Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 08132019 20240714

That topic and 9 30. Callsays, we take your and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. Washington host the white house plans to go ahead with the change to the Legal Immigration system which could affect potential new immigrants. It would factory and Financial Stability for those looking for green cards. This is the washington journal for august 13. We will learn more about those changes in our first hour. We want to hear from legal u. S. Immigrants only about your experience in coming to the u. S. How you are doing now that you are here and perhaps give comments on these changes. If you are a legal immigrant and have been in the country for less than 10 years, give us a call at 2027488000. If you have been in the u. S. For more than 10 years, 2027488001 is the number to call. You can tweet us at cspanwj and post on our Facebook Page at facebook. Com cspan. Changes are written about in the changes of pages of the litter, pages of politico. Deny green cards to legal immigrants who received certain benefits or deemed likely to do so in the future. Public charge regulation the latest part of the president s vast immigration crackdown announced by Ken Cuccinelli, who prays to the thelatory praised regulatory change. Here is a bit of what changes are in store. [video clip] uscis, the agency i head as part of the department of Homeland Security issued a rule that encourages and ensures selfreliance and selfsufficiency for those seeking to come to or stay in the United States. It will also help promote immigrant success in the United States as they seek opportunity here. Throughout our history, selfreliance has been a core principle in america. The virtues of perseverance, hard work, selfsufficiency lay the foundation of our nation and defined generations of immigrants seeking opportunity in the United States. Our current law, which is generations old, recognizes some new arrivals to our country need the help of their family and community. It requires some of those who seek to live and remain in the United States to have a sponsor who will be financially responsible for them. My italian grandfather played this role sponsoring two of his cousins to come to america. Once they arrived, my grandfather wanted to make sure his cousins spoke english well enough to work and enlisted my father in that effort as well to make sure they could speak well enough to work and they did. My family worked gather to ensure they could provide for their own needs and never expected the government to do it for them. This same hardworking spirit shared by countless immigrants who made the u. S. Their home is central to their american identity. Host for those of you who have been a legal immigrant less than 10 years and want to tell us about your experience and perhaps these potential changes, 2027488000 is the number to call. If you have been in the United States more than 10 years, 2027488001. Joining us on the phone to walk us through these changes is ted hasson. Good morning. Guest good morning. Host could you walk us through the mechanics of the announcement yesterday from Ken Cuccinelli . Guest sure. This is a final rule issued by the Homeland Security Department Nature insweeping in how it deals with Legal Immigration. President trump frequently talks about legal ilLegal Immigration and the border. Specifically, the rule gives Immigration Authority the power to deny green cards or visas outright to people who might become a drain on taxpayer dollars, what they are calling a public charge and it plays on a statute that dates back all the way to the late 1800s that says if someone comes to the u. S. , they can be denied if they are likely to become what they call a public charge. Host talk about exactly what is received under someone who gets these benefits. What can they get and what can they not receive . Name specifically, they certain benefits here, which are food stamps, welfare, medicare, and housing assistance. It is not so much that they cannot receive them, but also they are looking at whether this person is likely to receive them in the future and they are using a broad test that looks at a range of factors around the applicant, including their age, their health, their family status, Financial Resources as well as education and skills. This is really a sweeping test to see if you come to the u. S. , are you likely to use those core benefits i mentioned before . Caller if this is a host if this is a test, what determines if someone meets qualifications are not . Guest there are various heavily weighted factors, positive and negative factors. For instance, the use of benefits i mentioned before would be a heavily weighted negative factor. One heavily weighted positive factor they mentioned would be if a person has private health taxrance and did not use subsidy under the Affordable Care act. There are many different factors here that are at play and win an immigration officer will. Eigh those the drivings motivation to incorporate these changes by the Trump Administration . Guest the Trump Administration and you heard, acting u. S. Heard kenp you cuccinelli saying this is about selfsufficiency and any immigrant that comes to the u. S. Needs to be able to stand on their own two feet. This is a combination of two potent issues for the republican party. You have immigration, which President Trump put at the forefront and then you have Public Benefits and perhaps reducing the number of people using them. I think those are both key issues for republicans and something that potentially the president can carry into the coming election. 2027488000 is there a sense host is there a sense of the number of legal immigrants who receive these benefits . What kind of number are we talking . Guest there are some debates about what the estimates of who exactly will be affected are. Dhs is issuing this regulation said somewhere in the neighborhood of 382,000 people moving to a green card every year would be subject to a review under public charge. A nonprofit who looked at this said there would be somewhere like another 500,000 people abroad applying to an immigrant toa and potentially subject it. By other estimates, it could be millions of people at least subject to review. How many people would actually be denied these benefits is not clear at this point. Host are there exceptions to those coming to the United States under this proposed change . Guest humanitarian visas are one exception. Refugees, people applying for asylum are not subject to the public charge test. There is something called a special immigrant juvenile visa that is for immigrant children for the most part used by unaccompanied minors coming to the u. S. And that visa does not apply to. For humanitarian categories, there is an exception to this. Host with the introduction of this potential change and the final rule being issued, will there be legal challenges and how could it affect the implementation . Guest the legal challenges are all but certain. There were several groups that came out right away and said they were exploring what they could do. We saw, on the west coast, a promigrant group vowed to sue over this. We saw Santa Clara County in california say they were exploring legal options. New york state said they were and even the city of california you have multiple parties saying they are planning to sue over this and the reason is they say this will drive people off vital benefits they are offering to their populace and not even just the benefits mentioned in the regulation that potentially could have a Chilling Effect where people do not use benefits because they are worried their name did this regulation and perhaps they could jeopardize to a green card. Host you can find his story online at politico. Com. Thank you for your time this morning. Guest thank you for having me. Host you can comment on these changes and we want to hear from legal immigrants in the United States. If you have been here less than 10 years, give us a call at 2027488000. If you have been here more than 10 years, give us a call at 2027488001. We want to hear about your experience coming to the United States. Perhaps you want to comment on legal changes. We will hear from alexandria, virginia, juan, who has been here less than 10 years. Caller good morning. First of all, i am not a big trump fan, absolutely not. I think this policy change is spot on. I think it is right to prioritize. I dont think the policy is to deny completely folks who are receiving aid, but to prioritize folks that have skill and are not receiving aid should be on the higher priority to receive green card and access to citizenship eventually. I think that is fair. I think every other country around the world does the same thing. Europe, latin american even. I am not a big trump fan at all, but i think this policy change is significant and fair. Host part of the reason for this morning, we wanted to hear about experiences for legal immigrants. You indicated you were here less than 10 years. What country did you come from and what was the process for you . Caller it was horrible. It took me 12 years. I was a student visa holder and became a ph one student. I waited for a sponsor to sponsor me by the book. Once i did that, i continued my to the green card and from the green card, weight the five years required to become a u. S. Citizen. Very long process, costly lawyers and whatnot. It is difficult and i think it should be difficult, it should not be for everyone to come in and get a green card and become a u. S. Citizen. This is the land of opportunity and we should be careful how we allow folks to come in there and i have no issue with that at all. Host lets hear from christina in maryland who says she has been here more than 10 years. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for having me. Overe been here a little 30 years and my experience has been good. I am not a trump fan, but some of what he put in place makes sense. The animosity with americans saying people are coming in and getting their benefits, maybe that would diminish even though it is really not true. In 85 and it wasnt so hard 1985 and it wasnt so hard. And986, i had my green card 1985, i was a citizen. I came as a medical transcriptionist, so i was able to work. I have been working with Kaiser Permanente 30 years. My two daughters finished college and i have a son. As an immigrant, my experience was not a bad one. Host what part of the world did you come from . Caller i came from an English Speaking country, so it wasnt so hard with the english because they teach english in school. Host was there a cost of you becoming a citizen of the United States . 30 years agothan it wasnt as expensive as it what you paid, i cannot even remember now. It was like 100 or 200. To get a lawyer or anything. It was not a big deal in those days, they did not give you a lot of headaches or hard time. Int lets hear from anne dallas, texas. She has been here more than 10 years. Hello. Caller hello. Hello . Host you are on, go ahead. Caller thank you very much for taking my call. Join a Family Member just like Ken Cuccinelli. My greenhs, i had card, i found a job and i was working for three dollars per hour cleaning. Then i got married and got divorced. At that time, i needed some help and i thought i would get it, but i did not. Basically i was homeless with my child on the street. I did not get any benefits. I was a legal immigrant at that time. I was already in the country for 15 years. I was a citizen actually because i got my citizenship in 5 years. Still, i did not get any benefits because i think there is certaints from a country, they have a tendency to benefits to immigrants legal or illegal from the same country. Nobody was willing to help. Host what do you think about these changes announced by the Trump Administration . Somer i think for immigrants, of course, it would news because as i said, they were getting help from their fellow immigrants who were actually working at those agencies. Evengrants like me if i was fully eligible, i was still discriminated against because of the country of my origin. Country is that . Caller soviet union. Everybody is like, yes, those people have to be discriminated forever. Host these potential changes cuccinelli. Mr. Immigrants in the United States receiving Public Benefits, this 2016. M 2014 to overall, 82. 6 million residents received one or four of tested benefits. Of those u. S. Born, 86 of those 70 million plus. For noncitizens, that figure about 8 of populations. Naturalized citizens, 6 . There is much more to this report and you can find that at the website for the migration policy institute. Stephen is next in baltimore. Hello. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. Here in the early 70s and she came here as a on,stic worker and later when she was able to bring her kids here, she brought me and my sister and later ron, my other brother and sister. Alone, sheother, worked a couple jobs and got her citizenship. Herr ron, she got citizenship as well. Said she needed public assistance. College andnt to education. At some point later, she was able to get public assistance. The point i am making is yes, do your hardest but some things happen and you get ill needose a job and assistance from somewhere. I dont see any reason why you should not be able to get help in those situations. Host this potential change which would use a test to to determine how someone would emigrate to the u. S. , what do you think about that proposal . Caller i have mixed feelings about it, really. Once you are legally here and things happen to you that you can earn an honest living, you have to have some way something to lean on and it is good the government is providing that thing you can lean on. What happens if you dont have that . What are you going to do . You are here legally already, you should not be discriminated against, that is how i feel. Host in this first hour in light of these announcements yesterday from the white house, legal immigrants only, we want to talk about your experience. You can talk about what was announced from the white house yesterday. In the uniteden states less than 10 years, 2027488000 is the number to call. If you have been here more than 10 years, 2027488001. You can give us a call. Allie from virginia, hello. Agree withotally this. I am not usually a trump fan, but i agree with this. Is a home care nurse and she works on people that were married before they came to the United States, so they dont have a marriage certificate from the United States getting all this help from the government and when i came as a student, i worked my but off. I came here to better myself. Trump on thisith one and thank god this happened. A lot of people think all immigrants are doing this and it is not, just the people abusing it. Host what country did you come from and what did you study when you came to the u. S. . Caller i studied graphic design. We have two children now, one was in the u. S. Army and the degree. Doing a masters i am proud of this country, i. Ove this country in washington, d. C. , thanks for giving us a call. Caller my family came here from poland. I came here as a small child. What i would like to say is i strongly disagree with this policy. What the Trump Administration is deliberately trying to do is just let in wealthy people, people that have massive amounts of wealth and they can do whatever they want and it leaves the people here struggling kind of behind and it doesnt help people in these rural areas struggling to have people that can buy their way in. The one great thing about america is you can come here and this country needs immigrants. People before them need immigrants to come behind them so everyone can give each other a leg up. The previous caller said something about people having more cars and taking advantage of the system. Nobody gets rich off of having public assistance, that is a myth and something people like to say. I really feel we are doing ourselves in. Host talk to me about your parents experience. Talk to me about their immigration experience. Caller my greatgrandfather came here and worked for 20 years, but he had children here and one of them that stayed was mike grant great aunt who sponsored my children coming over. I was the first want to go to college and i have a masters degree and it is part of climbing the steps. Nobody really had an education. My grandparents, my mother did not have anything beyond high school. She worked as a waitress and wound up owning that restaurant she had been a waitress in and my brother was in the army, in the national reserves. Dream. The american i would like to say those people worked some of them for 20 years. Why cant they work with employers and say you have these people, yes, they have been here illegally, but they seem to follow the rules and be working and have families. Why cant companies sponsor these people to get a Legal Immigration status . I am sorry. Host it is okay. Joseph is next in silver spring, maryland. Caller thank you for taking my call. My own experience was really not that bad. Came here 8 years ago i needed money to survive. I did not get benefits. I dont think people really understand the trump bill. I voted for trump. Us whentrying to tell apply legally if they are going to rely on benefits, you are going to use that as a consideration to demand people dont understand what the bill is. From nigeria originally. The people that do that are the people that really need help. If somebody [inaudible] the people that really need the benefits, let them get the benefits. Since i have been in this country, i have been by myself. To leave your family and come to a country and leave your culture it is because you need something, you need something better. E are trying to survive trying to deny people benefits i might have good tried to get a job for five dollars, seven dollars. Today i have a masters degree with a lot of Student Loans. Marylandt is joseph in talking about his experience, a people have as well for legal immigrants in this first hour. We have heard from them about a half hour. A halfhour to go. 2027488000 if you have been in the u. S. Less than 10 years. 2027488001 if you have been in the u. S. More than 10 years. Host here is Ken Cuccinelli about this new rule and how it will be applied. [video clip] this rule will apply prospectively to applications and petitions received starting october 15 of this year. Once this rule is implemented and effective on october 15, uscis career Immigration Services officers, what we call isos will generally consider an aliens current and past receipt of the designated Public Benefits while in the United States as a negative factor when examining applications. However, receipt of certain noncash benefits received before october 13 will not be considered as a negative factor. The underlying statute passed on a bipartisan basis also requires officers to assess, at a minimum, each applicants age, health, family status, assets, resources, and financial status skillsir education and as well as other factors that affords them the rule in the totality of the circumstances. That means officers will assess all the evidence related to these factors and no one factor alone will decide an applicants case. Host this is from the Associated Press when it comes to the current public charge someone xists us, federal law requires those seeking green cards and legal status to prove they will not be a burden to the u. S. The new public charge rule would redefine a public charge as someone more likely than not to receive Public Benefits more than 12 months within a 30 month period. From el segundo, california, guadalupe bay, hello. Caller thank you for taking my call. Am i on the air now . Host you are on the air. Caller i am watching the program, i dont see that i am on the air. Host we can hear you just fine, go ahead. Caller thank you. Thank you for taking my call, sir. I want to share my experience. I am an immigrant brought here by my mother. Share the experience of mexican americans now, ok . Here and whenborn she was five years old, she was repatriated along with i 250,000 american citizens. She came back as a divorced mother. My point is i dont think we can mexicanse history of and their relationship to the United States. I hear others that come from other countries that could probably fly into the United States. Mexicans, because of their proximity and because of that very long, historical relationship that goes back to the time when the southwest was part of mexico have a totally different experience from those that can actually take a plane, come to a profession and actually able to succeed. If you take a look at the mexican population just like africanamericans, we have havelly been those that raised to the economy of this country because mexicans have come here and they actually work very hard. If you take a look at the statistics you put up a little while ago, i think american on thoserelied more handouts, you could probably call them, which are welfare, food stamps, and so on. I think we cannot ignore the fact where is this coming from . My mother was repatriated because they wanted to get rid of mexicans. I called this effort by trump nothing but ethnic cleansing because he has pretty much, himself said he prefers norwegians. How does that tell us . They are white, they are not brown. I think we are missing the whole some ofstorically and the racist motivations at play. Int we will hear from peter maryland, hello. Caller good morning. Y name is peter. Have been here since 2009 to what wass , thenced yesterday previous callers have been expressing their opinion. I think this is the greatest it isy in the world and not great because it gives out free things, although it does. A lot of help comes from the government and other organizations, but because it gives them even ground, it gives them some platform. This is when you work your way that lady who was the previous caller, i think the polarization going on right now, i think people have stopped everything that comes out of the white house, they look at it as the prism of politics. You are racist, homophobic, everything. It doesnt mean anything anymore. To shamest want someone. Host you agree with the policy announced yesterday . Look atif you really the welfare and everything, when they started that, i dont think it was supposed to be a permanent thing. You were not going to be permanently there. Unless you are chronically ill or disabled, you will be on welfare 5 or 6 years. I think it was supposed to be a leg up and i dont think anyone should be there 5, 6 years. The lady who spoke last, i work with mexicans. I have a Construction Company right now. Mexicans are really one of the most working people and they are paid very well. For are being paid well hard work. In their other country, they dont. Opportunities are open for everyone to succeed. In good faith. There are parameters. They are going to look at age, look at health. Everything is looked at in the prism of all the chicks. Prism of politics i come from africa myself. In this country right now, any serious proposals, people will not allow you to do it because it will be looked at bad. Thank you. I got the point. We will hear from christine in reston, virginia, next. Hello . Caller hello . Host you are on, go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. Hello . Host you are going to have to stop listening to the television and go on with your statement. Caller thank you for taking my call. I wanted to comment about this because i have a lot of family here as immigrants and i came on a green card. My sisters have come here various other ways and they have all touched government benefits, but have never been dependent on government benefits. It is difficult to come here as an immigrant and start over without getting any help at all. One of my sisters was able to buy her home by being part of the Affordable Housing unit and she is a teacher, she came here as a teacher, she was a single mom and that allowed her to be able to make a forward step in her life. My other sister, she got pregnant. She did not have Health Insurance and because they have the probation period, she was able to have her baby, the baby early and the baby was in time. Cu for a long none of them stayed on the benefits. I feel like maybe if there is a figure out have a criteria, it is not just if you touch the benefits you dont get a green card because i feel like that will be detrimental to people something happened in their life and maybe they had to be on wic or medicaid for a short period of time. I dont think anybody comes to america just to get on benefits and sit back and relax. A lot of immigrants come here to support their families back home and in this country and it is difficult because you are starting over from scratch and paying your own way through school. You are not eligible for things like fafsa and stuff like that and you are working toward getting your green card so you can make america a great country. Host that is christine in virginia. Lets hear from susan in fort myers, florida. You are next up. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am an immigrant also, but i go back a little bit further. In budapest, 1943 hungary. 6dont remember it, i was months old when my mother had to leave and flee with me and my father was inducted into hitlers army at gunpoint when she was 6 months old. From thatescaped military because he was a pacifist. Forward, after the war there were people all over the place. There was no food, no lodgings, nothing. The United States took people in, but there was a quota system. In order to get into the United States, you had to have a sponsor in the United States who paid for your trip, food, lodgings, medical until you got. N your feet to get on your own even the poor jews, nobody could just come in. We were fortunate enough to have a sponsor and she lived in bay village, ohio. No. Arents did do a no there was a jewish lady by herself scared to death and my parents agreed to bring her in nanny. R passport as my i remember her barely because i was seven years old when we came here. It was a tough trip, nobody helped us. When we came over here, there were no translators, no guidance, nothing. Learning a new language is also tough. People dont understand that. Somebodyop it all off, beat the daylights out of my father because he definitely had ptsd. He was very paranoid and had major seizures as a result of head injuries. It was a rough time and nobody ever helped us. We werent the only ones. Let me add this, i did not have a passport. America did not issue passports for the kids. If my mother would have lost me, that would have been it. It was a tough time, sir. Host that is susan telling her experience. Legal immigrants we are hearing from in this first hour, many have spoken about their personal experience and many have spoken about this policy change announced yesterday. Many legislators opposing this change speaking as well. Yet another destructive and racist policy from Stephen Miller and the president. The cruelty is the point. Jersey, itnie of new has never been about on document it immigration. Stephen miller is using this administration to bring about his dark vision of america. Adriana saying by attempting to keep immigrants from accessing programs vital to supporting their families, some public charge will force individuals to choose between putting food on the table for their children and being granted legal status. The statue of liberty gives me your tired, your poor. Focused onnt seems targeting less folk less fortunate immigrants. To support selfsufficiency and prevent them from becoming a burden. The fulludes a link to statement. We will go to eric in virginia, good morning. Caller good morning, sir. Host you are on, go ahead. Caller yeah. I disagree with the policy father brought us ine when i was 15 years old 1995. He came here in 1988 and filed siblings. Her and my i went to high school and now i am a diesel mechanic. I have children here. Most immigrants, like myself, we , immediately, without working, buying our own cars and houses, whatever, toody comes here legally depend on government assistance unless there are circumstances where people get sick or whatever. Then, Social Security, medicare, all of that, they deduct that from your paycheck. Think this is nothing but trump trying to stop immigration altogether. First it was Illegal Immigrants and now they are finding ways to stop people from coming here. Married to two immigrants, his kids are their mothers are immigrant children themselves. Why all this . I dont understand it. Host eric in stafford, virginia, giving his thoughts and adding to the conversation from englewood, florida, this is henry. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to echo what other people have been saying. Immigrants work really hard. It is important sometimes to eliminate people who take advantage. For the most part, immigrants come here to better themselves. I remember coming in here, i did whatever it took to help my family. If i had to hardimmigrants work really. This policy, i think it is just punishing the hardworking people who come here to make a difference and make this country better. I just wanted to have my own point of view. Host lets hear from brent and washington, d. C. , you are next up. Caller i think the conversation is sad. We can afford a tax break to the wealthiest folks in this country, but now average folks are having this conversation. Folks on one side and one on the other about whether or not we can afford to come care for those who cannot care for themselves and this is not the first time we have had this conversation. We have had a backandforth on this topic forever. Recently, within the last 20 years, a young africanamerican man child in the state of maryland died because he could not get dental coverage. He had a toothache and his parents took him from office to office and no one would care for him because of the insurance he did not have and immediately after that, because of the embarrassment and prevent it from occurring anywhere else, the state of maryland changed medicaid coverage to cover more. Ervices for dentistry for kids that is really what the conversation is about. They are putting us in a position to have a conversation about whether or not we can afford it or whether we should or whether these folks deserve it or not. Host many have shared their immigration experience, what is yours . Caller i was born here. My parents were born here. Host appreciate the comment, but we are hearing from legal immigrants only. This is thomas from georgia, hello. Caller good morning. How are you . Host i am fine, go ahead. Caller i have been here 39 years. Anybody coming to this country is not forced to come here. Everybody comes of their own will. I know it is difficult in the beginning, language, the community, everything else, but it is possible. Determination is the key to success. When you come here, quit whining, complaining, you can do it. People that come from other countries no how bad it is at their other countries. There are opportunities here and it can be done. Host talk about your experience coming to this country. Thomas in georgia . Caller yes. Host talk about your experience coming to this country. Caller experience is very good. I did not complain about anything. I worked hard, got an education, selfemployed. The government is the government. When i needed help, friends, family helped me out. The government. You can do it on your own. Host what part of the where did you emigrate from . Caller europe, i am from poland. Host if you are a legal have been in the United States less than 10 years, 2027488000 is the number to call. If you have been in the United States more than 10 years, you can call us at 2027488001. To thewant to add conversations on our social media sites, you can tweet us at cspanwj or post on our Facebook Page at facebook. Com cspan. The policy from yesterday garnered a response from the head of the Democratic National committee saying this on the second anniversary of the tragedy in charlottesville, donald trump continues to use his power to divide us, this time targeting documented immigrants. This action could force immigrant families to choose between putting food on the table and getting the health care they need. It could force them to leave the country they call home. Instead of treating these immigrants with the dignity they republicansmp and are kicking them to the curb. Caller good morning. I wanted to touch on some of the stigmas that come with Legal Immigration. People seem to believe that people just come to the united the system andup take advantage of the government. People do not just leave their countries and homes, risk everything they have to get things for free. They are working for a better opportunity and another thing people dont realize, especially with immigration is people come into the United States legally, but overstay their welcome, such as in the case of my family. Any worked hard, never took social programs and gave us a better opportunity to be where we are. I was the first person to go to college and my family and really get ahead in life. It is sad to see some of the stuff we see. We are talking about kids like they have no say in this and it is an unfortunate situation i see in our country. When they are splitting us up and not realizing at the end of the day we are humans. Host from port st. Lucie, florida, hello. Caller thanks for having me. I was flipping channels when i saw about that new rule and all of that host go ahead. You are on, go ahead. In herndon,will virginia, for legal immigrants only in this hour. Caller how are you doing . I wanted to share my story because i think it is critical during this time. I emigrated from el salvador over 10 years ago. California,ived in legally cross the border. I became a naturalized citizen. My dad taught me one thing, he who arrived prior to 1970, he said this country gave us an opportunity. This country is the land of opportunity. Cangive back everything you to it and it will take care of us. It did. I served in the military over 22 years. I am a naturalized citizen looking at everything going on in this country today. I believe immigrants are added extremely great value to this country and Congress Must get their act in order and do something about our future, the future of this country, the future of immigrants. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the reality that immigrants do bring to this country. Host patrick is in massachusetts. Good morning, you are next up. Caller yes, thank you. Host go ahead. You are going to have to turn down the television to keep the interference from stopping the conversation. Caller very good, i turned it off. Host go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you very much for picking up my call. I heard all the debates on immigration. Am i still on . Host you are going to have to keep talking into the phone and not listen to the television, please. Go ahead. That yout is wonderful opened the line to allow people to explain themselves about the situation with immigration. Myself,you the truth, personally, when i came here, i came here illegally. People came the legal way to enter this country. Morality of what the government is doing against people who enter the country illegally. They definedhow morality. Merently i have in front of has been approved by the u. S. Government for 20 years and that guy has a masters in accounting. Teaching in been universities and colleges. Host patrick, are you still there . Off, butatrick dropped patrick will be the last call for this hour. Appreciate all the calls that have come in. We will change gears and take a look at the current state of the United States when it comes to the debt and deficit. Joining that conversation, adam andrzejewski. He is the founder and ceo. We will have that conversation up next. Two guests joining us from iowa. Troy price, the Iowa Democratic party chair head will join us for a conversation of the candidates coming through iowa and iowa as the first in the nation caucus and how democrats are faring in their attempts to become president of the united of the United States. Those conversations, coming up. Sunday, at 9 00 a. M. Eastern, a washington journal and American History tv live rim looking at woodstock, the 1969 musical phenomenon. Book farber, author of the the age of great dreams america in the 1960s, joins us to take calls. Why the drugs had the effect they did in the net 1960s and 1970s is something we are wrestling with the technology of drugs. Imperative in understanding matches the 1950s but the production of history. What drugs we use in a given period and place has the ability to change the direction of society. Announcer call in to talk with david farber of the social movement of the 60s. Woodstock 50 years, sunday get mine 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Also live on American History tv on cspan3. Announcer for 40 years, cspan has been providing america coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington d c and around the country. Make up your own mind. Created by cable, cspan is brought to you by your local cable provider. You viewour unfiltered view of government. This is Adam Andrzejweski, the founder and ceo of organization an organization of openthebooks. Com. Guest great to be on the program. These conversations are the most important. Host how was it founded . Openthebooksd it. Com to put every dime on mine it our goal is to capture every dollar taxed and spent. That is federal spending, state spending and local spending. Last year, in december we captured every Public Employee salary record at every level of government across the country. If you are listening, everyone watching the program, if they want to see in their local School Districts what Public Employees are making in each position for what public body, they can come to our website and take a look. Host whered you get information . Six to 3000led requests last year on every substantial public body in the record. To compile this we have done it this year. You can search two years of that file for fiscal year 2017 and 2018. Host talk about the organization. Who are you funded by . And why you decided to go with this information . Guest we believe the open Government Movement is revolutionizing Public Policy. That is where we come from. We are funded by people that our an it just in promoting mission. We take our charts from the constitution, the founding document, article one section nine, which states a regular account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall the published from time to time shall be published from time to time. Not enough has been done with our fundamental constitutional right to transparency. Our organization is the strongest voice in the country for aggressive transparency and oddity of expenditures. Example, notn transparent enough when it comes to this kind of details. Guest everyone will remember the scandal at the v. A. When 1000 veterans died while waiting to see dr. Over a tenyear period. One we audited the vhf, we found Veterans Affairs had spent 20 million on highend luxury our portfolio. We found 700,000 worth of sculptures were purchased by a v. A. Medical facility that serves blind veterans. When this went to good morning america, Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee Picked it up. Wrote an oversight letter to robert mcdonald, who stopped the practice on a basis and apologized. Host when it comes to the idea of deficit, when you go to the debt clock, which we show, we see a 22 trillion National Debt. How do you attribute how we got to that . How do we get there . Thet both parties feel fastest to get to reelection is spend money. Rob you have republicans castigating democrats, yet republicans have proven they are the party of tax cut in spent and both parties are spending. That is how we get to this point. Host if you want to ask questions about spending and debt issues, you can join the conversation by giving us a call. ,epublicans 202 7488001 democrats 202 7488000, and independents 202 7488002. Want to talk about the budget deal signed recently for 2019. First, one of the elements of that is suspending the debt ceiling through july 2021. Talk about your impressions. What does that move do for debt . Aest the debt ceiling slaps debt on spending. When you remove that, the gravy train can continue. The budget deal negotiated between representative pelosi and Chuck Schumer and the president and steven mnuchin, basically will add 350 to spending over the next two years. Just a little history, since 2016, you have record income Tax Collections even after the jump tax cut. On a nominal basis, you have more money coming into the treasury than before in the country. Since 2016, during trump, two years of Republican Controlled Congress and one year with the houseats in control of appropriations, you have a 20 increase in Discretionary Spending. Spending we do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Talk the reversals you about the details. What do you recommend as the cure if the organization does sell . Guest there was a proposal in front of the senate. Rand paul put forward a any cut plan. It would reduce spending each year by one penny. That was a republican controlled senate. It was voted down because of the lack of republican commitment to basic plan. That would have gone a long way to raining in the overspending. Host just a penny . How does that work . Guest in our households, we live we can always cut one penny or 1 from what we spent last year. That is all rand paul was asking. After the Republican Controlled Congress hikes spending over the course of last year by 300 billion in spending, he was on Discretionary Spending, cut a penny. These were republicans that ran on fiscal conservatism could not embrace the plan. Host there is a story in several papers about the budget gap. The headline from the wall street journal says it is wide. The Treasury Department said federal receipts rose 3 from october to july, totaling 2. 9 trillion. This goes back to whether we have a revenue problem or spending problem. Since 2016, collections of , forecasted by the Congressional Budget Office. By the time trump leaves office, they will be up 13 . , spendingame period will be up by 20 . Guess is here to talk about spending our guest is here to talk about. If him a call, 202 7488001 four republicans, 202 7488000 , for democrats and independents 202 7488002. Do you get any attention from those on capitol hill on these issues . Guest we do. Today i have a meeting to brief the office of management and budget at the eisenhower executive building. Thanks to your show pedro and aher con programs, we put white spotlight on waste dong drawn corruption and it makes a difference. Host who do you talk to . Guest i do not have the contact names in my head but the senior officials. Host how does your Organization Get a meeting . Guest we have briefed omb over the last couple years on our work. We have briefed members of congress and u. S. Senators on our work. Because of our work federal legislation one in the house and one in the senate now. Would bringouse transparency for the First Time Ever for the roughly 100 billion dollars worth of federal bonuses paid out to the federal workforce every year. Now all of those bonuses are hated. On this program, we broke our oversight report on 100 billion spent in the human spending spree in september 2018 in the last month of the fiscal year. Year, last week of the one out of every 10 contracts final week. That joni ernst has written a piece of legislation. She will attach it to the budget onl that would prevent that a go forward basis. This is the kind of access and influence our organization is having. Host did you talk to senator ernst directly . Guest i have only communicated with her staff. We cooperative and oped published in the Washington Examiner on this issue. Guest another piece of data data youther piece of keep track of, and here is one of the factoids. 1. 3 million plus employees worked in the federal executive agencies and that was 2018. That was up from 1. 39 427. That is a lot of people. Talk about that number. Host this is breaking data. Guest this is the breaking data. One of the president s signature quote was to ring the small and whether the president is achieving Success Campaign promise is the headcount in the executive agencies. Over the course of the last seven months, we have wrangled with the office of prince personal management to get a response of production of the 1. 3 million executive agencies of federal workers the bureaucrats that work in the consecutive agencies and we received that two weeks ago. As we distill that information, here is what we found. Versus thent in 2018 swamp the president inherited didnt in 2016. The headcount is up. The president promised to take care of veterans and also at Homeland Security and the president promised to be top on the border. Those agencies have massive headcount increases. Homeland security up 23,000 employees during the Trump Administration. At the v. A. , up 18,000 employees during the Trump Administration. Every single executive agency is down except for the Small Business administration, which is headcount grew 40 . Host you think it is wrong to have those numbers in federal Government Employees . Guest what we do at openthebooks. Com is get the information out to the American People. We fact check politicians on campaign promises. Is the president s training the swamp . I harken back to ronald reagan. Up to youren youre armpits in alligators it is hard to remember you came here to drain the swamp. It is tough. The president is experiencing matt. Three hundred 90,000 employees in the department of veteran Affairs According to and you goods, Homeland Security that number rises to 205,000. Agriculture,t of 13,000 and the Treasury Department it in a thousand employees. Lets hear from viewers. This is william in waldorf, maryland. Your on with Adam Andrzejweski from openthebooks. Com. Caller thank you for having me on. Thank you both. I listen to cspan every day. I want to know the data that you collected . Thet also referencing federal contractors, stick contractors and local government that also do work and their salaries . Ofit also giving the numbers how many contractors are doing the jobs per people that are in that state, that local monistic polity municipality in the nation . Guest excellent question. Here is what our database is comprised of. At the federal level, we have all federal spending since 2000. That is comprised of contracts, grants, loans, farm subsidies, direct limits and insurance subsidies. We have nearly all federal employment in terms of salaries and bonuses, when disclosed since 2007. At the state level, in 49 out of 50 states, we are only missing california and we have restyled that information at the request of the california state checkbook. In 49 states, we have the checkbook. Had theng, we republican comptroller begin the process of opening the books and the books are opened in wyoming. We need to do this in california. At the local level, your question is important. That is where the hardware didnt heart work in data collection. There are 16,000 substantial bodies across the country. We need to grower budget to be able to have the capacity to refile requests for checkbook spending. Once we do that, this is what we call the public spending genome project. You remember when scientists mapped the human genome and ushered in medical progress. Taxed ating every dime every level, this is the genome project we are working on and we feel it will revolutionize the United States Public Policy. Host from florida in st. Petersburg, vicki. Caller good morning. I want to make sure the clear definition youre using for the swamp. The president and white i voted for him why i voted for him was to drain the swamp was to drain the corruption out of the inernment, lobbyists, frauds every sector of the government. It was not a headcount of how many people were being employees. It was making sure that they were more efficient and we were basically like the veterans, cleaning up that sector. Could you explain to me how you came up with your definition of swamp as a headcount . Guest i prefaced that segment by saying one measure that you could hold the president accountable to his promise to drain the swamp would be the headcount if there was bloat in the federal bureaucracy to carve out that bloat, you would have a smaller headcount. We do not see that at the v. A. Where the president has increased headcount and homeland smallty and at the business outside that, we see a real scale back of the federal bureaucracy. At the department of education, betsy devos has eliminated 651 positions. We know the average salary of the department of education is 100,000. That is 65 million a year in butter payroll costs at the department of education. Fix. Com, threehe ,gencies at openthebooks. Com three agencies 13 agencies have 10,000 plus. 19 agencies have 10,000 employees. Have one to 100 employees. Can you expand . Guest an interesting conversation is to see who is up and who is down. The American People have to make the decision as to whether this is good policy. The president has to make good arguments to the American People. If you are an irs agent, you are down 15 . There were over 10,000 irs agents. Two years later, the fiscal year 2018, that is the latest available. After two years of the president administration, irs agents are 8500 down from 10,000. If you are a nurse at the v. A. , the nurse headcount over this to your period is up 4000 nurses. If you are a doctor, you are up 700 doctors. We took a look at openthebooks. Com, because we have been getting oversight, so over the course of the past five 50,000he v. A. Has added positions to payroll, 10,000 of those have been medical officers and doctors. Franklin from north carolina, democrat. Caller good morning. I was listening to your guest and i agree there is a lot of bloat in the military budget. Fromk with the military 19831989. At the end of the year, i would agencies woulde send in brandnew equipment and to benew furniture auctioned off by the General Services administration. That would happen within the last two months of the fiscal year. They had extra money they needed to spend. They used that method to make sure they spent the money so the budget would not be cut. That is where a lot of the military bloat goes. Guest you are spot on. Trump, heident ordered the pentagon to comply with a firstever audit. They spent a year 1200 auditors they spent . 5 billion on the audit and the pentagon flunked. We hope this year they do a better job on compliance with standard accounting practices. We also studied the last month of the fiscal year in relation to the department of defense and spending. In the last month of the fiscal year, last year, the pentagon spent 65 billion in the final 12 months. They spent one out of every five contracts on the year in the last month. That that is good a proper way to run our military. Host a viewer makes comments when it comes to sizes in federal government salaries, saying they are at an alltime high. What can you say about salaries that federal workers receive . With here is the problem the file we received. After wrangling with the Office Personal management, i trust the headcount in this file. I do not trust the Cash Compensation. There is 20 to 30 billion worth of Cash Compensation that was not disclosed in this file. We asked questions to the office of personal management. They are sorting for the answers. We look forward to dialoguing with them. I trust that counts. I do not trust the current Cash Compensation. The last file we received on Cash Compensation was 2016. What we found was, in the 20 largest federal agencies, the average salary was a 100,000 and above. It was also about bonuses. Four out of every five bonuses were disclosed but the largest bucket, the performance bonuses from over 1. 1 billion year, that was not disclosed because we were told they could not disclose it because they negotiated a way to transparency during the union agreement. This is what we think our constitutional right to transparency under article one section nine is to be enforced. We talklegislation that about to up those performance bonuses and congress. Federalrall average democrat gets 43 paid days of time off. These are benefits that are only given to the private sector and are a rarity in the private sector. And they are given to the public sector. Host but here from robert a nebraska, republican mine. Thank you, cspan. My question is around the ,argest part of the budget being entitlements. What is your organization doing to reduce those entitlements . Guest our organization in terms of entitlements we work in improper payments. , healthare and medicaid and Human Services admits 85 billion last year was improperly paid on medicare and medicaid payments. 65 billion of that was overpaid. On improper payments across the 20 largest federal agencies, since 2004 mother has been a stunning 1. 2 trillion of improper payments that those agencies admit to. Found 1, our auditors billion. These are people that arent the federal ill bet continued to receive Social Security payments or retirement and nudity payments. Blaster year, you had 6 billion overpaid on Student Loans. With a percent of all programs that are overpaid and 4 of all Student Loans overpaid, the irs cannot even get their handle on improper payments, on the earned Income Tax Program. There is 18 billion of improper payments. They admit one out of every four dollars that comes out of the earned Income Tax Program administered by the Internal Revenue service is improperly paid. This is a problem of basic inhouse Financial Accounting controls in the largest federal agencies. Ohio,here is willie from democrats. Caller thanks. I want to ask you about the money spent on the fourth of july, the extravaganza president put on. I would like to ask you another thing, since you are able to can you check on the president s salary and his and where he spends his money for going to these different venues where his york . Ss up here in new we need to know how much money were spending to support his family. Can you answer those questions . Not the only organization giving oversight President Trump. His name is top of the headlines whether it is tracking his travels, trips and thinks. What we do in openthebooks. Com is take a look at the transactional history that are disclosed by the federal agency forensicve that auditing techniques to give oversight to that information and then we breaking news. New information to put into the public debate. At 1 00 a. M. On the president s salary, by article two of the constitution, the president is mandated to take a salary. Its 400,000 dollars and we have tracked the president is each quarter donating that salary back to federal agencies. We have given oversight. Out of the blocks every year, the white house discloses payroll on june 30 every year and the last two years we have done first up at forbes. At forbes on the senior contributor around policy and the trumpve found is administration is running a leaner white house payroll. He is down 36 positions to the same point as the barack obama presidency. Of the first three years of trump versus obama, he has run a leaner headcount to the white house staff. He has saved taxpayers about 20 million. Host you talked about your forbes contributions. About what federal money is being supported. Pieces of of our is filet we like to do the National News cycle with hard data. When baltimore broke, there was a lot of misinformation in the public discourse. Like 15 billion flowed in. That was wrong. That number was not right. What we did was take a hard look at the city of baltimore. The city is a city with problems. We want to inject hard data into the discussion. What we found was there are 30,000 Public Employees based in the city of baltimore at the local level and federal level. And in baltimore, there are 13,000 city workers. We compare that against detroit where there are 7100. There are cities and well lock he milwaukee roughly the same geographic size. They have 8800 employees. Nevada, they have less than 10,000 employees. 13,000 in terms of workers. Host how did you get to that . We have 13,000 city employees, 10,500 indicators educators in baltimore schools. Then you have federal employees, 6500 federal employees that work there. There will be more than 30,000 Public Employees because there are state employees based in the city of baltimore. Found that state of maryland, they did not disclose locations so we were not able to quantify the number of state workers also in baltimore. Host more of that Information Available at openthebooks. Com, Adam Andrzejweski here to answer your questions about spending issues. Guest for dust 202 7488001 four republicans, 202 7488000 from democrats for democrats, independents6 202 7488002. Caller i bought a company in may magazine. I went on google and looked up salaries of this company, who happens to be paid for by the government and everyone of their top ceos make up 3 million. I was wondering who approves such ridiculous thanks . Things . Mark twain says everybody complains about the water but nobody does anything. Seems that is the same thing that happens with our spending. Thank you. Guest that is a good call. In june, we published in oversight report on health care and what we did at openthebooks. Com is looked at the 82 largest Nonprofit Health care providers in the country. What we found was the Nonprofit Health care providers and ceos are getting richer while the American Health care consumers are getting poorer. Average american now family spends 20,000 a year on insurance premiums out of cost in deductibles. It is expensive to afford health care. The ceos of these charities, these nonprofits, some of the largest Health Care Providers in making 13 outre million, six of them made more than 10 million. In phoenix arizona, the top two ceos and Vice President cleaned out that he 4 million in a single year. At Ascension Health care outside st. Louis, the ceo made 13. 69 and over a fouryear period he made 16 million of Cash Compensation. We also found Health Care Providers, these nonprofits in one year they will bank next to 40 billion. What that means is we need to start asking questions as patients. Question whether our doctors are working for us, the patients or whether they are working for their ceos and Nonprofit Public Charity health care employers. Host here is jerry in huntsville, alabama. Democrat line. Caller i am a firsttime caller. Is thewas wondering republicans every time they get an office get huge tax cuts to the rich. They increase spending. I was wondering how much if they gave the tax cuts and did not increase spending, would it amount to more revenue . Or is a huge portion of this trump,ecause they like increase by 20 . Is the increase in revenue coming in from the 20 increase in spending by the government . Or is it from tax cuts . Spending ifap you cut taxes, which has shown to increase tax revenues into the treasury are experiencing that at alltime highs if i cap spending, you would balance the budget. Taxes andicans cut increase spending. You win the tax cuts battle. Use the spending battle, which all it does is burdens future generations. Openthebooks. Com, we focus on the spending side of the ledger. It is a target rich environment on waste fraud corruption and taxpayer abuse. Every time we go into the federal checkbook, we have all kinds of low hanging fruit. The pentagon was purchasing coffee cups. Each cup was costing 100,000 200. When we showcased this in the wall street journal. Chuck grassley started asking questions and he found up the pentagon spends 350,000 on expensive cups. Thats that goes to the spending culture. If they are willing to do that. You can only imagine the other type of waste that is systemic within the system. Report you put out there you took a look at it and the pencil says it is by the numbers. Lets start with 170 billion dollars in taxpayer obligations. Ourt we are launching oversight report on the Small Business administration is the agency that is supposed to be lending the momandpop ,usinesses on main street businesses that cannot find financing in the private marketplace. Was the sba often funds the wealthy lifestyle. 50 million when it lasted surgery. Two country clubs, yet clubs and beach clubs. We found fda money in the last five years float into zip code 90210. That is beverly hills. We found billions of dollars did not get a main street. It went to wall street. 12 billion of sba funding went to private investment banks and investment pools. That is not Small Business and that is not mainstream. Host you list 16. 5 billion under a bad portfolio. Explain. Guest the sba admits to charging off against taxpayers 16. 5 billion of bad guest. Latest closes from the Congressional Budget Office forecast, that in the sba lending portfolio, and this year in 2020, they are going to lend 44 billion. To put that in perspective, education most for Higher Education are 100 billion. This is a lot of money. The Budget Office estimates taxpayers have to subsidize the loan folio to the tune of 4 billion. That is because of the bad debt we will accrue. Host from jim in new jersey, republican. Caller good morning. I have three points. One, great work. I cannot believe i have never heard of you before. Of this time needed. Ion, it is i am from an i. T. Back. I am put everybody know about this and that is hundred. As you know about you, make sure your website can handle. The third thing i would say is have you been working with the closes of the senior managers of the Company Trump organization . He wanted to drain the swamp. This is the tool he needs. Have you had the back . Guest we feel if the American People know all the details, they will be able to hold the politicians accountable. Realtime,gine if in real information about where taxco is were going. Public officials will make better decisions obviously when they knew millions of eyes would be watching where the textile workers where the tax dollars are being spent. People would vote that are the and of the day. One thing youll see between now and the end of the year is the latest in technology on our website. We want to be the yelp for Government Data at all levels. If you have a question, even about your school district. Yorkie your zip code and display all your public bodies in your area and you will be able to state to see where your dollars are going at every level and hold your Public Officials accountable. This data will mean something to you where you live. Host how much stuff do you have to compile this information . Guest we fight larger than what we are. We have fulltime employees. Employees all they do is file freedom of information act request, followup, break open the production and map it to our website. And to our mobile app. We have the mobile app. It is free for apple and enjoyed. It is called open the books, which pushes all of this information to your hand. Go to the website and click on a state, you will have the various breakdown. Spending andok at camping, cash, other reports. That is all available on the website. From staten island, independent, linda. Caller good morning. Thank you for your report. The numbers are staggering. Listen to the details of what salaries and bonuses it is an outrage. Send some email information because i want new york city to open the book. Out 9 billion dollars in spending. An outrage. I am going to send out any mail. Thank you for your report. Have a good day. Thanks for the feedback. In new york, we have partnered with the new york times, the New York Post on giving oversight. The mayor build the blog seo. The girl statue. He took a look at the gender and outy in his payroll of the top 200, 3 of them were actually women. 197 of the most highly compensated Public Employees in the city of new york were men. Only three were women. Just one of the areas we use hard data to hold these politicians accountable. Host i am pulling up the salaries for the state of new york. The departing name of the individual. Is this how much this person is earning directly . For 22 millionat Public Employees across the country. Year, the most highly compensated Public Employee in the country made 12 million in the year. It was a football coach at the university of alabama, nick saban. He lost the national championship. Margie, is there a this hasrganization been tested. Even police officers. The names going the file. There positions, the amount of my they make. How much overtime they get. There is no city more dangerous in america than chicago and neighborhoods. All discloses separate bugs of compensation to us. Host margie in florida, go ahead. Caller i would like to comment about the v. A. I am a former employee of a large hospital in tampa. State that just like they do hire thanks people who are making 60,000 dollars a year. Starting pay for an interior decorator. Which to me is ridiculous. I was a nurse there for 10 years. They paid when the output of the and poly new unit trauma unit. They paid for free strived palm apiece 45t 15,000 trees to decorate the unit. Is unbelievable. Money shouldve been going to the care of the paces patients. Mother making the unit pretty. They put in a climbing wall, a rockclimbing wall that most of the patients on the unit could not even use. They were physically incapable of using it. They put in a swimming pull. Years. Aked for two it could not even be you. Host thank you for the examples. To us with those examples and openthebooks. Com. My gmail address if adam openthebooks. Com. Here is what we found. 21,000 one da spent christmas trees. Im so we found the sculptures price that room homes and mentioned the 700 worth of 50 sculptures purchased by the da facility that served line veterans. There is a lot of waste in the v. A. Checkbook and it takes yourself to help the auditors rooted out and hold them accountable. Host gary is in connecticut. Guest good morning. On the 22 trillion National Debt, nobody told the evil but truth. People the truth. Is owed to the American People. When Lyndon Johnson became president , he was informed the amount of money coming in for Social Security and medicare he said well. Put this in the general fund. To go way. Basically allrs, the money taken out for bailouts, wars, you name it. Came from the funding of Social Security and medicare. Now my nobody seems tell the debt is a couple countries. No one seems to tell the truth. 120,000 per child and citizen. If the other way around. The government knows is that money. Host we will leave it there and let our guest respond. Guest the National Debt is pushing 23 joined dollars and 60 trillion of that is the vote to the American People. Your numbers are right in the ballpark. Look, we have been through this before. The National Debt to the measure of all goods and services produced in the economy, then gdp when we ended world war ii. He debt was 106 percent when we start of the great recession, that racial was down 35 . It wenturing boom times to 78 . This is going to be a drag on our economy. This is going to blame me. And me. Federal cards, Student Loans, mortgages when Interest Rates go up, it is a tax on all of us. The debt is going to crowd out other government services. Right now, the interest is almost . 5 billion a year and it plow money away. The entire grant making money in 50federal government is billion to the numbers in perspective. Host in may, your organization put out a report taking a look at funding at fortune 100 companies. We broke that on cspan on the washington journal program. What we found was over the , thee of a for your period 4100 companies blamed for hundred billion dollars worth of federal contracts, rants, direct payments, farm subsidies. They also spent 2 billion lobbying capitol hill to observe the status quo. Probably the most troubling figure was the amount of grants. 3. 2 billion worth of grants was subsidized at the fortune 100 companies. His of companies that are most successful. If they have got good ideas, they can go to wall street. They have all sorts of access to capital, innovative iso president products. They dont need to go and be subsidized by the american taxpayer. Do theseen to companies at whatever they wish or whatever type of the they want to do. Taxpayers have no claim what the innovation of the creation from that grants. 2 billion worth of lobbying and just on grants. The turn on investment was 150 . Then you have 392 billion worth of contracts that we hope are competitively bid on top of grants. Host detroit, michigan, most via . Go hit ahead. Caller i live in detroit. Detroit was doing good. Your republican government is paying. Joy. Are great then holler. Then put it bankrupt. They sold all the assets and they had outsourced contract. ,he people working for the city they did not have a job. The school, they took over the school. Happened toe what one of those guys is he was trapped. He did not have a chance to do both more like that. And him wanttrump to do. Host thanks. Ofst large cities some these cities have no problems. One of my problems in the National Discourse is the problem in baltimore. Our auditor downloaded all the 311 calls to the city quantifiedy line and whether or not citizen rats on city streets is going up or down. The city spent 300,000. It put 13 on the street. A citizen complaint rats of fallen by 40 . This should possibly be looked at as a model. Citizendid oversight of complaints from 31 want to new york city with the new york times, the headline of the times was the rats are taking over the city. Maybe baltimore has a good idea on rep mitigation. Off twitterage f asked what product in United States is federal Government Spending . Guest i do not have an answer. I do not know the percentage of the week and the numbers backwards. Was 21 billion and Government Spending is 4. 4 billion dollars you can do the math backwards and it is about 20 of gdp as government. You have to double that for students local spending. Host from virginia, john. Good morning. Caller i wanted to thank the guest for the work they are doing. It is essential to a functioning democracy. We share spending when there is numbers attached to it. It is transparent. I am downloading the app. I did i just want to say thank you. We feel very fortunate to be in this space alone in the they did a world. Government information is siloed 50,000 substantial public bodies. It takes a lot of work to all the information. A team is willing to do that work. We have built using technology and we have coded a virtual freedom of information act machine. It has taken a couple of years to get to this point. Funding to capture every dime, tax and spending to cash in every level. This is jenny from ohio, republican. Caller first of all, i have a question. I should have gone back to look. And bushtween clinton senior when the debt first started . , first it washat dry, then it was slow. Hen attorneys passed the law 1991 ricocheted on this day. Doctors, theital, disc goes on and on. As long as it does not hurt anybody or whatever, what i think is hurting america how not cite 91 persons america. They were speaking about this. It was reserved nationwide. The one thing about doctors back then, they did the buddy system with its not have insurance. His all first started right before that started. I do not know what guest i think the call are generally is upset with the status quo. Rightly so. This week at openthebooks. Com we have a quarter million subscribers to our email list where people sign up and we send them yells on a weekly basis. A and he took it and we took a poll. It is ethical for a number of congress to elicit federal contractors for Campaign Cash if the contractor is based in their district . We got the results. There were 2000 responses, which is a good rate. It was 96 of the respondents felt it is unethical for a member of congress to solicit Campaign Cash from federal contractors based in district. American people are always underestimated when it comes to reforms. It is the standard question that good policy is also good politics. Leadongress to be able to on Ethics Reform to lead on spending reform, the American People are craving this type of leadership. Host this is massachusetts, mark. Caller is it true 50 of the federal budget goes to maintain Social Security, medicare and the Safety Net Program . Yes. Thisther 40 is so there is about 1. 3 chilean dollars worth of Discretionary Spending and about. 5 of that goes to the pentagon, the department of defense. The rest of that are the programs of good intentions and the total budget around 4. 5 billion. Host one more call come alive for democrats, this is diana. Caller i would like to hear more about how you explained not too long ago during this segment that under this administration, his spending was at the lowest there is. I would like to know or tell the people why that reason is. That is because most of the federal employee programs everywhere have been cut. Host we apologize because we have a session of congress coming in 30 seconds. Caller in terms of the executive Agency Payroll counts, what the disclosure shows and it is only through fiscal year 2018. Fiscal year 2019 will end shortly. What it shows is there are two agencies that are up strongly. This is the v. A. And this is the department of Homeland Security. There is more Information Available at openthebooks. Com. Andrew Adam Andrzejweski is the ceo. Later, we will talk to guests from des moines, iowa about the politics there, particularly as Democratic Candidates come to the iowa state fair to we will take you to the pro forma session for the house of representatives. N. Will be back after the