your state. qualmsi don't have any about having the data center in the state of utah. many ways,efit in certainly something we need to be involved with as a country. counterintelligence is part of the reality of the world. in a post-september 11 world we are out that the bad guys

using technology every way they can. they have improved their methodology. part of the patriot act was designed to do that. i think we all need to be concerned about big brother looking at us. we see abuses have been taking place. irs is coming out with the in this last political campaign of us call -- cause all to be concerned, is the government getting out of hand? do we have robed individuals in the government who are invading individuals-- rogue in the government who are invading our privacy? there needs to be appropriate oversight and congress to make sure the departments are not abusing their power. that being said, we also have to deal with the reality of a world out there where there is a lot thatople that are radical don't like americans and don't like civilization in general and will do it they can to harm us.

a story from the "salt lake city tribune take a saying officials in utah are backing up a law that could tax the energy used by the data center. . where do you follow that issue? -- fall on that issue? guest: the agreement that was made was to have a lower cost energy provider there. one of the attractions in coming to utah, we have lower cost energy. it is 32% below the national average. there is a number of advantages we have. that was one that was promised to the nsa people. fact, there is concern and discussion about whether those rates should be increased. the nsa folks said, that's not what we agreed to. it is tough for us now that we

have built this facility for you to come back and say we're going to raise up our rates on you. we've had a get together with a group. their arguments are legitimate. where working through that to maintain the integrity of the process -- we are working through that to maintain the integrity of the process. host: one more call, on our republican line. maryland. thatr: will the comment the consequences are intended and put in place to collapse the system? florida and i've never offendedanyone being by it. guest: i'm not certain what it people use terms in pejorative .ays when they are angry

i think we need to be respectful of each other and our conversation if we're going to try to persuade and convince people of our way of thinking. i think we need to be sensitive and slow to give a fence. i also think we need to be slow to take offense. if both sides would practice that, we would get along much better and get things done. what was the first part of the question? i talked about the implementation, financial considerations going forward once you get a fuller implementation of the affordable care act. it is the law of the land. we have asked a lot of questions about it ourselves. we will do our best to implement the affordable care act in utah but we will do it anyway that we think takes care of the taxpayer and justifies the expenses. day, they havehe

to pay for this. all of us ought to be concerned about the fiscal implications. whether it leads us to a single pair, whether there is a conspiracy to drive it in that direction, it may or may not be the case. there are some that would advocate for single-payer system and they think that is a better way to go. it is probably intuitive for some who will say, weird crying -- we are trying to do it piecemeal. there is enough rebellion out happen.at this won't people need to work together to see if we can't find solutions. we all want to have good health care available for those who need it. i reject the notion that for some reason on all of our problems and many issues out there, the government is the answer. republican. we need to reject the notion that in healthcare, the government is the only way to solve the problem of providing

quality accessibility and affordability. the private sector has a lot to do. we have voluntary care clinics and private centers that give charitable healthcare to those in need. we would emphasize more charitable care and less government run healthcare. host: there's a picture of senator mike lee in the paper his morning, particularly role in trying to stop implementation of the affordable care act. what do you think of his actions? into: i'm not much shutting down the government. .hat will be counterproductive those who have opposition to the stateable care act, our brought a lawsuit. we lost in court, the supreme court decision. that was unfortunate. congress needs to do what they can to improve it. starting over is what i would

do. i haverdma himself say there are improvements that can be made in the affordable care act. let's find them and make them. if we need to restart the afford ab cover, that is a good thing o do. i'm disappointed in the fact that it has been so partisan. with that kind of division, we will have argument after argument after argument for years to come. this will not be settled because it has been implemented in such a partisan way. 2700 pages. one republican vote. 20,000 pages of regulations that we are trying to sort through. as max baucus said, it looks like a train wreck. us.: governor herbert joins he is on the education and workforce committee of the nga.

some of the topics you're interested in discussing at the summer meeting? the economy should be a discussion, how are things going in each respective states and what are we doing to improve the economy. in utah we're doing pretty well. we have cut taxes and flatten them out. we have had regulation reform, which we need to see in states and certainly in washington, d.c. the way of get in productivity and take away from the bottom line of the wealth creators, which gives us job opportunities. education,d with education reform. what we're doing to raise the bar when it comes to alignment of our skills and labor force. we're going to be talking about cybersecurity and the hacking taking place by enemies of our .ountry and our states it

we have a variety of topics we are going to be talking about. for me, the focus has been on the economy and education and can doprudence, what we to get ourselves back on solid footing in this country. states can and should lead the way. , thankovernor herbert you for your time. guest: thank you. you can watch the activities of the national governors association summer meeting starting at 10:00 this morning. coming up, we're going to talk about the government accountability office. they released a new report talking about employee conduct at the tsa. we will talk about this next with stephen lord. first i want to point you to "newsmakers." talked patrick leahy about the numerous controversial subjects before the committee this year. one of the things he discussed

is what congress should do about the voting rights act after the supreme court struck down the law are requirement that states get federal approval before changing their voting laws. texas made]>> changes to hours after the supreme court came down. this was not a state acting like it was open to negotiation or making an effort to make sure the problems they had with voting could be fixed. five people decided after an .our of hearing argument

five people said, you must've got it wrong. we listen to this hour's argument in regard to change it. the chief justice admitted there still will be voting rights violations. what are the milestone years for first ladies through history? adams, a very opinionated and bright lady. capable lady. on the social side, dolly madison and the melodrama of the burning of the house. then you have other first ladies. you go through a period where there are not many first ladies. i would take it up from there to harriet lane. president buchanan's nice. -- niece. and say,would remember

that was the grandest white house that ever happened . >> more with william seale sunday night at 8:00 on q&a. joining us from the government accountability office , specifically taking a look at aviation andy transportation security administration --stephen lord, thank you for joining us. a report this week about employee conduct at the gao. what did you look at? guest: how does tsa investigate allegations of misconduct, and how do they adjudicate. how do they apply appropriate penalty if wanted. we look at the overall system. it's important that the management team in washington have good visibility over what is going on across 450 airports.

host: when you talk about misconduct, how is that defined? guest: lack of adherence to stated standards prescribed in law, regulation, or internal policies either on duty or off duty. they have a clear set of rules and we measured whether they were following them. number of 3400 cases in 2012 came out. talk about that number and what gao found out. years we looked at three worth of data. there were 9600 cases of misconduct. we broke them down into certain categories. we noticed gross misconduct cases that were 27% over three years.

we do the analysis for the congress, provide in the data and the facts. hopefully that informs the debate on tsa. talk about the work force overall, and what is the ratio. the workforce did increase, 10%. the misconduct was 27%. recording all these cases accurately. even though the numbers were reliable enough for us to use, you have to keep that in mind. when it came to specific misconduct broke it down into two specific areas. one in the sense of people showing up to work. another about people taking things or drugs. two areas we highlighted, we looked at the two most frequent reasons, categories of

misconduct. time and attendance was 30% of all cases. the second most frequent types were security and screening related, which concerned us more. there were other categories as well. those were the two highlighted at the hearing because they were most frequent. host: what happened in screening and security? guest: there were various types of cases included in that, from not following standard operating to operating equipment that was not working, allowing people to bypass screening, falling asleep while on station. a variety of violations. the previous part of the people just not showing up for work or calling in late -- there was a hearing specifically about those instances. mr. linsky from tsa did a

good job of highlighting that any large organization is likely encountering some time and attendance issues. oft was the largest piece the pie. that was 30% of all misconduct cases over three years. the second most frequent category was security and screening related. our guest is joining us until 10:00 to talk about a recent report on the operations at the tsa hearing that took place on capitol hill this week. your questions about it are welcome. the numbers are on your screen. you can tweet us at @cspanwj. the hearing that took place this

week, they had a chance to talk --john linsky, the jeopardy deputy administrator. here's what he had to say. they should be on time when they come to work. if they are not, they can be disciplined. i don't think it's an offense they need to be fired from unless it is a consistent pattern. hopefully the first time gets the word. usedter of reprimand means are not going to get a bonus -- you are not going to get a bonus that year and you're not going to get promoted. it escalates from there. a suspension is a serious thing. we take this seriously. workforce. large i cannot control the behavior of everybody. we can train them and hold them accountable, and i believe that's what we're doing.

host: expand on what he was talking about. i have recently clarified how to respond to certain cases of misconduct. they have a table of offenses and penalties. one of the types of penalties you can levy our letters of reprimand. when they look to the overall numbers, that was about half the cases of misconduct. the employee receives a letter of reprimand. they can terminate people. they can also suspend people as appropriate. mr. linsky was try to give a better perspective on the full menu of options they have available to them as a management team. they recently clarified the rules and issued new guidance to the airports. we found when we visited airports there was confusion on how to apply these penalties. in some instances, they were not

in accordance with their own guidelines. host: can you clarify that? all, they have an appellate board. we went to the appellate board. the 836 that 15% of cases we looked at, the appellate board is -- reduce the or applied a different type of penalty. overturned or reduced. it is 450 different airports these 5600 people work in. 450. analogous to hurting each airport does something slightly differently. host: is there another body that

keeps a look at how these cases are adjudicated, saying if employee x does sony things, this happens to them and keeps a record -- so many things, this happens to them and keeps a record? appellate, at records. we made recommendations that people at airports or not consistently putting information in a new integrated database. concerned us. that would reduce your visibility over what is going on at the airports. made four recommendations. at the hearing, mr. linsky embraced all four of them and he said we have to move out smartly with those and have them implement it. caller on our independent line is up first. caller: i was curious what your views are on the climate

regarding passenger complaints, bullying, or behavioral misconduct on the part of the tsa agent. that is a concern the most everyday passengers have, this fear of bullying and inappropriate behavior that tsa agents are not held accountable for. excellent question. we issued a companion report in november looking at the complaint process that passengers use, such as yourself woman to submit complaints. that was one of the categories we looked at. hopefully with the new system they will be able to respond to or timely and consistently. but i'm concerned as well as you are when i read about these types of incidents occurring with the traveling public. host: this is from twitter.

guest: hopefully if they move out smartly and implement all our recommendations, that the cost to adjudicate, investigate these will hopefully diminish over time as they train their staff, there is more awareness in the agency about what the rules are, and they implement the corresponding recommendations from our passenger complaint reports. i'm not sure what the precise costs are. airports involved. hopefully over time they will be managing these more effectively. host: jean asks about the breakdown between public workers and private contractors at tsa. guest: it is probably the most frequent question i get. there is 450 tsa regulated airports across the nation. 16 of those utilize private screeners through the so-called .creening partnership program

tsa expects the numbers of private sector screeners to increase over time. they have approved applications for nine additional airports. it is still a small part of the of 450 currently over 16 airports. host: here is another tweet. look at theu report, we have a breakdown of cases related to security and screening. 20% of the 9600 cases over three years. those were the ones which concerned me the most. in a large organization has time and attendance issues occasionally. but the ones related to security

and safety of the aircraft concerns me more. host: can you give a for instance of one of these violations? was an individual which allowed family members to knowingly bypassed the screening procedures altogether. everybody getting on aircraft needs to have their bags screened. ,nother example we highlighted before you get on the aircraft you go through the security checkpoint. he wasn't actively screening the carry-on bags. he was letting them running through the belt but not reading the screen. it was not a useful exercise. host: it goes to the idea of developing standards. why isn't something in place? guest: there are standards in place. mr. hart's good point out, they're trying to manage 56,000 employees.

he pointed out, they're trying to manage 56,000 employees. they are spread across the nation. all it takes is one to get agency in the news. host: what is the training process for tso? have standard training and periodic refresher training. they're subject to covert tests, stimulated explosive devices placed on carousels and carry-on screening equipment. they are tested against those. are givenil, they remedial training. it takes a variety of efforts to train people understand or operating procedures and keep them fresh. mary onere is murphy -- our independent line. you think theo

representatives will do to hold tsa more accountable in the future beyond having hearings? i hope you understand the role of gao. we are the research and investigative arm of the u.s. congress. our job is to inform the congressional debate through nonpartisan fact-based analysis briefings, hearings. make policy,t to but we do the analysis the let's -- policymakers act upon it that lets the policymakers act upon it. i am proud of our work. there have been several legislative acts that have been taken in response to my prior reports. that is for the congress to decide. it got notice. allegations of misconduct the

part of tsa employees has been widely misrepresented, according to this report. the data gao analyzed shows that the tsa workforce is doing a great job protecting the flying public and 99% of the employees are never involved in security related misconduct. guest: our job is to inform the debate. i read that as well. what theyss can do want with our reports. caller: good morning. i was almost assaulted by a tsa agent in chicago. i'm wondering if one airport has more complaints than all the others. in general, the so-called

largest category airports, the nation's largest airports have the most screeners, the most passengers. they tend to have the largest number of complaints over time. any interactions you want tsa management to be kept apprised of, i would google tsa.gov and under homepage they have two buttons. e-mail button and phone button. they track the number of and they will send you an e-mail and it will do some sort of investigation on it. that is one area i would listeners have recourse to if needed. host: a twitter comment. guest: they have standard procedures. they should be screening them according to the protocols. some slight deviation is

allowed. wholesale deviations are not allowed. anyone who is doing that, that would be an example of misconduct. look throughyou actual case logs. did you make various visits to airports about these cases and explain the process of how the report was put together? guest: i urge my staff to get outside washington. we like to visit airports because we think the on the ground perspective is very important. you get out and talk to the people actually implementing these procedures. they give you really frank and honest insights. you meet a lot of dedicated people, but you also get useful insights you do not necessarily get from the tsa management team and headquarters. it is important to do both. a twitter comment --

good question. tsa has recently modified screening procedures. if you're under 12 are over 75 there is no reason for you to go screenings. if someone is screening them, i'm not sure when that incident occurred. if she went to the airport now, that would not occur. mark in virginia on independent line. caller: i have a comment. travel thatr my these tsa screeners are not making that much money. how muchike to know those screeners are making per hour. you to speak to the fact -- i have been in business for over 25 years.

honest -- many people in business will identify with what i'm getting ready to say -- the quality and dedication and hard work ethic of a couple of generations ago, we are not seeing that in the newer generations. i'm not surprised of the complaint levels, of the efficiency levels. i would like for you to speak to that. you for the question. the specifics on salary levels i'm not privy to, but i do know thathave a pay system based on responsibility, type of job you're holding, you're eligible for higher levels of pay. positions, perhaps they are not considered high- paying jobs. to me, that's not the only factor you should consider in whether you have able and capable workforce. anyone who visits certain types of fast

food establishments, you get prompt and professional service and those are generally considered low-wage positions. a lot of it depends on the management culture, the environment, training provided. even though that could be a challenge, i don't think that should be considered an excuse to get poor service. also, dealing with the new generation, that is an interesting question. they have different expectations and needs. it is part of your management responsibilities to deal with that as well. any organization that hires people in the 20's faces the same type of challenge. administratorty was asked about people who have possession of drugs or take things from luggage. did you report address that -- your report address that? guest: examples like that, and examples of theft. the tsa deputy at the hearing

said in those cases they have a one step process. they can fire them immediately in cases like that. we will hear from him and how he responded to those types of questions. [video clip]>> we have a screener of the line. one of our covert testers go through. he has and i patty decides he will put in his pocket. ad he decides he will put in his pocket. havethat happens and we proof he stole that item, it is 24 hours he is out the door. we have put that into effect. the drugs, another case. you're caught with drugs. on the spot we can put you out. it involves an investigation and drugs, there is an investigation involved. if i cannot immediately prove it, we have to do due diligence for our people. we do give them the benefit of the doubt in those cases until

the proof shows otherwise. host: anything to add to that? him, ito, i agree with is important to deal with those cases immediately. at the same time there are due process considerations that come into play. if the evidence is not there, they need to do an investigation to prove or disprove. host: a caller on our democrats line. caller: do all federal agencies have the table of penalties you referred to? that's a great question. i'm not aware -- we focused our efforts on tsa for purposes of this review. that question would be outside the scope of that review. the gentleman in charge of putting the table together came from another agency, so he brought some outside perspective into tsa.

i consider that a best practice. fairly defined rules are consistently applied. people want to know what the rules are. all disseminated to employees. everyone has a clear understanding of what the rules are. where is the administrator? whot: that is tsa's call, to send to a hearing. was considered to have a really good understanding of what is going on at the airports. they invite me, i show up but i don't tell them who to invite. i had a question having to do with protocol for the

airports but i'm going to have to change my questions. the deputy commissioner mentioned how you are concerned with making sure the tsa employees get you process -- due process. areow that many people specifically by the tsa. there is talk about privatizing it. what is your response to his seemingly conflicting statement of innocent till proven guilty for tsa employees, but not for everybody else? if you feel you have been subject to unacceptable behavior or if you have a complaint to make regarding how you were processed through a tsa checkpoint, you can submit a

complaint through the tsa website. as well.e press there is always articles in the press that concerns me. over time was tsa implements our recommendations from this report and our prior report, there will be more consistency in how they deal with members of the traveling public. passengers go through the nation's airports on a daily basis. all it takes is one person that sulliesday the reputation of the tsa. i know that concerns tsa management and that is why they instituted new procedures and policies. host: what were the recommendations in the report? guest: tsa headquarters needs a system for monitoring what is going on in the nation's

airports in terms of complaints, allegations of misconduct. they need to verify airport .taff they need to do a better job of recording instances, the outcomes of these cases. they need to track cycle times to see if there are any patterns and trends we should be concerned about. also need to develop reconciliation procedures to .lose the loop on sue is up next from texas. span and i lovec- the way you're always so dapper. thank you. go ahead. was back inink it the 80's that we had the big scandal over people stealing

from the luggage. we were taught never to put anything of value in your luggage because it could be stolen. subjectnot only are we , i haveinds of frisks to go to the special frisked because i have an artificial knee. it always makes the machine pop off. once they felt my leg and realized it's just legged -- leg, they still groped me. my husband watched and was appalled. i'm not allowed to take anything on the plane that i want to because -- i take 14 different medications, some of which are controlled. and yet now i have to put them in my luggage because we don't

want to have anything that could possibly arm us. host: your question for our guest, please? caller: i will get to my question. and then we're being charged for that piece of luggage we have to put on the plane. , why is it so one-sided? hawaii is it that we have the tsa employees could be stealing from us -- why is it that tsa employees could be stealing from us? to improveis trying the passenger experience. nobody should be groping you inappropriately. over time they are trying to .ove to a risk-based process

a higher not represent risk concerned to tsa, you will be able to go through expedited .creening it is important for them to move away from this one-size-fits-all business model to a risk-based approach. host: will we see an expansion of what you're allowed to take onto planes? guest: there continually revising items on the prohibited items list.

host: rendell joins us on the independent line. randall joins us on the independent line. caller: is there or has there to pay foradded those screeners? i pay gas tax to increase the safety and so on and so forth for my transportation. tax dollars are going to pay for the screeners to increase the safety of those people traveling that way, or is there a tax added to the airplane ticket to pay for those screeners? where is this money coming from? is this coming out of our

general budget, or is it added on to the ticket price? guest: good question. it is a combination of both. anytime you buy an airplane ticket, if you look at the fine print there is a passenger security fee or aviation security added to the cost of the ticket. it's a nominal fee. that is used to help offset the cost of tsa security programs. that do gleaned from not completely offset the cost of tsa's programs. to 40% of our30% total operations. tsa gets an appropriation from the congress every year. after this program you can see the national governors association, their summer meeting. that takes place in the walkie. ukee.ll take -- milwa

we will take you there live. i caller on our democratic line. i want to ask the why therefrom the gao are different standards at the same times of the day at the -- -- the same airport. i used to be in charge of the security people when my airline used to contract with them as well as lobby operations. would be the one overseeing the departure of aircraft from the gate and the ramp. it has been a long time, but i know how airports run. now i'm in education in my new life. pass.el on the companion i may be at an airline all day

waiting to get on an aircraft to go to my destination. as a result, i may actually go through security three times. , someime i go through screeners find nothing and other screeners find things. i have a running joke with my family and friends that i must have a metal plate in the middle of my head and my mother must've dropped me because lo and behold, when i go through certain airport in the east coast, they show where i have a dark spot right in the middle of my head in the front. the caller raised an important issue. subjectrts she has been to different types of screening depending on the time of day and what airport she is at. tsa has standard screening

protocols and there should not be significant deviations. if there is, that is an example of one type of misconduct we looked at. that concerns me. i'm not sure what the deviations were, but if they are significant deviations, that is not supposed to happen. host: who asked you to compile this report? three members of congress. a lot of our work is requested by congress or a mandate enacted into law. in this case it was representative michael mccaul, government reform and oversight. what spurredy ask it? were concerned about these allegations of misconduct by tsa screeners and they also heard from tsa. i think that is why they call it in for an independent check.

are nonpartisan, nonideological. we focus on the facts. host: the gao website is where you can find the information, gao.gov. stephen lord is the government accountability office director for aviation if you go ahead, i would appreciate it. caller: you stated that there are some private enterprise is taking over airport security. i do not believe one person sustain his wealth. multiple companies. they go through an open and competitive procedure to get these contract