Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 10192017 20171019

Should receive one, were interested in hearing what you would do with it. Would you save, would you spend it, invest it, do other . Let us known our first hour. What would you do with a tax cut . Weve divided the lines differently. If you make under 50,000, call us, 2027488000. If you make between 50,000 and 100,000, 2027488001. And if you make over 100,000, 2027488002. You can also reach us at twitter and give us your thoughts, cspanwj. Several people posting on facebook this morning, facebook. Com cspan. Washington post features a photo with President Trump and members of the Senate Finance Committee Meeting at the white house yesterday in his effort to try to sell members of the committee, particularly democrats, on the republican plan for tax reform. During that time with the committee, the president laid out specifics of what he hopes to see and how it might benefit americans. Heres the president from yesterday. President trump we are doubling the amount of income that is taxed at the zero bracket. In other words, the zero bracket, many people will be able to take advantage of that bracket that are not in that bracket. Were increasing the child tax credit. We will end the estate tax, sometimes referred to as the death tax. We will cut the business tax rate from the highest in the developed world of 35 to no more than 20 . According to the council of economic advisors, reducing the Corporate Tax rate from 35 to 20 would increase average Household Income by 4,000 a year. So each household on average would take in 4,000, and theyll go out and spend that money, and that will be great for the economy. Host what this plan might do, kickly when it comes to tax cuts should that happen, were interested in hearing from you what you would do with that, 2027488000 if you make under 50,000. If you make between 50,000 and 100,000, 2027488001. If you make over 100,000, you can give us a call at 2027488002. Twitter available to you, cspanwj. On facebook, like i said, several postings this morning. One says a tax cut would dwoo virtually nothing for me and my family. Taxes are not what is killing us, its stagnant salaries, skyrocketing bills, utilities, car insurance, water, internet, groceries, and Health Insurance that is totally unaffordable, so we do without. Jared roberts saying people saying they dont need a tax cut probably dont pay taxes. But i can assure you the people who do get a tax bill would actually produce in this country could use one. And jim saying keep the money i earned. I might even be inclined to donate it to charity, as it stands right now, i only donate my time because im already forced to donate through taxation. Yes, welfare is nothing but a really poorly run charity. Just some of the thoughts on facebook this morning with this idea of a tax cut and what you it. Do with youre welcome to post on twitter as well and on the regular phone lines that we do every day, thats how you can reach us too. Robert in kentucky, who falls in that 50,000 to 100,000 bracket, robert, tell us what your thinking is as far as what you would do. Caller if i was the president , i would go across the border and look at these states and see whos got the kids and all the people thats got the kids, and we need to be for the kids in this country, and kentucky is a great state. We got a great governor, and i think that the tax money should go towards the kids, and it will be a great thing, i think. You have a good day. Host before you go, make it personal. If you would get a tax cut, what would you do with it . Caller you could also around here, you could buy fourwheelers, cars, stuff like that stuff. Host thats what you would do personally . Caller thats what i would do personally, to entertain myself around here, but ive also donate to charity, to some of the kids that are locally here who go to school with no money in their pockets. And i would do good with the tax. Host thats robert in kentucky. Well hear next from brad. Hes calling us from augusta, georgia. Brad, good morning, youre next. Caller good morning. Yeah, if i one of the most attractive things to this, to me as a Small Business owner, is the tax break that were going to get. I mean, were one of the largest groups as far as businesses of employers in the United States, and so the first thing i would do is turn one of my parttime employees into a fulltime employee and expand our inventory. We lease props to movies is what we do. And so i would expand my inventory based off of what i have going on now. So i would put more money back in the pockets of my employees, thats one. On a personal level, if they expand the tax cut for my children, i have a son who goes to the university of michigan, which is not inexpensive, and i have a daughter thats in grade school that i went to a catholic school, she goes to that, so it would be nice to be able to offset some of the expenses of paying for her education, his education. So i would immediately reinvest it back. So thats why i would support this 100 , especially even with the personal tax cut, the income tax cuts, most all of that would go back into my business or, you know, retiring debt related to that. Host when it comes to the business side, we hear about this idea of expensing and things like that, what it might do for people who run business. Can you kind of explain this concept of expensing and how would you tuesday personally and how would that benefit you . Caller absolutely. Thats one of the best parts about it. What i do, when i rent a prop to a movie, most of the time i have to roll over a percentage of the profit i make into new equipment to expand my business. If it was 100 writeoff, which is part of if my understanding is correct, would be a 100 writeoff the same year you purchase the equipment, that means every dime i got back for every dollar that i spent on that would immediately have an impact on my bottom line and allow me to ex expand even morement i think thats a terrific idea. For smaller businesses that have to plan our expansions much more carefully because we dont have a lot of credit with banks, we dont get a lot of benefits, in an extremely difficult tax burden on us personally because we are Small Business owners and selfemployed, this whole tax package would allow me to expand at a much faster rate than i would under any other circumstance, and so i think a lot of people miss the point. You Start Talking about middle class, i really dont care if the top 1 of the 1 get a huge tax cut if i get all of the things that will personally benefit me and my employees. I see as an equal tradeoff. Host thats brad in augusta, georgia, telling us what he would do not only on his business side, but the personal side, if he were to get a tax cut. Phil, frederick, maryland, good morning. Caller how you doing this morning . Host fine, thank you. What about you . Caller well, im doing pretty good. In answer to your question there, i have three kids in college, so obviously my tax any tax money that i might get back would be generated towards trying to help them out as well as, you know, i do think also but i think one of the other things were missing sight of, this tax is also geared at drawing back a lot of the money that is in the off shore that is out of our country right now thats not getting taxed. I wish people would be speaking to that, because i think what trump is trying to do is really forward thinking, and it would be greatly beneficial for our country Going Forward to get that money back in this country to create jobs and to expand our economy. Thats the key, i think, to this whole tax reform process that is Going Forward. I do appreciate the fact that the middle class is being included in getting back something, because, you know, im very much in favor of the idea of lower taxes. I do agree that, you know go ahead. Host oh, no, i wanted to stop you there, only to remind folks this is what were talking about, the examples you heard about what you would do with a tax cut. 2027488000 if you make under 50,000. 2027488001 between 50,000 and 100,000. Over 100,000, 2027488002. A couple of professors from ucla have an oped in the Washington Post this morning, taking a look at this idea of tax cuts. No more tax cuts for the middle class, the middle class tax burdens are at historic lows. The Congressional Budget Office reported in 2016 that the average federal income tax rate for the middle class, meaning the middle 60 of income distribution, decline from the. in 1979 to 3. 4 in 2018 caller next up is been gentleman anyone. Go ahead. Benjamin. Go ahead. Caller yeah, the only problem with this is and on that Corporate Tax and everything, theres no guarantee that the corporations is going to take hat money and create jobs. What the republicans should have done since its their bill is they should have put a rider on there that theyve got to use that money to create jobs, and like host benjamin, go ahead. Ok, i think well go on to scott. South carolina. Go ahead, youre next. Caller good morning. If i got it, a tax break, id probably use it to renovate my bathroom. But i dont think the poor are going to get a tax break. Host you dont think that particularly will happen for you then . Caller no, sir. Host why do you think that . Caller trump is for the rich, top 5 . Host and so if you were to get one, the bathroom is your focus, right . Caller renovation of my house, yes. Host gotcha. So from the story that we showed you, the picture from earlier, the Washington Post meeting with the Senate Finance committee, meeting with President Trump, it offers some of the input from democrats from yesterday, saying that reporters were only allowed to witness the first few minutes at the white house meeting, this is a onceinalifetime opportunity in my opinion that mr. Trump said. He joked with senator ron widen of oregon, the top democrat on the committee, that the plan should get unanimous support host from georgia, hello, go ahead. Caller good morning, pedro. How are you, sir . Host fine, thanks. Go ahead. Caller with all those ideas about what to do with the tax cuts, its not going to benefit you, im sorry. The tax cuts are going to nefit the upper class of the u. S. Citizenry, meaning those monopolies, those corporations, those globalists who have all the power, who work for, who the senators and congressmen are working for, we the American People have to do is redevelop this american society, and how we do that, et actively participate. Until we make a difference, nothings going to change. Host before you go, the specific thing that convinces you, what is that . Caller thats not going to benefit me. What i do as a Small Business owner or small Trucking Company with one guy. Thats not going to gift me. Because im already doing pretty good, but theres no room for growth, because the carriers split, j. B. Hunt, these monopolies have monopolized the industry where theres no growth for me to go out and buy another unit and put someone to work, because theres no property, theres no revenue gain in there for me, regulations that are on top of that, its very hard to explain, pedro, but through cspan, through learning, through regulations that are on i should be able to explain that better, thank you so much. Host we divided the lines different until case you havent noticed. Its 2027488000 if you make under 50,000. Its 2027488001 for those between 50,000 and 100,000. For over 100,000, 2027488002. Sharon falls into the first category, washington, d. C. , thanks for calling, sharon, good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host im fine, thank you. Caller i am a dialysis patient, and i have a lot of health problems, staying in and out the hospital. I would love to pay the back taxes on my house. Host if you dont mind sharing what kind of money are we talking about on that front . Caller i only make 21,000 now. I only make 55 of what i made when i was working. I was a teacher. I worked two jobs. I worked during the day, and then i worked daycare in the evening. So its been kind of rough. And then my mom, she passed away. She was about 3 4 of our income , so things have gotten a little rough. That would really, really help out to have some extra money to pay the taxes on the house. Host and so year after year you owe these taxes and pay at least you owe these taxes and you get a tax bill every april, to be filed every april or so. Ller yes, and we try to put money on the taxes, but i would just like to be able to completely pay all of them and be able to rest and relax and not worry about it. Host ok. Thats sharon, and thank you for calling, sharon, sharing her experiences about what she would do if she had a tax cut come her way. The topic of a tax cut came up in the senate yesterday, this as the senate now is in the debate, expected to finish up debate today, taking a look at their bill for the budget, which republicans say is the kind of launch pad for their work on tax reform. One of those people critical of this idea of a tax cut was the oregon democratic senator. He took to the senate floor yesterday to criticize these proposals. Heres what he had to say. Four out of five benefits goes to the top 1 and half of hat goes to the top. 1 . Why should there be one single penny going to the very richest americans in a nation in which we should be striving for a foundation for every family to thrive . And we know that to thrive, our children have to have food to eat. We need to have Healthcare Programs that create peace of mind. We need to make sure our seniors have a Strong Foundation in their retirement. But instead, we see all those programs, including the opportunity for pell grants, being raided for this massive give away to the top 1 . President trump, come before the American People and explain how its possible that you can claim youre doing a plan for middle class america and youre sending virtually the entire benefits to the top 1 of americans. Host on twitter this morning, bill king writing that a business should only get 20 tax cut on the stipulation they give their employees a 20 salary increase. And then deborah saying that she would try to pay off the house before retiring in three years, adding that the amount of federal taxes that she pays exceeds 12 months of house payments. Next up is sal in new york. Go ahead. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am absolutely in favor of this tax cut, and when it comes, i plan to spend my money, which i think people will do. Heres the advantage. When you cut taxes, people have more money to spend, more money to invest, and the economy will grow, as business does better, theyll have more people making income and spending it. I think we all benefit. So i say go for this tax cut. Host so, sal, it says on the phone lines that you fall into the third category of those who make 100,000. Whats your tax burden like on a year to year basis . Caller well, im getting slaughtered by the federal government. Im a retired teacher, and the taxes that i paid to the federal government are excessive. And i would like to spend that money myself, and every time i hear theres going to be a tax cut, i hear it only benefits the rich. Its an old story. I dont go for it anymore. Again, its our money. Its not the governments money. And we will spend it, and we will invest it as we choose. And i think its a positive thing. Scommoip on the larger issue, theres a debate going on near washington about offering the tax cuts, what it does for things like the federal budget and deficit and things like that. Do you concern yourself with those kind of aspects of this topic, especially, you know, as the larger discussion takes place and what it does for the federal budget and the longterm Fiscal Health of the United States . Caller well, of course id like to see the government control its spending the way i control my spending and the way all the listeners control their spending. But i do believe that if you cut taxes and the economy expands, that will help to pay these bills, that the federal government just keeps racking up one after another. Host thats sal giving us his experience. Again, the republican plan that was released several weeks ago and touted by the administration would not only collapse the individual tax trites three categories, 12, 25, and 35 , it would increase deduction that most americans get. It would increase the child tax credit. It would repeal the alternative minimum tax, the a. M. T. As its known. It would repeal the estate tax. And it would also do reduce the Corporate Tax rate from the proposal of 35 down to 20 as proposed. Well go next to terry. Er it any west palm beach, florida. Hello, good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host im well, thanks. Go ahead. Caller they dont talk so much about repeeling the estate tax. They leave it out of the equation. Youre talking trillions of dollars here. Not millions, not billions. Trillions. Do the time conversion. Millions is 11 1 2 days. Billions is 33 years. Trillions is 33,000 year years. Youre giving an youre turning your children into serfs. Dont let them buy your vote with a couple of crumbs. They are giving all the money to the very richest in the country. And making it permanent. You cant recover from that. Dont let it happen. Host so you dont see any of that, should it happen, coming your way . Caller no. Ll i see is worse. Because im retired, we saved our money, we paid off our house, we have money in savings. I had money in interest. It was supposed to buy me a new car or give me a vacation or whatever, you know, every couple of years. Not a big deal. But what the fed has done, and nobody mentions the fed in this little discussion, what the fed has done is tell you up front, we are going to pay you zero interest on your savings. We are going to tell you that there is inflation, so your Social Security interests are nil. And we are going to engineer the economy to give you 2 inflation, if we can. That tells you that your savings are going to erode every year, and every year you will become poorer, and thats a deliberate tactic. Theyre doing it they tell you upfront theyre doing it. I mean, ive got several ideas of the government. Id make the fed a subsidiary with the Small Business administration, giving loans only to Small Businesses. Take the people who issue pens out of regulatory capture so they stop extending paints on all this stuff. Let other people come in and come up with new stuff. Host ok. Thats terry in west palm beach, florida. Another terry in woodbridge, illinois, youre next. Caller good morning. My comment is why should we blame people that pull their feet up off the ground and go out and make a living and get a nice savings account, why shouldnt they get a tax break . They pay taxes on money already. And then estate tax, why should the government tax it again . Its already been taxed. Im only 63, and the Obama Administration, i was forced into retirement at 52, took 400 cut, so i wouldnt get a tax break, no tax relief or nothing, because im not paying no tax. But i think everyone should get a tax break. All the way across little board. Thats how i feel. Host do you think that people who do that would, in some cases, do you think more of them would invest their money back in the economy by spending it . Do you think more would save it . Caller i think the Small Businesses should be able to get a better tax break so they can advance their business and give their workers money. Because in nine years, i did you not get a raise, because i lost my job, and i had to work for minimum wage. I had to go through my pension a little bit at a time just to survive, to save my house. So i think everyone zhud get a tax break. Its been way too lofpblgt id like to make one more comment. What would the democrats do when they see the democrats not going to vote for this bill . How are they going to feel . For all their years of working, and theyre want going to get a tax break because the one that they put in office didnt care about them, they put it in. Host thatser it any illinois, thats terry in illinois, adding her thoughts on tax cuts. She gave comments aside from that. But if you want to make your comments known, its 2027488000 if you make under 50,000. 2027488001 if you make between 50,000 and 100,000. 2027488002 if you make over 100,000. Well take your thoughts on twitter and facebook too. Well show you some other stories as we go along the hour. If youre calling in, please continue to do so. The wall street journal this morning highlights the dow reaching 23,000 yesterday. Thats a lead story. But their lead story takes a look at healthcare, particularly the president s reaction to the proposal on capitol hill, particularly the senate side when it comes to a healthcare keel, saying it was two senators behind the deal remaining publicly upbeat about the bills prospects despite the president s conflicting comments. This is about the effort the Affordable Care act. Mr. Trump touched off confusion on capitol hill wednesday morning host a drop is expected from insurers, they say, saying that despite significant rate increases in 2017, enrollment in a. C. A. Plans by subsidized consumers roseanne estimated 5. 4 in the second quarter, compared with the year earlier. But the enrollment in individual coverage by people not receiving subsidies dropped 22. 4 host on the topic of tax cuts and what would you do with one, from lebanon, missouri, howard is next. Howard, go ahead. Caller yeah, what i would do is probably pay all my medical bills, because im on disability, getting ready to go on disability. It seems to me its like a pyramid, the rich get the most and it just kind of trickles down, you know . It should be more towards the working class people thats worked to put money into Social Security and stuff like that. They should give them thats where your money should be set up to help you for when you retire. They should figure out some kind of way of making that money go and earn interest for when you do retire, because Social Security is not a retirement, you know, its not even an insurance anymore, because they use the slush fund for so long. That percentage of money should go to benefit us, to make us, you know, and yeah, it would be spent, but it would be spent where it would be a way of making money, not spending money, and then they get, oh, good, we made some money, now well go from it. Host ok, lets hear from lisa in houston, texas, hello. Caller hello. Good morning, cspan. I would use the money im in the range of 50,000 to 100,000, at least for now. Our income is not a guarantee, of course. And what i would use i think what we would maybe get, if there was a tax break at all for that, you know, section of e tax code, maybe like a 500,000 additional, you know, amount to our yearly income, which is really like asking me, like, if i want to do a extra couple trips to the grocery store, but anyways, where i would use that is to probably for healthcare, because i live in the state of texas, and in the state of texas, the governor did not allow us to have subsidies with the a. C. A. , you know, or the Affordable Care act, so we dont we fall in that group of people that do not get subsidies for our Health Insurance. And that is the biggest, Biggest Issue right now. From the employment that my husband has, we do, you know, have Health Insurance, but that does cost like 500,000 to 600 a month 500 to 600 a month, even though the company is also, you know, paying a portion of the insurance, do you know what i mean . Like, thats our portion. That would be like one month of healthcare, and were looking at next year. You know, well be reenrolling in december with the company. And it will probably go up again since theyre taking the money, you know, and giving it to me, its not really helping me. If our governor, you know, which this has nothing to do with the federal, but, you know, were kind of caught in a rock and a hard place because the governor would not give us the subsidies, even though we paid for them. Host ok. Well go to edward in iowa. Hello. Caller yes, good morning. Host good morning. Caller well, we kind of fall just barely over 20,000 a year, so that tax break that i would be getting, even though i hear it is not going to be all that large, it would still benefit my family. Ill give you an example. My youngest daughter signed up for volleyball. We couldnt even afford to go get her a decent pair of tennis shoes to play. I have a middle daughter being married today. I really have nothing that i can give her as a wedding present. Because we barely make ends meet as it is. Thanks. Host stony brook, new york, janet. Good morning, youre next up. Caller hi, so i would probably spend the tax cut on tuition. I have two kids in school. But i actually dont want a tax cut, and i think your other callers shouldnt either. Im hearing people really struggling. I think the money that theyre trying to seduce us with should be put into infrastructure, which would create jobs. I just want to make a comment about a previous caller. The gentleman from new york whos a retired schoolteacher making over 100,000, boo hoo. My property taxes are 10,000 a year because teachers and police in new york have such strong unions. If he believes in a tax cut, its just that he wants more money for himself, and hes not thinking about the rest of society. Host you talked about the money you pay for property taxes, and even from all that, you still say you would reject a tax cut personally . Caller i think its a well, my taxes, my property taxes are tied to pension costs, which is tied to powerful unions. Im prounion, but i think powerful unions are basically hamstringing us in new york and, you know, our property taxes are just the direct result of that. I have no problem paying Social Security, paying usage taxes, anything else. But i just think its a poor trying to seduce people with a tax cut is just ridiculous. These people need good jobs, Infrastructure Projects would create and more investment in people, not in giving rich people back money. Host lets hear from fran in jacksonville, florida. Caller hi. I so agree with that lady from new york. You know, im more concerned im less concerned with what a tax cut will do for me than what that upper level tax cut will do to me. People need to know, if they repeal the alternative minimum tax, people like donald trump, who only paid taxes on that one little seat or two we saw from a few years ago, the reason why 138 , i think it was llion or 100,000, but 131,000 of those taxes was because of the alternative minimum tax. Now, we did not have that, he would have paid 7,000 instead of 138,000. Also, with the estate tax, just think about it. How many of these people who are calling in would actually be affected by the estate tax. What we would be doing is promoting a permanent upper lass with everybody else being serfs like the one just said, where it would be into perpetuity where they talk about people earning this money and they deserve a break, too, and all that. Well, these people wont be earning that money. Theyre children for generations that turn that money. And it is needed for the United States of america. Not for those families. Host thats fran in jacksonville, florida, calling in to tell us what you would do with a tax cut. Some people rejecting it. Some people would spend it. Some people investing into their business. Other people making thoughts on the larger issue of tax policy. You can continue to call in. 2027488000 if you make under 50,000. 2027488001 for those between 50,000 and 100,000. 2027488002 if you make over 100,000. Some other stories to talk to you about, more back and forth between the president and representative fred rica wilson of florida, this over the conversation the president had with that family in texas concerning the loss of that soldier in niger, saying that ms. Wilson said she was in the car host thats sara sanders who made those comments yesterday. The president himself making comments to ms. Wilsons charges, yesterday during that meeting, he had just before he had that meeting with the Senate Finance committee. Heres what today say. President trump i didnt say what that Congress Woman says. She knows it. And she now is not saying it. I did not say what she said. And id like her to make the statement again, because i did not say what she said. I had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife who sounded like a lovely woman, did not say what the Congress Woman said. And most people arent too surprised to hear that. Let her make her statement again, and then youll find out. Ok, let her make her statement again and then youll find out. Host those statements, by the way, available on our website at pan span. Org. The front page story of the Washington Post this morning deals with another conversation by the president of gold star families, saying it was the father of Army Sergeant dylan baldrich said the president called him at his home a few weeks after his 22yearold son and two fellow soldiers were fatally shot by Afghan Police officers on june 10 host those comments about those stories about that story, to the idea of tax cuts, were back to you. This is susan, rockville, maryland, on our line for those who make 100,000. Hi, susan, thanks for waiting, go ahead. Caller hi. I dont really believe in a tax cut, because it has to come from somewhere, and i do think thats usually something that is thrown around with a lot of rhetoric. I would want to know what was going to be cut. If they do give a tax cut, i hink it should be provided for a. C. A. Subsidies or try to tweak the a. C. A. I believe in the a. C. A. , and i think its sadly misunderstood. Listening to some of the allers who talk about 500 and 600 payments, and theyre they use it, ive been on some kind Business Health care plan for 30, 40 years, and when i was young, i never used it. I did not have children. All my friends had kids. I still paid. Thank god i did not have any terrible diseases, but ive been subsidizing as a healthy person who works out and who eats healthy. Ive been subsidizing people ven on healthcare for decades. And the key of any insurance, just like your car insurance, is you pay into it, and then god forbid the day you do need it. And as i get older, and im sure someday im going to have something big, but the whole idea of that Monthly Payment is so youre not tuge now, but god forbid you get into an accident or you have some terrible disease, thats what insurance is for. Host ok, mark is next, in west virginia. Go ahead. Caller hi. As far as the tax cut is concerned, its completely irresponsible for us to have a tax cut thats going to benefit, you know, the top wealthiest people when this country has a 20 trillion deficit. As far as that tax cut is concerned, its just ridiculous. One thing im very encouraged to hear, people finally calling it what it is, at fordable healthcare act. It is not obamacare. The second that president obama took the public option off the table, which is where people, average working people could just buy into medicaid or medicaid, the second that was taken off the table, the second that president obama foolishly took that off the table, it stopped being obamacare and started being republican care. Host ok, bob in georgia, iowa, youre next up. Caller yes, i dont think there should be a tax cut at all. We need to take this money and pay down the debt. And create infrastructure in this country. Thats what made this country great. The country has not benefiting from tax cuts. Its ruining us. Even though i make a fair amount of money, i just think we should be paying more taxes, if anything else. Host so, bob, youve heard stories about what people would do personal well tax cuts as far as some would fix their house up, some to education. Are these worthwhile investments then, if they were to even get one . I know youre talking about the debt side of it, but what about the benefit to people . Caller i would simply buy stocks with it. I mean, its not going to be i mean, im not going to go out and buy cars and stuff like that. I dont need to. And i know that poor people do need to do that, but believe me, the rich are going to get most of the tax cuts, and they wont be out buying things with it. Theyll be investing it. Host chesapeake, virginia, calling us, good morning, youre next. Caller yes. I dont think there should be tax cuts, either. I dont see what the big deal is about it, because when you pay taxes, you get your money back in april when you still settle your taxes again. Its like putting money in the bank. You do get the money back, that you probably wouldnt save normally. Everybody looks forward to getting the money back after taxes. What were really going to be doing is putting america, they talk about this, trying to get us out of debt, but this really put us back into debt, like paying into offices when we were in the black with the president , then bush came into offices and cut taxes. I got money back, but the person i work with didnt get any money back. The more money i got back, all it did was put america back into debt. It really wasnt enough to do anything yet, and this is not even enough to, like you say, go to the grocery store, maybe two things of groceries. To me, its a waste to put the whole america in a hole just because somebody needs tax cut. Host if you go to the roll call website, theres a story about Sexual Harassment charges and how theyre handled, specifically on capitol hill. It also highlights what goes on in federal offices, but in particular, what it does in congressional offices there on the hill, and walk through the process. It first makes mention theres no training when it comes to Sexual Harassment and how you look for it, how you complain or at least file charges on it. Theres no formal training required on capitol hill offices. It also says after an incident occurred, in order to pursue a complaint, the victim has 180 days to request counseling about the situation. The counseling lasts about 30 days, and then from there, if up to the further pursue a community, a victim needs to request mediation, which lasts up to 30 days, and during this time, the victim and the office can reach a voluntary settlement. If mediation fails, victim must take 30 days, but no longer than 90 days, to request an administrative proceeding between a hearing officer or file a case in Federal District court. Appeals goes to the office of compliance. Thats just the process of what happens on capitol hill. It also highlights the process of what happens in federal offices too when it comes to Sexual Harassment charges. You can find that story this morning on the roll call website. From robert in greenfield center, new york. Hello. Go ahead. Aller good morning. I have concerns about the tax cut and whether i will really have extra money in my pocket. From my understanding, we will no longer be able to write off our property taxes through the federal forum, so to me, thats going to be a wash. Secondly, we do need tax cuts. The previous caller said something about the fact that, you know, this money is going to the rich, but i think we had the wool pulled over our eyes, because the taxes are going to drop from 38 to 35, but where the rich are really getting their tax break is through capital gains. I dont know why Neither Party talks about this, but rich people, what they do is they get an income. And they, for example, a c. E. O. Who makes 20 million, he makes 500,000 through the payroll, and then he gives himself a 19 million bonus. That 19 million bonus is taxed only at 15 . Thats what Warren Buffett was talking about. The rich are still going to get it no matter what, and what is the crime of all of these discussions. Thank you. Host shirley from louisiana. Youre next. Caller i think everyone should have the same amount of tax tax cuts. I dont care if youre a millionaire, billionaire. Youve worked for that money, and you should have as much credit as i do. And thats my opinion. Host from santa rosa, california. Al is next. Good morning. Youre next. Caller yes, id like to say hat i agree with the tax cuts. Ronald reagan did it, and he he went from a 500 million fwouth a trillion dollar budget. Thats all i got to say. Host so al, weve had a couple of callers previous about how they dont see the need for a tax cut, certainly what it does for the deficit and the debt the country has. Caller the debt, i mean, thats where washingtons got to get their head out of the trough. I mean, theyre all at the trough for crying out loud. Ost from california, thats former president barack obama heads to the commonwealth of virginia to campaign for one of the people running to be the next governor of virginia, Lieutenant Governor ralph northam, a democrat. Hes going to take place at a rally in richmond, virginia, today. The president will be featured at that. That will be at 6 00 today, and you can see that richmond event on cspan, followed on cspan. Org. You can also look at it through our cspan radio app and monitor that. Also tonight, House Speaker paul ryan will deliver remarks at the annual dinner in new york. Live coverage of that event at 8 40e this evening on cspan, also available to you at cspan. Org, and our cspan radio app. Paul ryan might make remarks to the effort on capitol hill, particularly to get tax reform done and maybe talk about that tax cut proposal, which were if you did ou about get a tax cut, what you would do with it or not do with it. James is next, and hes in buffalo. Hello. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller i worked very hard to become a nurse. I work very hard as a nurse. I didnt do it so the fruits of my lanes would go to anyone but myself. Because no one else sees when the fruit of your labors go to other people, that is slavery. Does no one else see that and understand that . Host so relate that to the tax discussion then. Caller absolutely. Absolutely. If i work and my money, the fruit of my labors go to anyone but me, thats slavery. Is that not clear to you . Shoip youre saying dont pay taxes altogether, thats the point youre trying to make . Caller minimal, absolute minimal. Where does the government spend money well . Host what constitutes minimal . Caller how about 1 , 2 or 3 . But i have a question for the listeners this morning. Where does the government spend oney in an efficient manner . Even infrastructure, our roads, our bridges. Tell me where the government is spending money well. Host well let the viewers respond, if they wish, in the final minutes of this segment. Theres a story in the Washington Post this morning. This is about the possible next candidate to replace tom price at health and human services, saying that alex azar, a Top Health Official during the george w. Bush administration, is now the leading candidate to head h. H. S. , according to two republicans briefed on the matter host frank is in chicago, illinois. Hi, frank. Caller what id like to know is what happened to the 21 trillion since 1985 that the pentagon and h. U. D. Cannot account for. Pentagon is the only agency in the federal government that has not been subject to accounting, even though the law stipulates that they have to be held to accounting standards, and they recommend and they refuse. As far as the taxes themselves are concerned, anybody who looks at the stats see that the accrual for the wealth has gone to a very small percentage. And god bless them. But its not really good for all the other people who arent part of that 1 , who are living in an imaginary world, where someday they will be in that 1 , which is never going to happen, because its only 1 . So as far as the tax thing is concerned, it will be nice if we were taxable less, but the benefits of that are going to go to, again, the 1 , and thats not what i would call a working solution. As far as the highest tax rates in the world are concerned, the corporations claim thats what we have, when in reality, once theyve done all of the deductions and all the rest of it, they have some of the lowest Corporate Taxes on the planet, which is exacerbating the problem for the American People, and you can see that in our infrastructure, education, and almost Everything Else. Thats about all ive got. Thank you. Host sal is in new york. Sal, good morning. Youre next up. Caller yes, i already dont need the tax cut. I would just throw it into my savings. But i agree with the previous caller about the Corporate Tax and everything. You know, the gap between rich and the poor has been getting wider and wider and wider over the last 40 years. I dont understand why they need a tax cut. The reason we have the high Corporate Tax, if i dont want to get a tax cut, so the government will borrow money. We dont need to borrow any more money. Thats the whole problem with this country. Were going to end up like greece, you know . And then theyre going to cut all the benefits. The poor people are not getting a tax cut, because theyre going to take away benefits from them. They give us 50 cents on one hand, take 2 out of the other hand. Theyre playing a game with us, you know . Were not going to get anything. Middle just is just little by little, and were just going to have rich and the poor. And all this money, we got 130 bases overseas, helping another army, because they got theyre working to support our bases over there. And they spend the all that money over there, we dont need these bases. Instead theyre going to cut the bases in this country. Its just total corruption between the republicans and the democrats. All these wars, and they blame the deficit and 20 trillion we owe on the poor people. Like Social Security. Social security still has trillions of dollars in the bank there that they dont want to pay back to. Host ok, sal, thanks for the call this morning. In fact, if youre interested in Social Security discussion in our next segment, were going to take a look at the state of both Social Security and medicare, both former trustees of those programs are joining us for that discussion. So stay tuned to us for a few more minutes to take a look at that. The New York Times also analyzes this morning the decision by the second federal judge on turning back the third version of President Trumps travel ban. It quotes some of the arguments used by the judge in making that decision, he out of hawaii, and he quoted extensively, the judge did, from mr. Trumps statements and twitter messages during the campaign and in office, including his demand as a candidate for a complete and total shutdown of muslims entering the United States host jeffrey from maryland, im sorry, north dakota, is next up. Hello, jeffrey, good morning. Caller yes, good morning. Thank you for cspan. Id just like to make a comment about the tax plan. You know, theyre talking about giving they want to bring the people, the big businesses that have the money sent overseas back to invest in our country, in our infrastructure. My point is that even however it happens, its not going to benefit the small people like me who have lost everything and are paying the taxes. You had that one gentleman that was a nurse. He was right. We have a set limit on income, and where we pay a lot of money, our money is being stefully spent overseas, and we cannot say anything about it, and address our congress about their wasteful spending. And then theyre employing to want to bring this stuff back here from these Corporate Companies who have kept the things overseas. And think theyre going invest in our infrastructure, why would they . You know, how is anybody going to gain from that, and how are they going to make their money if they bring their money back theyve been withholding and forcing people like me out of business and making me pay for the economy. Are they going to charge us at toll booths or what, i dont know. But im just trying to figure out how congress is going to come up with a program. Host lets take one more call. Mark in seattle, washington. Caller hi, thank you for cspan. You guys are awesome. Hey, im looking at the tax cuts. I think it would be very good for the country because im looking here at the under the bush tax cuts on looking here under the bush tax cuts on wikipedia. And it said the cbo scoring, they can consider they consistently reported that the bush tax cuts did not pay for themselves and represented a sizable decline in revenue for the treasury. So right marry think that is a good point to not do that. Lets take care of ourselves and tax the rich people at the rate that it went back to after the tax cuts after the book after the bush tax cuts went away. The topic was Social Security and medicare and the fiscal condition of both those programs. Our next guest will be telling the they are both from bipartisan policy center. They both serve as trustees and they are going to talk about the program and where they are fiscally. They are joining us next. Later on in the program, we take a look at a report on the security of Voting Machines. It involves taking a look and the security. If you look in the papers this morning, there is a report about talking about many things, including a backandforth he had with and betweenranken occasions he gave with russian officials last year. Heres a bit of the exchange. Has been moved. I did not have communications with russians, each was not true. Then it was, i never met with any russians to discuss any Political Campaign which may or may not be true. Not is that i did which further blankets your denial about meeting with the russians. Since you have qualified your denial to say you did not discuss issues of the campaign with russians what in your view constitutes issues of the campaign . Say this without hesitation that i conducted no improper discussions with russians at any time regarding a item foror any other this country. How do i know . That has been the suggestion, that somehow we had conversations that were improper. Time senator long franken and i would like to respond. The minutes accrue when two minutes are over. I want to ask you some questions. Mr. Chairman, i dont have to sit in here and listen you are the one who testified without having a chance to respond . Give me a break. Go ahead. That was not a simple question. The lead in to your question was troubling. And i answer to you in a way that i felt was responsive to what you had raised in your question. Let me read it to you. Cnn has just published that they, meaning while we were in the hearing. And im telling you about a new story that has been published. Im not expecting you to know whether or not its true but cnn has published a story alleging that the Intelligence Community of the United States of america provided documents to the president elect last week that included information that russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and Financial Information about mr. Trump. To say the documents allegedly said there was a continuing exchange of conversation during the Campaign Trump circuit and intermediaries for the russian government. Washington journal continues. We have to guess joining us. Oure joined by robert rice andy Robert Reischauer Charles Blahous. Former trustees of this program. Thank you for joining us this morning. Itld you tell folks what means to be a trustee of Social Security and medicare . Guest the Public Trustee positions are two out of the six trustee positions it means to be a trustee of Social Security where the responsibilities are to monitor the financial conditions of Social Security and medicare. He two Public Trustee positions were created in the 1973 moment which basically the job is to oversee adoptions the assumptions that are used for the financial projections and to vouch to the public that they have been done in an object and straightforward manner. Host since you both are listed as former positions, has somebody else replaced you . Existenceardians in today . Guest the positions have been vacant, the president hasnt chuckted replacements for and myself. Hopefully that will happen soon. It is an important thing to have the voice of the Public Trustees in the process. The process includes the secretary of treasury, the secretary of hhs, the secretary of labor they are all political appointees. Historically they have all operated very objectively in partisan ways objectively in bipartisan ways. A trustee provides one more layer of assurance. Host taking both of your backgrounds. You put out a report recently, it taking a look at the state of for Social Security and medicare. What were you looking for in this report . Looking in the trusty reports that came out in july. In saying, what is different about them than the previous reports . And our conclusion was, in terms of pointing out the challenges ahead for the nation, we are one year closer and it is a more serious problem. But the reports were very close to previous years reports. Host give us a snapshot of the fiscal condition of the programs . Guest the report this year told the same sobering story that they have told for several years. Except that each year tends to be worse. Both Social Security and medicare programs face substantial financial challenges Going Forward. And we are already at a point where we need a very heavy lift in order to successfully address and resolve the challenges. Part of the message of our analysis for this year is that it is late in the game and that further substantial delay by lawmakers dealing with the problem is going to put us in a position where the financial challenges facing the program are simply prohibitively difficult to resolve. All of the notes came due today, would there be enough money to cover them . Guest they wouldnt be. Programs face strong and large financial challenges. But they are manifested differently in the programs. On the Social Security side, you have a substantial financial store fall financial shortfall. And even if the Social Security system were to immediately all the securities in the trust funds, there would not be enough there to pay, Going Forward. Largert is large, much than we have successfully resolved previously on a bipartisan basis. So that is a large growing problem. We haveedicare side, severe financial challenges but they are manifested differently. Because of the peculiar way and particular the trust funds are managed, the pressure on the medicare side is a problem for the general budget and for premium pay for disciplines. So to summarize, Social Security actual balance and medicare is the bigger problem for the overall budget. Host if you are a Social Security or medicare recipient, 202 7488000 is the number to call. Ll others, 202 7488001 you can also send a tweet. Guest let me explain for the viewers how these programs work. Taxes and our payroll that money goes into a dedicated trust fund. For Social Security. Fund ourssets in that interest from the federal government. Benefits that are are paid out for the accumulated balances in the trust funds and the implode of the new payroll tax money. Forward, we are going to be paying out more money than is coming in. Baby boomers are retiring. Benefits are going up. And at some point, the trust fund runs out of assets. When it has been spending more than it has been bringing in. It has been running down the bank accounts. And when that happens for Social Security, for the disability 2000 34. Ether, about 17 years away. It might sound like a long time but to make the kind of adjustments that you need to make to assure that people get their Social Security benefits, we have to begin doing something soon. Host what happens to the future recipients . What happens to those who continue to come onto the role . Especially if the program is already in question . Guest the trust fund cant borrow money from anybody. Be trust fund would have to reduced or delayed. It is substantial at 23 . I hope our political system will respond to this crisis. And respond soon. Host we can go into those is the result . At how do you solve this . Guest part of this message with this report and today is that the window of opportunity we are dealing with this problem is actually in the process of closing. And to build off some of the big things bob said, if you wait until we are at or near the point when the trust fund is actually running out, 2030, it is too late. Shortfallse annual are so large that there is really no practical possibilities that lawmakers can close them. To haveyou were legislation immediately. Effective next year. If you want to do it by raising the payroll tax rate, you have to do it by 12. 4 or, if you want to do it by cutting benefits for people, you have to have the hatchet come down and there would have to be what you percent acrosstheboard benefit reduction next year. And we are not going to do that. ,nd yet, each year we delay other measures become bigger and bigger. Will have a phasing time. We wont have benefits of one level one year and 20 the next. You realize that there arent that many ways to fight this. And we are starting to run out of ways in which we could actually get this done in our political process. So part of the message today and with the written report is that this is something that lawmakers cant afford to let go for too much longer. Host as far as lawmakers are concerned, do you have any sense that it is actually happening on capitol hill . Guest no. This is a hot potato and their other crises and opportunities that politicians are focusing on and it is hard to make the case that this is going to be funded or politically rewarded so we wereto take steps inevitably, some reduction in benefits and some increases in taxes and that is the way to get reelected. Ust our guests are joining for the hour. William from virginia, you are up first. Caller thank you for accepting my call. I would like to ask, i would like to ask two things. Why is it that we cannot do something where the people who e excessive salaries recently there was a newspaper article about people making salaries in the area of 500,000 700,000, and yet when they get to 112,000, they stop paying into Social Security. Maybe for anything over that and i know three people in their 40s who came into large amounts of money and they were smart. Im not saying anything bad about it but they invested it in stocks and bonds and they get a check every month that is income but it isnt taxed for Social Security. And maybe that could be . , youse once you get on it realize how important it is and i dont understand how they make it. Thank you for your answer. Host we will let our guests respond. Guest i can speak to the first part of that. The first idea that the caller raisingd is the idea of the capital on taxable wages. A certain part of your income is subject to tax. 100 this year it is index to grow. It is mentioned as one idea to expose more income to tax. It is an idea for dealing with Social Security. It is a popular one. Having said that, we do have to be cautious because it doesnt get you very far. Remember that benefits and taxes are linked to Social Security so the more you link to the tax, the more benefits you pay out. You get more revenue you pay out and to get more benefits later on unless you seven at between taxes and benefits which would. E a substantial change the latest projections are that even if you totally eliminated , overpital taxable wages the long run you would only eliminate one third of the annual shortfall. So there are a lot of things you have to do. It is likely if you had a bipartisan compromise on Social Security, a change might be a part of it but there would have to be a lot of other things. Guest let me point out that that is what we did with the insurance tax for the medicare payroll tax. We eliminated the cap on that. Earningsl income, all are taxed. The payroll tax effects earnings but it doesnt affect income. Gains and interest and other kinds of income that people have, rental income, it isnt subject to tax. And that would change if we subjected that to taxes. I think the caller really points out one of the options that lawmakers will have to consider challenge. Ace this host the senate is debating over the budget and possible tax reform issues and one of the senators, marco rubio, talked about that. Socialed of the state of security and medicare and it want to play that for you. I have to look at those programs and a look at the number of people going into it and how long theyre going to live and these programs are going to have big problems in the years to come which threatens not just to take them threatens to trigger a debt crisis in america and so we had to deal with the spending side and create a more displayed way of spending for the future years and we have to grow the economy. And if you think of a stagnant economy, no cut in the world will get you there. You cant cut your way or tax your way, the only solution to the debt problem that is good for america all around is the combination of discipline on future spending combined with robust Economic Growth. Oft what about the idea growth as a possible means of results . That it is unlikely growth is going to contribute much to the solution, if anything at all. When you have more rapid Economic Growth than the administration is projecting will occur under the tax cut proposal, peoples wages go up. Morees wages go up and income is going to flow into the Social Security and medicare larger benefits will result from that when those people retire. And so it isnt something that generates a windfall that helps very much. Guest i think thats correct. I agree with the senators analysis of the problem. We have a demographic issue. We have a lot more people going and socialare security relative to whois paying in and to the extent that he was making the point that we need all of the above in order to deal with this, i did he is absolutely right. Expenditureeal with operations and revenue coming in to these programs. We have to deal with a number of years across these programs. All of that. Obviously, a policy to maximize growth would help but there is a limit to which any one particular variable would affect it. Going back to what he said earlier about raising capital , it is similar. You get more up front and less later. Host tony, hello . Caller im wondering what happened to all of the money . I thought there was supposed to be a lot and all of a sudden we hear from different news they have put ious, democrats and republicans. Who is accountable for this . Thank you. Guest i can speak to that. It is a concern that many people addressed which is, why do we have this problem . Is it happening because something nefarious has happened to trust funds . Irresponsible management . Now, unfortunately the situation is that even if what had happened with the current law, every penny that was invested in the trust fund is paid back out to beneficiaries plus interest, we have in our most shortfalls. It is a deserted happening starting in 2010, Social Security went to a tax operating benefit. And since then, the gap between incoming tax revenues and the out coming operation has a payment of interest on the bonds of trust funds. So that is 30 happening. On thisood already obligation to repay the debt and the trust fund. Unfortunately, the basic probably have is that the benefits promised under Social Security substantially exceed the amounts of taxes that we are collecting to pay for it and that is the fundamental problem. Guest was basically happened our parents and grandparents and my generation, we were taxed and money went into the trust fund but not enough to pay for the benefits that we received and part of weas that the program wanted to provide the elderly with adequate benefits so they could share in the prosperity that this nation had. In front of it. What happened was that we had the baby boomers, huge numbers of people born into the they, along with earlier generations, we had to pay for the adequate benefits. Host lets hear from charles on the line for others. Good morning. Yes, if you go back to the bush tax cuts and you consider the two wars that ,appened and then the recession they racked up 10 trillion in debt then. So now trump wants to do a tax cut and he says it will be the highest ever. It will put us at least 2 trillion more in debt. So i want to ask these gentlemen, if they think that with more and more deficit and debt, is this another excuse that the Republican Congress wants to do to get rid of medicare and Social Security . As the next excuse to try to get rid of the deficit and debt . Guest i can speak to that directly. Certainly, i think bob and i both agree that having the overall federal government in a sound fiscal position is beneficial and it makes it easier for the federal good on itso make obligations for Social Security and medicare. That said, the problem we have with Social Security and medicare is that these programs have separate trust fund mechanisms. It is a function of the government accounts. There is in balance in the benefit obligation of these programs. Versus the amount of taxes that are collected. The analogy i would make is a Company Pension plan. Be in troubleght or might not be in trouble in term of the overall finances but it has to have enough money coming in to pay the benefits going out. And so that is a problem independent of what is happening in the rest. Host so tax cuts and war costs, is not a big factor into the health of the program . Guest i would shade that a little bit. The ease with which the federal government makes its payments to Social Security and medicare to redeem debt and pay interest funds, andose trust certainly to the extent that the economy is weak, relative to being Strong Enough to have an impact for example, the Great Depression had a direct effect on Social Security and medicare advances because payroll went down. But again, there is a separation the accounts in Social Security and medicare from the general budget. And the reason we have a shortfall is not because of choices elsewhere in the budget. Guest in other words, if we had run a balanced budget with respect to everything Social Security and medicare, with things be any different with respect to the Financial Futures of the programs and the answer is really no. Maybe a little bit, around the edge, because of the effect it would have on the macroeconomy but trust funds would still be careening towards insolvency. Date might not be 2034, withght be 2036 that respect to whether this is a conspiracy among one Political Party that wants to destroy medicare and Social Security, there is no evidence of that. Both parties in this country are committed to these programs and view them as vital elements of our social compact. Host we go to des moines, iowa. Caller i want to know how many ious with Social Security they have taken money out of Social Security and why did they lie that saying that we would need an increase when the increase goes to medicare . We havent gotten an increase in three years. And 2 increase, cost of living. It several years in the past, we have not had increases because inflation has been zero or below zero. A lot of Social Security beneficiaries, myself included, look at their Consumption Patterns and say, this cant be true. Index called an the Consumer Price index for and manyo adjust elderly and disabled people say you should have a measure of inflation that reflects what i purchased. And i purchased a lot of health care and things that have been going up and the Consumer Price index is held down by oil prices, virtually. But over time, it washes out. And i think with the viewer has haveed to is that we also a premium charge that people on in thee who participate doctors benefit that premium doesnt go up more than the inflation adjustment that is provided on your Social Security benefits. So then when inflation goes up, they can catch up to the increases that should have been imposed on part b premiums in the past but havent been because Social Security benefits because ofe up inflation. Host anything to add . Guest yes. The first part of the question was, what is the total amount of debt being held by the trust fund. 2. 8rust fund is about trillion right now. The Outstanding Balance of the Medicare Trust fund is relatively thin, low. Medicare has to trust funds. The Supplementary Medical Insurance trust fund keeps a very small balance at any time. Because each year, the amount of premiumsevenue and coming into it are automatically adjusted. The hospital Insurance Trust fund has a low balance not by design but because it is in trouble. There are eight months of assets in the Hospital Trust fund. Assetstotal number of held by the Social Security trust fund is substantially larger but it is a large relatively speaking to the programs obligation and that is the problem we are still looking at with financial shortfalls Going Forward with Social Security that are several times the Outstanding Balance in the trust fund, even though the st fund is 2. 8 million 2. 8 billion. Host Charles Blahous and robert. Eischauer you could go to the website and read it for yourself. We go to kathy in virginia. Hello. Caller marco rubio touched on what i was talking about or, i think a lot of people anticipate collecting Social Security as their only source of that in a fewting years, medicare will come out and take at least 100 a month out of that. Would it hurt for us to increase or 1 . Just. 5 and do a leak rather than doing a little instead of freaking me everybody out . There are less people working and wages are low and a lot of Social Security is collected early. It seems like they ought to sit down and roundtable this and bring people and to talk to ordinary people and see what everybody circumstances are. That is it. Guest we need more people like kathy in washington. That was a tremendous summary of what our work has to say. We have a problems and if we begin phasing them now, we can do that in a gradual and measured way a huge burden, especially if we take measures to protect those people who are vulnerable and you dont have the capacity to contribute to the solution. But one thing that i would caution kathy is that she is a little behind the times on what medicare is taking out of you. 134 andemiums are another 35 for the drug benefits already. In these will be rising future because they are key to what the expenditures are in the components of the program. Host we have a story this morning that features the from Boston College about Retirement Savings and it says the analysis based on Federal Reserve data shows how the top 20 of Retirement Savings is measured in 401k of a fewhad immediate thousands pulled away. Short, people arent saving enough on their own and if they go into Social Security, it could be a problem. Guest absolutely. And in my answer i will go into issues beyond which other trustees may or may not agree with. We, as trustees tend to do, is report on the financial conditions. But there is a broader set of Retirement Security policy challenges. And Social Security and medicare have to be thought of in the context of the larger challenges. And it isnt surprising or it shouldnt be surprising to us that many people, particularly low income people, have their intle income to put aside discretionary savings. These are people with modest incomes and liquidity constraints and are carrying a substantial tax burden to pay for Social Security and medicare. So the answer to a lot of these frustrations and histories about why people arent saving more is simply because they cant afford to. And unfortunately we are on a past where on a path where Social Security and medicare will take a bigger bite out of the wages of workers. Which means they have even less latitude to save. So we need to think carefully about that. We are going down a path where we are making bigger and bigger benefit promises for these programs over time without Building National savings to finance them. And that is something we have to get our arms around. Host lets go to louisiana where james is. You are on with our guest. Good morning. Caller i was wondering how they can of of height out of the pot do people who have never worked take from Social Security accounts . Guest almost none. Really. You dont earn an entitlement to Social Security benefits unless you have 10 years of earnings. You could be independent or a nonworking spouse and in those instances, you personally have not contributed to the system there is another worker in the household who did pay taxes to the system in order to so in a generally positive way, this is very distinct from what people think of as far as welfare programs. The benefits promised are unfortunately exceeding the amount of the contributions that people made but we dont generally have a situation where the problems of the system are being driven by people not having contributed. The number of people who have qualified for benefits beense of the spouse has going down because we have had a tremendous revolution in the Labor Force Participation of women. So more and more women are reaching retirement age and are having their own earnings record. Is may be topped up a little bit with a spouse benefit. So this idea that there are people out there who never worked, who spent their lives play tennis or sitting on the couch playing and watching television it never was true and it is even less true today. Host lets go to janet in tennessee. Caller good morning. I am a lowmodest income retiree and i found out that when i took my Social Security, they locked the Social Security in with my income, whatever that is and you are taxed on the gross. Tos takes away the incentive continue working after you have retired and i understand that the drawinghold from Social Security for certain amount of time and continue working. But like you said before in one of your earlier questions, sometimes people find money that they need to live off of. So can you estimate question why they dont give incentives as to those of us still trying to earn money as we are older and healthy enough to do so should mark guest the amount of Social Security that is subject to the income tax depends on how much total income you have. In there is a threshold which Social Security is not tax at all. And above that, it is subjected wear a fraction of it is subjected and if you have very fractionme, and larger is included in your taxable income. Is a fair parts of the adjustments we made in the Social Security system in the past. To overcome one of the previous Financial Difficulties that the system has had. What i would supplement bob said. He described her Social Security the amount of Social Security and benefits that is subject to roughly accurate for the amount of benefits that were previously subjected to tax in the previous year. But there are a couple of other factors here that could be influencing the callers comments. One is about the retirement earnings test that kicks in for seniors where they are basically penalized in terms of benefit reduction or earnings that they have once they are past the early eligible age for Social Security. Under the law, they are supposed to get that back later. Seniors, it does seem like a substantial work determined. Caller described, trying to stay in the workforce or not. There is a growing body that shows that it is an increasing problem that Social Security is stocking younger seniors with a high marginal tax rate when they are trying to decide whether to stay in the workforce or retire. A professor at harvard has done a number of studies where he tows that people do tend leave the workforce when their marginal tax rate for social and the is higher. Bazaar interaction of Social Security tax structure and retirement earnings and other factors and the way Social Security benefits are benefited means that seniors return from Social Security drop after they work for 35 years. And a lot of seniors respond to that by leaving the workforce simply because that is what the system is driving them to do. Host you have talked about lowering benefits or raising taxes but what about raising the age limit of when one can claim Social Security . Guest speaking of a student of this, i am one of the all of the above advocates. Everyk you have to pull lover you cant because if you lean too heavily on any particular lover, you are not going to get a solution that will buy into and there isnt enough money there. There are three basic factors here. Lover you cant because if you leanthe tax burden you have to t on workers while contributing to Social Security, the amount of benefits that you can pay on an there is theand number of years over which benefits are paid. Collecting for a higher number of years over time than the relationship between those two factors become more and more unfavorable. You have to pay them less and less in terms of their annual income. So you create tremendous problems for the country and for individuals if you are subjecting them to that kind of difficult relationship and unless you make some adjustments to the number of years that people are collecting, it is hard to make it work. Guest the caller is bringing up longevity has increased in the United States and many people say that if we are living longer, one of the solutions for this is to move age at which you get social this. Ty out to reflect we had the 1983 moments to the Social Security system in which we went from having a 65yearold age receiving full retaining the age of 62yearold when you get partial benefits. And we move that up to 67yearold. Right now we are at 66 years old. And it is rising over time. Proposals they say, lets continue doing that. And on the surface, it makes we should remember is note longevity equally distributed across the population. And there have been a lot of studies that showed that i am among it it is occurring upper income people and not among lowerincome people. To, if you metnt this direction, make some kind of adjustment to those who have had lower earnings in their life. Lets go to linda in wisconsin. Buter i paid into medicare the understanding it was for Health Insurance for the retired. Subsidiese obamacare allowed to be taken out . And if a couple where the husband works and they both he is not paid double for two people so really she is receiving Social Security for free . Thank you. Guest i can take a crack at that. The first answer has a lot of moving parts to it. I will give it a shot. There were never things that happened with the Affordable Care act with respect to medicare. Slow theem was to growth of expenditures in the medicare Hospital Insurance. Ut to a certain degree it is important to understand, irrespective of what happened with the informal care act, something had to be done there. Any were looking at impending completion of the hospital Insurance Trust fund. They chose to do this in the context of the a portable care something was going to have to be done there everywhere. So one could argue whether it could have happened or should have happened but Something Else had to be done elsewhere for the trust fund. Now i think there are individuals who have been critical of the ways that this was scored because by using that as a unified budget offset for spending within the of formal care act, it enabled the government to run a larger finance therder to Affordable Care act without being charged for the increasing federal deficit. , that ise other hand not taking money out of medicare that money is in the Medicare Trust fund the medicare Hospital Trust fund is drawing on that now and the government is honoring those obligations. It may think it is have created a bigger problem for the federal government but Medicare Beneficiaries themselves are not suffering unduly because of that, any more than they would because they had to balance Hospital Insurance anyway. Guest let me speak on the Medicare Beneficiaries. This made us better off. What we did for the Affordable Care act was slow down the growth rate of payments to providers hospitals and Nursing Homes and what that did is lengthen the life of the hospital Insurance Trust fund, allowing congress more time to fix this, over the long run. So in effect, i think we are all better off because of it. Oncould get into an argument the best treatment of this but it would probably put most of your viewers to sleep. Host lets go to california. Caller hello, gentlemen. I have a couple of questions on Social Security and medicare. Id like to know, since president reagan put in the lobby you couldnt offset and receive any of your spouse or benefits you used to be entitled beneficiary as a spouse or for yourself, will that ever go back to the original thing . Because the way they have it set up now, spouses cant even deceased spouses income, especially if you are a government retiree. Maybe this only affects government officials but president reagan made sure that got the moneye out because he paid and put time and just like many other people do that didnt get a chance to receive it. And i was listening to some of your medicare things. I paid into medicare and so did my deceased husband. The medicareeceive inefits under my number, receive that under my deceased spouses number. So what happens to all that money that i paid into almost 40 years. What happened to all of that . Host we will leave it there and let our guests answer. Guest im not totally clear on the first part but the second part, Social Security and medicare tax benefits in different ways. And with respect to medicare, it is basically one benefit package that applies to everyone. So whether you paid in more or your spouse paid in more or your wages were higher, you basically got the same benefits package. So irrespective of whether the medical payroll taxes were paid under the spouses number or by the caller, she should be receiving the same basic package of medicare benefits. Social security is different. Security, there are benefits made based on the contributions for the primary earner in the household. If there was a secondary person with equal or lesser earnings in the household, but the system does is it determines whether that person would receive more, based on their own earnings or if they were treated as a nonworking spouse. Im not 100 sure about the first part of the question. To how that isng calculated. If you get more benefits as a nonworking spouse then what she would earn on your own send the amount of benefits you earn on your own wipes out. Guest i also wasnt clear on what the caller was referring to in the first part of the question but i interpreted it as being the reduction that is made in Social Security benefits for those who have a pension earned from a state and local government or the old federal governments pension system. When those people did not contribute to Social Security. A local employee in certain states that didnt join the Social Security system. And therefore, they did not pay into it. And your benefit is reduced, should you then later on earn credits in the Social Security system or have credits from a deceased spouse or a spouse. So it is a very difficult kind of calculation to make in a fair way. How much to reduce these benefits by. And i think there is a lot of interest in congress and elsewhere to make this a little and a fairer system. I would expect that when we reform Social Security, and try to fix the systems, that will be part of it. So i think the caller has a partially justified complaint if that is what she was referring to. Host we hear about waste fraud in programs and the government. Is there a theory that they can be more efficient by taxing these issues . Guest there is been a huge effort by the Justice Department over the last 1015 years to try to root out fraud and abuse in the medicare system with huge amounts of money being recovered. But this is the system which goes through the nation and is not a managed care situation. Accessant people to have to all that is available. Bad actors. Atively and it is a constant battle the goes on which, is a complex system and there are many providers. And theres money to be saved we it is difficult to do and have tried very hard. Guest i agree with that. I would divide mansur between Social Security and medicare. The relative concern and there is waste fraud abuse in both programs but i think the relative tonitude is relative medicare. Not that Social Security is perfect but the amount of savings that it brings out Social Security is small the shortfall and it wouldnt get his reform. Is an interesting case. I just did a study the other day compared administrative costs the private to sector. And the short answer is that medicare administrative costs but one reason they are higher in the private sector is because those folks have two police the fraud in their system or they got a business. And the medicare system is under lots of financial strain and it isnt in solid conditions. I would make the case that we should have hired measured across a medicare to cut down on an appropriate payments. Host lets go to virginia. Good morning. I have entered either one of the gentlemen reflect on the fact that obama had drawn a huge amount of Social Security when he had the Affordable Care act. Address how them to and why that happened. And why is that not being paid back now that theyre breaking down the obamacare . I will take the call offline. Guest im interpreting the to the costment before kirk didnt change the operations of Social Security in any way. So im assuming that is to medicare. I think it is fair to say that the money is being paid back. If therense that hadnt been the Cost Containment medicare Hospital Insurance, it would have been depleted by 2016 maybe that date with the change with updated projections but we would be running out of money. There havet because been savings generated for the that hospitalam insurance is living off of the consequence that it is falling through 2020. Iticare beneficiaries is a substantial longterm problem that has to be dealt with. As of right now, the savings that were put into medicare under the afford will care act are currently shielding beneficiaries from the threat of sudden benefit reduction. Guest it is true that over the last few years, since the Affordable Care act was enacted, beneficiary spending has grown at a very slow rate. In some years, not at all. And all of us have benefited from that. The fiscal situation is better but the part b premiums and the part d premiums have benefited from that. Host california, this is jane. Caller i was wondering if you could project longevity problems, given that partly we are gutting the clean air act, the clean water act, putting people back into coal mines. If anybody is realizing that longevity may no longer be the problem . In a few years . Guest that is an excellent question. Interestings been and concerning and provocative developments on the longevity side over the last few years and we are getting to the bottom we are getting more information about increasing differentials of lifegency expectancy that correlate strongly with your income and basically, if you are a poor person or are in an economically foldable group, your longevity gains are not nearly as long as they are on the other side on the other end of the spectrum. Having said that, i would say it is still the case that the vast majority of us are living much longer than previous generations. I associate myself with lots remarks that the best way to deal with that is not by but by making progressive changes to the benefit structure so that people thanecover contributions they otherwise would. The case that it is slowing down in some areas but you do have to remember that so much longevity growth of what we even with the slowdown, we are out of whack. And these programs are being dependent on the paid benefits for a lot longer than they can handle. Guest jane has a dark view of the future and i hope she is wrong. If we see changes in our environment of and other butcies in the last year that doesnt necessarily mean this is going to continue for a long time. I think everybody is committed to a cleaner environment and a safer environment. There is also medical advances particularly in cancer treatment, that could have profound effects on longevity. Think the jury is still out and will remain an optimist. Far as the report itself, have you had a chance, after you compiled to make a administration about the findings and need for look es to be restored to over those matter . Guest i havent talked to administration about it. Guest weve said in public that trustees ld be public nd i again, think it benefits everybody for there to be public dministration, benefits public and lawmakers in congress. I think that both the outgoing and administration Incoming Trump administration have taken what i regard as approach to the trustee reports in making minimal changes to the assumptions, methodology and presentation while the Public Trustee positions are vacant. Ultimately that is not tenable because more data is rolling in, numbers on dated immigration, updated numbers on real wage growth, net of form of ion in the health benefit, all sorts of things. Tougher s tougher and over time not to change the trustee report. At the point that has to happen, you want Public Trustees in there to vouch for the ipartisan and the credibility of the process. Host both members of the bipartisan policy center, their at rt is Available Online the center, if you want to read about their findings, Social Security and medicare. For coming on. Coming up, well take a look at machines, of voting this after a group of hackers had a chance to actually these machines and see how easy it was to manipulate them. Joining us to talk about the report and its findings when washington journal continues. When i first went in, its a but i was barely able to get back to the surface. Jumped a bunch of them in and theres a picture, which im sure you will show, of them me out of the lake. Broken and my arm is up high and then of course, once they pulled me out, they werent to see me because i place. Nished bombing the and so we got pretty rough. My shoulder and hurt my knee again, but look, i dont blame them. Them. t blame were in a war. The nt like it, but at same time, when youre in a war captured by the enemy, you cant expect, you know, to have tea. 50 years after the vietnam senator, john mccain talks about the impact of and the n his life country, sunday at 6 and 10 p. M. Eastern on American History t. V. On cspan 3. This weekend on American History t. V. On cspan 3. Controversial union and confederate generals during a live discussion with authors and historians from the historical park in petersburg, virginia, and sunday at 9 15 eastern, saturday at 10 the on real america, january 1968 weekly series abc resistance to the vietnam war and the draft. Of a were in the middle beast. Lyndon johnson is a common arrested. Nd should be i think the Peace Movement hould have the anger of the vietnamese women whose child was burned by napon, dropped by planes up in the sky, that is the anger the Peace Movement should reflect. Peace movement has to go into the streets and use tactic the American People are drunk with apathy. On sunday on oral history, we continue our series on photo journalist with diana walker, magazine white house photographer. Should accept i their offers to be behind the every time they offered it because any time you see the of the United States behind the scenes, you learn something about the president. You see something. Nd it is important, i can be there for you, you cant be there. I see is hing important. American history t. V. , all only on every weekend, cspan 3. Washington journal continues. Host douglas lute served as u. S. Ambassador to nato in the Obama Administration from 2017, also Harvard Kennedy school of government in the future of diplomacy project, fellow for that. Joining us to talk about Voting Machines and security, good morning. Affiliated with a group looking at this topic, defcon, is the group, what is your involvement in it . Def con is collection of of the country and the worlds best hackers, the center Hacker Community. Every year they hold a big convention, 25,000 people come. Year in july, it was in las vegas and our connection with featured is year they a special event and it was an vent that challenged the best of the Hacker Community to see if they could penetrate some of that are machines still used around the country. Host electronic Voting Machines . Guest electronic Voting Machines, that are either connected to the internet or to the inernet in a way that introduces vulnerabilitys. Are getting hackers to hack in, how successful were they . Ongoing record, they hacked within 90 minutes of eing in the same space as the Voting Machines. Now these are not hackers that are actually touching the are doing this from across the room on internetlike connections. What it demonstrated, the machines we count on to make the between the ion American Voter and the election results, are vulnerable, if they to the internet. Host when you say hacked, what they hey able to do once gained access to the machine . Guest all sorts of things, outcome of the vote, manipulate the tally, theital and he compromise the vote in any number of ways. Imited only by the hackers creativity. Host as far as they have a certain skill set to do this, special tools to accomplish this or basically on their own . The basic tool kit of Hacker Community. These are people who did this, a profession. They do it in an effort to kinds of cyber vulnerabilitys and the same kind know reside outside of the Hacker Community, members participants who are not members of def con, but work for foreign governments. We have now , evidence based on the 2016 russian e that the government has its own set of professional hackers. Forward to ote the this report put out from def con 25, the voting machine hacking bill. You most surprised at . Guest first of all, the speed the vulnerabilitys were exploited. 90 minutes is nothing. Is how vulnerable the machines are. What we found is the machines purchased by local voting authorities, state and local oting authorities, maybe 10 years ago. In many cases, the software and updated, have not been theyre as vulnerable as an old lap top we might have in your longer use because it is out of date. So the both the ability to get the vulnerability of the machines. Host well talk about the findings of the report, the of Cyber Security when it comes to Voting Machines. If you want to ask our guest 2027488000 for republicans. Republicans and independents, 2027488002. F you want to tweet questions, do so at cspan wj. I was surprised some machines wirelessly. Was that the main vulnerability of them, generally . A significant one, but not the only one. Nature of because of the software and so forth, there access the system, placeefore the vote takes nd so there are a number of vulner abillities, the thing that attracts me national dimension. For the first time, we have vidence from the 2016 American Experience that a foreign opponent, a foreign power, attempted to ly penetrate and potentially compromise our Voting System. So as a National Security professional, this is what alerts me. Now a National Security issue. Ost it is fair to say events like this exacerbates the watching . O the actors guest i argue the opposite. If you have a problem, the first tep of fixing the problem is identifying it ask coming to grips with it, that is where we are now. Of kly, we dont have a lot time. The 2018 elections are just over a year away now. Just behind that, we have significant vulnerability to ur process we have address before that. Host is the fix a federal issue or state and local . And local e authorities own the voting processes, the voting process in quite isdiction can be different than another jurisdiction and some 6000 entities across the country. That is right. This stem decentralizes authority for voting down to local authorities. Required to rces fix some vulnerability may call i federal resources and so think there is a connection here etween local responsibilities and federal resources. Host couple calls lined up for you. With lee in new york, youre on with our guest, ambassador douglas lute talking bout Cyber Security and Voting Machines. Lee, go ahead, youre on. Caller hi. The fact o discuss hat a couple of weeks before california became a sanctuary state on t. V. News, it said in ral large cities california, rangeing from 100 to had additional voters registered, almost one and a resident voter eligibility on record. At the same time, mentioned College Park Maryland is allowing a vote noncitizens to vote and this may not have anything to do with but this is preliminary about. Hat im concerned guest look, i think youre right to be concerned about the Voter Registration process and is the sort of problems you suggest or the ones imconcerned with, the ones concerned with are an outside example, o, for of the database could mean a voter never even ballot box. That is one of the significant vulnerability uncovered and has otherwise you , can imagine if you could compromise the voter you tration database, as show up at the voting location and as an individual voter, show card, the tion identification card may not match the Voter Registration been se, which has compromised, the voter is turned away before he or she gets to box. Allot the process is central to the whole system. Think you are right to be concerned. Host five states listed in the report with paperless voting backup and no available. Delaware, georgia, louisiana, new jersey and south carolina. Surprised with the number of states involved with those types of machines . Those five are very vulnerab vulnerable. On thetates rely in part internet. Am surprised and i think all americans ought to be alerted or ven alarmed by the experience last year because, as i said earlier, time is short to take the remedial action before next round. Host democrats line from hello. Nia, siro, caller hi. My question, it sounds like your deals almost exclusively vulnerability, but my question goes to, did your with, can you tell, is there any trace evidence that can tell that machines actually were hacked and if changed . E been or is that something that would incorporated in future Voting Machines in the as another security element of the software . Did not find evidence that votes had actually been the voting tally had been compromised in some way. And our report highlights what our investigation makes very clear is that the machines vulnerable. With an individual hacker can do a s in 90 minutes, we reason nation state like russia, if it ished to do so, could also compromise the sufficient. We think there is vulnerability there. Also think, by the way, they are quite well known, best applied to hat if the security of Voting Systems, would dramatically reduce the vulnerability. In the next year or so, we still have time to take remedial steps. California, martinez, california, ellen, go ahead. Caller good morning. I am a paralegal and work for a attorney. Y i in bankruptcy, you have an court andyou have the the trustee of the Court Accepts data. E disclosure when submitting the data online. In the cloudccount and wned by china, london washington, d. C. Read through all of the privacy disclosures and what you have to sign off on, on any on the when you go internet, you agree to the terms, i read all the terms, where i found out, that informati information, the most disturbing was the fact me said his cloud operation that they owned all of the submitted. That is a real red flag to me on the ody who operates cloud and doesnt read all of what theyreon and giving to the cloud. Host thank, ellen. An importanting up point. Weve come to rely on the intern services. Based data for great efficiency and our daily lives, think about your wifi network in our economy. And modern ciency advances have really been huge. Merica has been a leader in this regard, but at the same time, our reliance on the while we fwan great efficiencies, also introduces vulnerability. Is to highlight the vulnerability side of this, not but to the efficiencies, highlight that there are actual steps we should take to reduce vulnerability. With a system as important as our Voting System, the connection between the and the l voter election result, we think this is a National Security issue, addressed with urgency. Host a machine hacked into was is virginia, virginia having a Gubernatorial Election this year, they switched to all is that a step in direction . Guest this is really counter ntuitive, in the age of the internet that probably the most secure and simple first step we to papere is to revert ballots, to give us the ability off the an air gap internet, and they give us Proof Positive with the ability to udit the results, so the, moving back to paper, as germany done, e, netherlands has the United Kingdom has done is a step toward voting security. Michigan, joan is next for douglas lute. Hi. Hello. Guest good morning. Morning. I have am i on the air . Ahead, joan. On, go caller ive had issues with last week. My daughter was involved with a scam in the middle of it. Something is wrong and went into the bank and that and then i ened out had another issue about a year hacker. H a now in my daughters situation, had said that the investigator said hackers are smarter than him, theyre of us put n all ones that d yet, the i have dealt with last week and has,the red flag, the Credit Company called her at work, she knew that was the ight, it was against law and the hackers didnt know it. Ost okay, joan, she talked about the smartness of people involved. Guest look, i think if we go 2016 Election Hacking the probing attacks that i think russia clearly just red last year, were that, they were probes. And perhaps much like joans experience, these were not sophisticated knowall attacks, russia certainly learned a lot last year. Probing attacks, they will refine and make more next time their followon attacks, the attacks are on the calendar. The 2018 election are on the do us r, those who would harm, compromise american democracy by fiddling with the red letter date on the calendar. There are things we should to now to reduce that vulnerability. Host give us aside from moving to all paperless, what could localitys do to prepare for that. Cyber Security Community there are well established best practices about internetbasedny system, whether the system is as imple as your wifi, wireless system at your home or whether equifax or the Voting System in a particular jurisdiction. First thing we can do, make sure practices are well identified, crystal clear, plain to all and distributed 6000 voting jurisdictions. That would be a very solid start can do that in the next 12 months. Host from battle creek, good morning. Y, caller my question is, it is up and e individual states voting precincts to institute that we can s so have more secure voting or is there anything that the congress the federal government can encourage this or is it just we active and involved in local, state and to ensure we own practices stopped . Guest that question strikes at challenge of this problem, and that is we have a decentralized election system, the responsibility does lay with state and local voting authorities. That is our system and we believe that is the right system. But there are roles for the government to play. Potentially roles in terms of practices, roles for the federal government in sharing information and roles or the federal government, potentially providing resources to help the state and local governments adopt best practices. This is a shared responsibility between state and local and federal. Ost one thing we saw coming out of the election was the idea the government could declare critical ce or area infrastructure as far as machines. Can you explain what that is and and that exist in this day age . Guest the department of homeland security, big federal has washington, responsibility to look at the United States economy and National Security interest the United States and designate certain aspects of our the americancal to way of life. Nuclear rical grid or power plants and so forth. Took the d. H. S. Decision to add election systems to the Critical Infrastructure list. Critical first step by washington to highlight the vulnerabilitythis and i think based on that first step there, is a role for the government Going Forward. Host that was done by the previous administration, got ushback from states because they wanted the federal government to stay out of the system. Local thats right, sdpat authority, not all good ideas come from washington, so there s tension between the decentralized nature of the voting jurisdictions and assistance that could come from government. Getting this these two groups to talk to one another is really part of our project. Host brian from pennsylvania, hi. Hi, pedro, thanks for cspan. Thing i find interesting is years used to im 70 old, i remember when we had mechanical Voting Machines that unhackable and i dont even know why they got away from them. Maybe they were expensive or maybe the maintenance was too them, but those machines, you know, they were put away, there was no to the internet and is that with the paper, any connection to the nternet can be hacked, they show people hacking these machines in 90 minutes, i think, statement was. Guest right. Caller a hacker can hack the sitting some s place on the desk there, if they to. T one thing, in every voting jurisdiction ive ever been in, number oftrack of the voters that are there, so when people talk about hacking in the election, you can 1510 to the machine, but hackers messnd the around with it and you know try it o something beforehand, is very hard for them to have it come out to exactly 1510. Host caller, thanks. Caller look, you highlight an important point. Of hacking, there is potential that the actual vote compromised, e votes could be changed from this to that, or votes could be votes could be deleted, added, change the tally itself. That physical change in the vote, compromising of the vote, s one dimension of this problem. I think there is a more subtle that is the ll, psychological impact on American Voters f. They come to believe that they have less confidence in the voting process fact , which could in suppress the vote, so if you think your vote is not going it you have little confidence in the security of your vote or the accuracy of the voting tally, then you can imagine suppressed vote, where simply argue why would i do this, it is not worth it. Of confidence in democracy at the Grassroots Level that our group is with. Ned there is physical dimension to this and i think psychological have to address both. Host aside from the internet the machines, the components, can they be individually compromised . The components come from . Guest one thing we did, open up look at the backside machinery in the machines. The supply chain for these machines is largely nplotted, i mean, we found parts from china, we found digital electronic parts from over the world and when these machines were built 10 or a years ago, this wasnt such problem. Nobody had tried to hack the american system as we year. Ienced last and so, the original purchase of his machine, to gain efficiency, perhapss and that sort of thing, were particularly reasonable. Mean they remain reasonable today, especially given the experience of last year. T is time that we become alarmed by this and time we take steps. Ost lets hear from aaron in silver spring, maryland. Caller yes, hi. Taking my call. My question is not dealing with Internet Connections of these machines, these machines to the connected nternet, could they be manipulated . Because at one point i heard the were interested in wnership in the manufacture of these machines. They were getting ready to run for an election. If the part of the problem, you look at very closely, im a little bit more oncerned with the other parts, not connected. Can the owner or manufacturers, know, the manufacturer, the ownership of those companies machines, can be somehow with the machines and my first question. My second question host aaron, leave it there, short on time. Thank you. Guest its a fair question. Even machines not connected to voting day tend to tabulate results taken from machine, tabulate them electronically. We have no evidence this was done last election last year in but we know tions, from the investigation of these machines and sort of disassembly machines that there is vulnerability there, we need to attend to. Call, vern, north carolina, good morning. Caller yes, good morning, gentleman. Be brief. Eard all the discussion about cyber and vulnerability, the command was stood up about 14 years ago, when is that oing to go on offense and stop this, because it is a form of war fare that is being conducted china, north korea and russia against us. O when are they going on the offense . Guest well, so look, im really command, t chain of that deals with the policy feedback from the sorts of experience we had last year. Hats for the Current Administration to look into sort of the National Tool kit and igure out what the appropriate response is. And i think we should think cyber vulnerability and cyber responses, but of course, tool box includes many things that arent just cyber related. Leave that to the Current Administration. Host what is your level of optimism, changes you are for will be made before the election coming up shortly . Nature m optimist by nd i think that when americans sufficiently understand the vulnerability of this and how it strikes at the very core of because this is as grassroots as we can get, the voter and ween the the voting results, if that were ompromised, if that is vulnerability, then our democracy is velenerable, that ill get americas attention. Host our guest wrote the forward to the report coming out def con. The former ambassador to nato in administration, thank you for your time. Host open phones next, republicans. For democrats, 2027488000. Independents, 2027488002. And the social Media Channels are there, as well. Well be right back. Cspan cities tour in ortland, maine this weekend, we explore the literary scene and history of this port city spectrum cable partners. Saturday noon eastern on book. V. , author cullen woodard talks about the their 700 million lobster industry, in his b eber lobster coast. It is an example heralded in circles around the world, really, of a sustainable fishery. Terrible out of a tragedy, this was a hardlearned none of e, because those conservation measures were in place at the end of the 19th century. Visit the childhood home of poet Henry Wadsworth longfellow. He was when he was alive and writing, probably the most amous englishlanguage writer in the world, if not the most amous person in the world and today hes probably best remembered for poems like paul reveres ride, the childrens of ourva ngeline, a part everyday lexicon and our american memory. On n sunday, 2 p. M. Eastern American History t. V. Well explore portland headline, states oldest lighthouse. Watch cspan city tour portland, maine , saturday on book t. V. And sunday afternoon at 2 p. M. American history t. V. On cspan 3. Orking with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. Washington journal continues. Tweet us at cspan wj. Post on facebook at facebook. Com cspan and you can call the phone numbers on the open for the series of phones until the end of the program at 10 00. Ere is a story at the hill taking a look and analyzing the latest tweet from the president. Headline. He trump questions who paid for the President Trump questioned who paid for controversial and unverified his connection to russia. Here is the tweet he sent earlier. It goes as such. Workers involved with discreditd and fake dossier take the fifth, for it, russia, f. B. I. , dems or all . The story from the hill goes on say the tweet from the president comes after fox news officialswednesday two from fusion gps, Political Research firm behind the dossier fifth amendment in front of the house intelligence committee, last week subpoenaed firm. Search the dossier was compiled by former mi6 officer christopher steele. We went do anything, but advise our client to stand on constitutional privileges, the contractual a letter , wrote in obtained by business insider. Open phones, first up, max, north carolina, republican line. Hello, good morning. Caller yes, good morning. How you doing . Well, thank you. Ahead. On, go caller what am i supposed to tell you what im calling for . Open phones, of you can bring up anything about what you have seen on the program or otherwise. Ahead. Caller okay. Is the calling about gentleman you had earlier, the mbassador, i guess is what he was. Host yes. Aller one of the things is the hes talking about how voting are hacking machines. Host involve frment last years and voting machine security overall. Caller yes. I look at is the way it. Geez, working in it for 20 years. Is he was mentioning to it took them 90 minutes hack the voting machine. Whole thing is lthough Voting Machines are basically closed, you know, they internet to the until excuse me, until they and they send their data out to the trunk, which the trunk is where everybody gets their data from. Hes really did is in he pinion, is that misinformed everyone that they session with professional programmers or whatever coming that you want to use and they sat there and they knew the code, so they were able to go in there ith their knowledge and find the problems or, you know, the backdoors. Well, the whole thing is that on these e vote electronic machines, is that it a server and from that erver, after the data is accumulated, it goes into the trunk and from the trunk it goes database or wherever it is. I think he is totally confusing people go that gs just dont way. When you put somebody, you know, scenario, you m tut a situation in there and you give everybody an opportunity that to their knowledge to try when they have system, they have the interest to host okay, i get what you are i refer you to the report, it did layout the parameters of what the hackers what they could use and bring to the table when it comes to before they hacked machine. That is available at def con 25 report. Cindy from fort worth, texas, line, hi. T caller hi. Yes, id like to say that i ont think the republicans are going to act on getting any of fixed king problems because they want help from the in future elections, theyre not going to do anything this year to help get all that because they want help from the russians getting getting allcted and their republican senators and house of representatives reelected. Theyre not going to do anything, it is up to the and make speak out them do something, otherwise it will not happen. Thank you. Jonathan, from minneapolis, minnesota, democrats line. Caller good morning. I want to thank cspan for having open forum for all of us to discuss what is the world as the United States of america, we have the right to freedom of speech and Everything Else and i want to say with the hacking situation, i knew it was be bad, we all knew it was going to be bad if he won, complaints. But my thought is, im flipping hacking h with the situation, but i want to say my hearts and prayers go out to killed in er who was war. Our president s should not be our president , he amendment 25 section , i believe it is, hes unfit, i do not care if they come after me, but this point in the game, embarrassing what he has done for the family, he wanted to send them their 25,000, hes so insensitive to everybodys needs, this man and d not be our president i just want to say, as well, absolutely disgusting and america, you get what you paid for and you paid for an what you are is going to get. God bless america and yall are once the eed it economy tanks, everybody will flip the switch. Host jonathan in minnesota. U. S. A. Today reports and this from the indy star, that vice pences brother interested in politics, saying washington, sixth Congressional District could to congress, the older brother of mike pence, filed with the commission to run siblings old Congressional District. The republican southeastern madison, tretches to the current congressman is luke messer, who is running for did not nd pence immediately respond to requests for comment. Indiana Democratic Party chairman, said greg pencecould be the second helping of harm indiana. Her did to that is out of indiana. The commonwealth of virginia, heading esident obama to the commonwealth to participate in the help campaign Lieutenant Governor northham of e runs for governor virginia. Here to talk about the former president s visit, plus the virginia is andrew caneeof Richmond Times dispatch, editor. Litics for those who may not be following virginias race closely, before we talk about obamas involvement, set up the people who are at stake . D what is guest well, first of all, thank you for having me. Are lieutenantng governor ralph northam, he is a c nominee, doctor, u. S. Army vet ran, been Lieutenant Governor of virginia he was elected in 2013, efore that he served in the state senate representing the norfolk area and hampton road. Gillespie, he is a longtime epublican insider, hes been counselor to president george bush, ran a lobbying firm with democratic strategist that did very well. Worked with dick army, with iddy dole, hes longtime presence in the corridors of washington power and in virginia, as well, sort of of terry version mccoliff, in a way. As far as why this election virginia and new jersey are the only states that hold yearnatorial elections the after the president ial election. Lot of folks look at outcome as referendum on President Trumps popularity a year in. Factor in president obamas visit today, why is he there . Guest well, in virginia, key ariable from year to year is turnout and ordinarily what appens, the year after the president ial election turnout pikes to about 71 or 72 , plummets by 25 or 30 the year later. Coming dent obama is into virginia today likely to to help shore up the democratic base. We usually see the year after election, when the turnout plummets, that means a traditionally o vote for democrats in a president ial year, such as voters, american young sometimes they peel off and dont vote as they do in the elections and so last year in the president ial race, Illary Clinton got 88 of the African American vote in virginia, according to exit polls. Is doing well among African Americans, but in a poll he had 77 of the African American vote, but 18 undecided. So president obama is likely up that here to shore base support for northam. Host headline of the richmond dispatch, it says, could that star power of president bama rub off on mr. Northam, what do you think . Guest well have to see. Ralph northam and gillespie barn burners in the way and dont pretend to have the same wattage as mccoliffs whose claim to fame iseconomic development, that not their mo, really. A lot of folks we talk to in to see excited president obama, but some of them say they are not paying the attention to the governors race. Well see whether president popularity is transferable. He, you know, about a month office, e left quinnipiac poll showed president rating in59 approval virginia in december of 2016. With President Trump, who is under 40 in virginia. Hopes that it carries over. Host whats the current polling stand out for northam and gillespie. M and ed guest it is all over the place. Outliers thatouple had northam up double digits, northam is nominally ahead or slightly outside. E had a poll out of new jersey that had ed gillespie up one oint, the reason for the variation, virginia is an anomaly, we dont have in stration by party virginia and so given that the turnout plummets so the year president ial race, all these pollsters are trying to auge what the electorate is going to look like on november 7 and make different assumptions try to take what happened last year, of course it will not look like last year so much turnout is lessened. So there is a lot of guess work polls, but most average shows that northam is slightly ahead. Andrew llowing it is ane of the Richmond Times dispatch. Thank you for your analysis this morning. Host that event featuring president , president northam, live lph tonight 6 00 on cspan, go to radio app. And cspan back to open phones. From knockvilxville, tennessee. Caller thank you for taking my call. Question is why are whites so against blacks . They discriminate us on voting, g, as far as y have to where all of the a job, were made to do more and get a coworker paid less and this deal with the the can flag and starspangled banner, why cant that . Nderstand if this country did what it was there would be justice for all, as it stands is not. Host lets go to david in yonkers, new york, independent line. Hi, david, good morning. Caller good morning, pedro, america. Ing, basically approaching mr. Presidency, and if some mong us dont acknowledge and room, my he in the trepidation is that not only our great nation, but also the whole world is really heading in destructive and wrong illconceived type of directions to the detriment of many. I foresee stock market really in ng a nose dive, if not the short run, in the medium run nd it is time for our politicians to rise well above lines and solve this great nation and requires Constitutional Convention where ny serious thinking and tinkering and so be it, its got to be done now before it is too late. Canton, north carolina, republican line, this is terry. The other gentleman calling just star te ago on gold families. I would like to remind that man, 2012, dover, delaware, barack obama and sat there and beside her sons coffin from told her not that they was going to get the terrorist that killed their son, they was going after a ilmmaker, an american citizen on u. S. Soil exercising his First Amendment right, something democrats dont believe in this country. Care less over americans. O down to the board, they pick invaders of this country over citizens. Take e hell the democrats allegiance to . Americans. t host terry in north carolina. We talked about the virginia race, the debate aking place last night between Democrat Murphy and gondano, the Lieutenant Governor. Topic was what would happen foundator bob menendez is guilty of corruption related chargers. The examiner says it was the saying she overnor wouldnt consider naming the Current Governor to the position that does happen to senator menendez, here is a bit of the xchange from the new jersey governors race. If senator menendez is corruption, should he resign . Listen, i think any speculation on someone who is in the middle of a trial is a complete waste of time. Hes innocent until Proven Guilty and lets see how this turns out. If Proven Guilty i will not speculate. Ill you ask him to you are going on the record. I will wait to see how this turns out, the lieutenant and would a lawyer know persons are allowed full extent of the law. Godono, should senator menendez be convicted, should he resign . Absolutely. Embarrassment phil murphy has stood by the side of menendez for two years while he has been under indictment, it will be a greater embarrassment if we have United States senator representing the the of new jersey in senate in washington, d. C. Are we still america . To follow, excuse me, to follow up on my question, hypothetically, is senator menendez is convicted and you ask him to resign, will you then the usly get to pick replacement, would you consider Chris Christie . No. [applause] that was an easy one. So you are going on record you will not consider Chris Christie . Very much on the record that i will not consider Chris Christie. Moderator that full debate cspan. Org bsite at and see that debate, the topic that was discussed there and as well. Ics, go to the Video Library available to you at cspan. Org. Florida, ghill, democrats line, this is jeff. Caller hi. You for washington ournal, i think you guys do a good job. Topics that miss could help your programming, but i want to talk about the voter hacking. Theres a simple solution to that. Can ally the government ive each and every voting district a memory chip that goes into their computer that has a code in it, they record the votes, they also keep a of it and when they turn the information in, it goes that theyre line supposed to use directly to the voting results. Way they have security, heyre not going to be able to hack the code in 30 seconds or however long it takes to information. The other part of it, i want to if the ut medicare, government goes to a, the health care to a system, a lot like canadas, medicarehat change the system and why wouldnt youat east talk about it while you had the person there in front of you on t. V. . So, the topics that we miss sometimes, you referenced before, what do you think we talking about . Caller not so much different as the fact talking about medicare, but nobody mentioned National Health care. Certainly if everybody is covered like canada is, it is going to change Medicare Medicaid quite a bit, but the subject was never discussed while you had the in front of you. Host fair enough. Nancy, from ohio, republican line. Hi. Caller hi. Every want to say to american out there, number one, for is our godgiven right each and every one of us to stand for the american flag. And for the n. F. L. To do what they been doing, kneeling on and disrespecting all of our veterans, i think is a shame. Is number one. Number two, all this fake news. Youre on the air day in and day out on cnn, every channel, fox, i would say, outrageous these ies trying their best to turn americans against voting for donald j. Trump. First american to be president who has not divided has restored who our christianity and you have a and ry clinton out there obama, both, both still yet in trying their best to not out why this woman did get reelected. She didnt get reelected the se americans picked president that they truly wanted. Hat was donald j. Trump and if this fake news will quit trying o find every reason under the sun for this president not to do as job, then america would be lot better off without these two in the background all the time. Host to valerie in michigan. Good morning. Good morning. Soe been watching cspan for long, before you used to have a before you to read could even get on the air. Cannot believe that people hink there is no money for Social Security, that hillary dollars ot millions of for selling uranium to the rid rid is that . Do know one person cant that. Her thinking, this lady that is an american president that barack obama wasnt, i mean, the only real news, i mean, my guy the voting thing that was exactly right, let me say this and then im going to get are ecause i know you pressed for time. Are e too powerful, there too many intelligent people in too much y, we have money for all of these things to go wrong accidently. Is happening, verything is being turned upside down intentionally. This is the biggest fraud i have i am 65 years old politics been into since john f. Kennedy was murdered. Host okay. Valerie, in michigan. Daily beat this morning offers a tory about Trump Campaign staffers during the election, pushing tweets and other nformation, labeled as russian propaganda. Others namingf and prominent names, President Trumps Campaign Director was paid by the russian government campaign. Ction the twitter account at pen gop, calls itself fficial twitter account of the Internet Research agency, according to a source familiar the daily beat, the Research Agency originally eported by the independent russian news outlet, rbc, gop 2015 and ed in 100,000 ted over followers before twitter shut it down. Other events on the networks today. You can see paul ryan in new york tonight speaking at the al that at ner, watch for 8 40 this evening on cspan, on app. Ebsite and radio from texas, republican line, gene, hello there. Hello, good morning. I just wanted to speak about information ation and even voter information, both itizens need to realize that data is available completely available, including your age, address, your mailing your street address and you can lso know who is voting, who is voting in your community and with what frequency they vote. Is available to everyone, to anyone, i can go to my local office and get a list of get a print out of all of data. So, i mean, lets focus on the actual issue of the voting and one vote be manipulated . The registration date is available to everyone. Why you get all that junk mail around voting time. Say. Is all i had to host joanneesleepy eye, minnesota, independent line. Morning, pedro, thank you for having me on. I first off would like, i have a couple points i would like to make quickly. First of all, i would like to family, we have six different cultures, and weve any of us dered taking a knee, is wrong, i feel the players could be much more help or the next generation coming up in their communities, instead of taking a knee, start programs, if they would tell the black youth, you are beautiful, ts beautiful to be black, but go to school, get an education, is many , there successful black people out there. Ut they have gotten an education, there is no white person or government that has young people in any community of any culture, drop of school, dont get a job, other. Ugs or shoot each they need to give them hope that and i s a Better Future know many of the people hate but he is one of said, i residents who want to better your education, give you a chance, i want you to jobs, instead of everybody fighting against him, work with all our different communities of different and a s a place to live place where the youth and the a t generation have hope for future. Host thanks, joanne, the last call for this program. Edition of this program coming your way at 7 00 tomorrow. Then, we want to take you now to the senate side, it is the Health Education labor pension committee, about to hold a hearing on examining how lead to hoices can Better Health outcomes and the health t on system, Senate Health committee about to start that hearing momentarily. And [indiscernible] pensions will please come to order. At 11 45 a. M. This is an opportunity to peer from our witnesses and have good time for questions. I told our witnesses and i was delighted to be talking about something other than the individual Health Insurance market wil