Mitch mcconnell not quite so eager on that front. To get on the same page in terms of their agenda, but now they are definitely going into different directions. Host paul ryan sounds like he thinks its doable and Mitch Mcconnells response to the question was not so doable basically. They said in interviews last year at this time that we have to look at our entitlement programs. We have to look at the drivers of the spending and the deb t. This is not new for him but new in the context of this new Republican Congress and legislative agenda. Weve asked Mitch Mcconnell repeatedly about those comments following the speakers remarks and he said, look, issues like entitlement reform and welfare reform have to be bipartisan. First of all, democrats its difficult to see if democrats will be in a bipartisan mood especially on those issues. We are talking about health care here. At his ear and press conference, Mitch Mcconnell was talking about look at Social Security reforms of the 1980s between Ronald Reagan and tip oneill. Thats how you get things done that are lasting. He does not see that in this election year. Host a caller in our first hour this morning had this to say to Republican Leaders who are thinking about this. Hands off my medicare and Social Security. Politically is this feasible . Guest it be very difficult. You have an excited conservative base and republicans who truly believe spending on these programs are out of control. You have to deal with these one way or another. I was talking with senator jeff flake before the break about paul ryans proposals and desire to do it, but reform. Jeff flake is excited to roll up the sleeves and get it done. We have seen how programs such as medicare and Social Security have been such consent just contentious issues. When paul ryan was a Vice President ial candidate in 2012, democrats were eager to attack him over his vision of reforming the medicare system. Host are you referencing the ad with paul ryan . Guest [laughter] very much so. You will see how difficult its going to be. Democratic base is incredibly energized. We saw that with the various elections in 2017. You can see that energy increasing in 2018. The control of the house changing is definitely possible, potentially the senate as well. That is something Republican Leaders are going to be very cognizant about. Host what has the president said about the entitlement reform and could there be a narrower path of changes that the white house would agree to . Probablyeres something narrow that they would agree to, but as a broader message, donald trump as a candidate on the campaign trail said he would not touch these programs such as medicare and Social Security. Going back to the medicaid issue, we saw and the repeated attempts to overhaul the Affordable Care act last year, that dramatically changed medicaid. Obamacare expanded medicaid in some states. That was a major Sticking Point for senators like Susan Collins who is a critical swing vote on the Affordable Care act. We see how contentious touching medicaid is. If you open the doors to medicare and Social Security now, there are smaller changes they could support, but it would be difficult. Host the president is thinking that President Trump is poised to take action on medicaid requirements. The Trump Administration is preparing to release guidelines soon requiring medicaid recipients to work. The guidelines will set the conditions to add work requirements to their Medicaid Programs for the first time. Guest that could certainly be one way, but remember that everything in the senate requires 60 votes. We have a 5149 republican majority and at least Nine Senate Democrats to get on board with any proposal. You do have this reconciliation procedure always in their back pockets provided they get a unified budget together. That is thoseth measures can only be used for measures that affect that have budgetary effects. Im not a parliamentary expert, but it certainly could be up for debate. Host lets see what our viewers have to say. Dale in missouri, a democrat, europe first. You are up first. Caller i got a couple things. For Chrysler Corporation from 1968 to 1999. When my Social Security kicked in when i was 62, i had to take or they took 1000 away from my chrysler pension and then they paid my medicare. I paid medicare plus i worked for 31 years and am still losing a thousand dollars to medicare. My other issue is all the immigrants that have come in since 1999 or since the 1970s whenever i was working, how much deterioration has that done to the retirements of people retiring now . Just like i looked on the tv and they said at t and boeing and all these other companies, they were paying them anywhere from 1000 to 2000. 2000 is not much when you have three or four grandkids and you want to take them to disney world. Whenever they cut my entitlements, i cant even go to branson, missouri and see the shows. Me. Ncially that hurts whenever Social Security takes away money from somebody who is fully retired, that is wrong. Thats an injustice. If you could start putting on tv every monday morning or every first day of the month how much entitlements are going to the people that are not american thatens, is there some way we could compile the information to let the taxpayers know how much is being spent on their ,ealth care and transportation just like missing from the other night on tv . Host if youre not an american citizen, you cant get Social Security and medicare. Are you talking about people going to the hospitals or Emergency Care . Caller let me put it like this. Im an american citizen. I was born in North Carolina. Whenever i came into the world, my mom brought me into the world and i didnt have these things that whenever the immigrants come in, how many benefits do they automatically get . Host we will leave it there. The first part of his comments what are your thoughts . Guest i think that does illustrate some of the issues and the impacts of this debate because so much of what gets emphasized when youre talking about overhauling these programs are taking away things that people had already paid into as part of their paychecks. Working theirn entire lives and taking little bits out of their head checks for Social Security and medicare and those programs are meant to be there to protect them. Thats why this debate gets so difficult. We are taken to these programs as we speak, but at the same republicansts nor can ignore the fact that these programs are not on a financially sustainable path. There needs to be something done to make them stable for the future. Host where republicans may agree or get on board with reforms is wealth care welfare. That is what gary cohen said when he talked about this years legislative agenda. He brought up infrastructure and welfare reform. Welfarey say reform, what are they talking about . Guest some of things talked about are having subsidies, food stamp programs. It would not be medicaid, but that is where some of the work requirement discussions come in. Considering the population eight hits, it would be a very contentious political issue in these midterm elections. If you look at bluecollar voters who may take advantage of these programs or other lower income people, its a difficult issue. Also again, i just keep looking at the numbers. 60 votes unless you want to do reconciliation and leadership in the house and the senate will have to figure out parliamentary jiujitsu to make that happen. Host we will go to tennessee, how, independent. Caller the fellow that just called was correct. You cannot have a welfare state and have open borders. You can at one or the other, but you cant have both. Thats what hes talking about. Lets go back even further. Book democracy in america, he said the american experiment would be over when one group can tap into the wealth of the other. The voters have figured out that if they vote for certain people that that politician will get their neighbors money through the federal government. Cspanbout recasting how does their call lines on topics of this. People that are net takers see this topic completely different than people that are net producers. If im getting up early this morning and going to work and producing wealth that my neighbor takes, my neighbor is going to see this topic completely differently. If they get up and take more wealth than they produce, they are not going to want any of the welfare cuts. That hashe government the word trust in it, you can guarantee the money has all been stolen. Host all right, lets hear from mary in ohio, republican. Caller hello. Caller how are you . Hello, everyone. Been on Social Security now four years. Congress,n is does does the president , do all the government officials pay into Social Security, medicare like the rest of us working people have . And why are they exempted . Reagan signed a document saying all government but yets will pay in, congress has their own retirement fund. They have their own medical fund while we, the working people, are paying for. Host seung min kim, do you know about this program . Takes upery paycheck thats Social Security and medicare for these programs. Caller might be referring to the fact that until the Affordable Care act, members of congress have been provided Health Care Coverage not medicare but Health Care Coverage under a program for federal employees because they are federal employees. There were issues around the time of whether members of congress could continue to get subsidies basically to help pay for these issues. That is a contentious issue that has come up in the health care talks. Host this is from fact check. Org. Yes, ever since 1984, referring to what that caller talked about. Congress have paid Social Security taxes and have done so since 1984. This information has been circulated in chain emails mostly on information thats been outdated for two decades. Criticize this as overly generous. They did not pay Social Security taxes and received no Social Security retirement credit for their time in office, but effective in 1984, they had to begin paying into Social Security. But get a richard in North Carolina independent. Lets go to richard in North Carolina, independent. Caller ive to questions please dont cut me off. Is do you know or could you tell me how many members of congress are millionaires . Meber 2 could you tell of the how many members Elector CollegeElectoral College are members of the Africanamerican Community . Guest those are pretty tricky. I cant speak to the Electoral College question. On the wealth of members of congress, it is a fact that members of congress tend to be significantly more wealthy than your average u. S. Citizen. A lot of these lawmakers had built up personal fortune before they were elected to the congress whether through their own businesses. A lot of times they marry and to wealth. Rollcall does a great list of the most wealthy members of congress. And their personal net worth can go to the hundreds of millions of dollars. Host on open secret star, you can go to the website and find out members of congress personal finances as well. Diane in georgia, democrat. Caller i would just like to say sickwhat really makes me is paul ryan. You know his father passed away. Rightly so, his mother was able to claim a benefit on him when he was still a minor, which i dont see any problem with that. So he benefited from that. He went to college and benefited from that. Then he had this rightwing professor. You always hear about these communist professors and all this stuff. I dont think so. They got him read it fine rant rand and heiayn was still benefiting from Social Security coul. He starts fantasizing about taking away from people. I think he needs to get therapy. Host let me leave it there. Said,min kim, as you speaker ryan has had his eye on entitlement reform for many years. He says when you look at medicare, its a major driver of this nations debt. Explain more of this rationale. Guest there are somebody different factors. So many different factors. Theres a bigger population of the world getting older and aging into these programs. A lot of people talk about the need to get more workers into taxes to helpying keep these programs solid as a reason why you should immigration reform. There are a lot of factors why these programs are so sensitive and thats what paul ryan frequently points out and why he took on such a difficult and politically divisive task back when he was a House Budget Committee chairman. He was looking at premium support medicare changes. You do get backlash from voters who are saying i like this is system and i earned it. Thats the uphill battle that republicans will face if they do truly take this on. Host john in pennsylvania, republican. Caller yes, greta. I signed up for medicare, but i get most of my medical care through the veterans administration. I want to make a comment about paul ryan. I watched pretty closely on cspan when Simpson Bowles was on there and they were going through the debt reduction. Republicanshree from the house and three from the senate and three democrats from the house and the senate. Bowlesoted for simpson except for the three Republican House members. That was paul ryan and i believe it was hence early and david cap. Serling and david kemp. Simpson was on your program and he said he was pretty upset with ryan that he didnt vote for it and asked him why. Ryan said he would not vote for it because he wanted a voucher system for medicare. Ryan has everpaul wavered in that. He wants to turn medicare into a voucher system. Quick,. Ther comment. I watch your program a few years ago and he had a person on there from the Democratic Administration talking about medicare and a republican person talking about medicare. They disagreed a lot. The republicans name was skelly. I forgot what the democrats name was. They both seem to agree that medicare at that time it was 110 a month. They said that was 110 a month for basically an 11,000 insurance policy. It was a good deal for the people. Thank you very much for taking my call. Host seung min kim. Guest the Simpson Bowles reference is interesting because even if it didnt get signoff from everyone in the commission, again, if Congress Wants to take this up, it does give Congress Sort of a relatively bipartisan framework to start off from. The members that i did talk to her interested to talk about this issue said we can look at those suggestions. We dont have to start from square one. Again, very difficult. Host for more background on the Simpson Bowles commission, National Commission on fiscal responsibility and reform established by presence will order of february 2010 included 18 members split between democratic and republican appointees. In december 2010, the commission released its final report, which included dozens of proposals to cut discretionary spending, reform the tax code and Social Security, and reign in Health Care Costs among other measures. That didnt happen because only 11 member supported it. Three of the no votes were liberal. Hobby adversary of california and Jan Schakowsky of illinois plus an and eastern. Three were conservative republicans, all from the house kent,resentatives, jeff hence it went, and paul ryan. Megan . Caller i would like to see some change with medicaid. Not medicare, not Social Security, but medicaid. The reason i say this is because im a Health Care Professional myself. When i was interning for so long at different counseling centers, i noticed that a lot of the medicaid customers are great people, wonderful people. I would say 35 of the people that we serve came really late to their appointment. They know showed. They didnt take it seriously in the way that we did. We professionals were on our a game. We were young interns trying to make the world a better place. And i noticed my counseling director would say, wouldnt it be nice if there could be like a small donation like a copay . Just something where theres a little bit more of a buy and on their end . I dont know if is something we could talk about. I do think we need to help each other. Im all for social programs. Host megan, what about requiring work as the hill is reporting this morning that the president is poised to release guidelines soon for requiring medicaid recipients to work . Caller i think thats a good idea. I do think its going to be hard. As a mother of a child with autism, my son, i wonder how that would play out. Are there positions of the workforce that they could have . We are fortunate that we have Great Health Care insurance and hopefully it will never be an issue for our little guy as he gets older. I just wonder. There are people on the spectrum that are really high functioning and can do well. Social skills may be too difficult. Host i believe that there. Seung min kim. Guest the devils in the details and im interested to see what the adventures releases. Democrats have expressed concerns about the shape of the entitlement programs could get around, but medicaid is such a contentious issue. The general structure of medicaid and how to affect it is a lot of the reasons why Health Care Repeal tanked in the senate. Host lets get one last call from muriel in florida, democrat. Caller thank you for taking my call. Host good morning. Knower i just want to that the retirement from the government and disability, why is it that we all have to pay taxes when that money has already been taxed . Thank you. Guest im not a tax expert so i will caveat with that. I cant speak directly to that issue, but im just deferring to a tax expert. Host coming up next, we will speak to policy experts on medicare and medicaid and Social Security. We will sit down and get a liberal and conservatives perspective about entitlements and the possibility of reforming. Seung min kim cspans washington journal, lie with the policy that would impact you. This morning, alex bolton and roll calls jason dick discusses the week ahead. And we talk about new state and local deductions for taxes. Join the discussion. On tuesday, the Senate Finance committee holds a affirmation hearing for the president s health and human zar. Ices nominee, alex a the cspan bus continues its 50 capitals tour with stops in raleigh, columbia, atlanta, and montgomery. In each visit, we speak with state officials during our live that washington journal program. 9 30 a. M. Eastern. Attorney will be general josh stein. Now, a discussion on the role of money in politics with issue one , hosted by thean Washington Center for internships and academic seminars. This is just under an hour. All right, folks, lets get started