Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240703

It is the last fiscal year 2023 and without an agreement government shuts down tonight. Federal workers will stop getting a paycheck. The house comes in at 10 00 a. M. Right after this program the senate, at noon. We are taking your calls on the possible Government Shutdown that is hours away. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. And independents, 202 7488002. We have a line set asi for federal employees, 202 7488003. You can also use that line to text us. We are on social media on facebook and x. Welcome to washington journal. I want to start with this article from capitol hill. Speaker Kevin Mccarthy on friday evening floated passing a clean continuing resolution without ukraine aid, marking a clear shift in the possibility he is willing to consider ending a shut down after being repeatedly undercut by his own party. The speaker did not commit putting a measure on the floor, and other republican said lawmakers are still exploring gop only possibilities to bring up a vote on saturday. Here is from late saturday talking about the latest on negotiations. [video clip] i firmly believe there are no winners in a Government Shutdown. That is the best way forward, to make sure that the government does not shutdown. Questions . What are you doing now . Are you open to a clean continuing resolution . We had a clean one with our ukraine on it. I think if the senate puts ukraine on it and focuses on ukraine over america, that could cause real problems. Our goal is to secure the border. As you remember the house is the only one that has passed with 70 of the discretionary. The senate has not. It is productive to keep the house open while we finish our work. What i have directed the members to do is they were supposed to be out next week. They will be. We are back care. Obviously, the government shuts down tonight at midnight. I dont think so at all. I think we can still move. Host host that was the speaker from last night. Theyre taking your calls this morning on the possibility of a Government Shutdown. Lets start with phil in long island. Caller good morning. I really appreciate cspans coverage of congress. I have learned so many things about what we spend our money on, and how messed up both sides are. Republican stuck in something about an abortion pam. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything. It doesnt belong in their. That is a hindrance. We talk about Border Security which the other side is no one a negotiate on. Were talking about spending money on things we cant afford. Common sense tells us that if you taken 5 trillion you can spend 7 trillion yearoveryear when we have a 33 trillion debt. With that being said, why cant they compromise on continuing resolution to fund all domestic spending and cut all foreign aid until we get this result . The lebanese government we fund has 87,000 soldiers. The United States has 2 million armed forces with 282 generals. Iraq gets funding from us. Theyre transporting their royals. Host do you think ukraine funding should be taken out as well . Caller there has to be tighter security on ukraines funding. For now we have to keep it up. If you look at the ue, other countries havent input in their fair share, 2 of their gdp. W our funding moste of the bill for that. Something has to be done. Everyone once the u. S. To pay for everything. If we keep spending money like this, we they dont love the dollar to be a global currency. Host michael is next in fort oaks. Caller this is michael. I love your suit this morning, mimi. It is good to see you again. I have faith in our leaders that there will be a resolution to the problem. It will take all day and most of the night tonight. We should have a correction under path forward to keeping governmentfunded and running. Unfortunately, there are a few people who want to hold country and apollos in a pause. They should not shut government down just to get a few more things that they feel they need on the bargaining table in their favor. Host that was on the front page of the wall street journal. It says the shutdown as likely as rebels defy gop leadership. Social media and online leadership and power polarizing members. Small group of House Republicans walking their leaders and pushing the government towards a shutdown would have carried a dismissive label and passive previous years. They would have been called gadflies. Today the gadflies are dominating the political scene. John is in detroit michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wish the government wouldnt shutdown. Personally, i think the ukraine funding is just an abomination, an appalling thing. This war has been misrepresented. I believe the russian reasoning of denazifying ukraine. We had members of our senate sign the letter decrying White Supremacy but they dont want to talk about it. This ukraine thing is an abomination. Host next caller. Caller you do such a great job. Its wonderful what you do. Im a democrat but i have some republican leaning tendencies. I believe in those buoys on the southern border. I think on the one who invented the idea of putting up a wall, because im a low income earner. People who come across the border compete with me for pay. 20 years ago i called cspan about the wall. I thought trump the businessman was going to raise, was going to be a businessman. I thought he was going to raise the cap on the Social Security, whatever the cap was 13,000, just remove the cap. I thought he was going to come in and put a fee, maybe . 50 on every Stock Transaction to raise the revenue. I thought you would balance the budget. I thought the idea of taxing anyone who earns over 100,000 is the right way to go. Host think the solution is more revenue than . Caller fpr low income and middle income people like myself whether youre republican or democrat to go against to shoot yourself in the foot for not getting behind and i the alike raising taxes on those who earn over 400,000 a year, need more irs agents to go after rick tax cheats. The idea that you will have people all over the Country Living in mediocre means, in trailers, apartments, struggling, saying i dont want more irs agents to go after the rich people because it came out of a democrat, people have to be nuts to vote against their economic selfinterests. It is plain and simple. You have to get money from somewhere. Rich people used to pay so much more of the taxes in this country. Now with accounting and cooking the books, theyre able to whittle their taxes down, 50 , 10 , 5 . Host if you are on the line, stand by, we will speak to a reporter now. Senior writer for cq will call cq roll call. Tell us the latest. Yesterday the house failed to pass a shortterm funding bill. What are the options . Where is this going today . The house and senate guest the house and senate both come in today. The house may take up another stopgap spending bill. They may wait. We dont know. After the house defeated the continuing resolution on the floor yesterday, Speaker Mccarthy and the rep. Pocan conference got together and talked. They discussed a few different options. One would be conservatives stopgap measure, similar to the one they defeated. Another one would be a one o two or two weeks stopgap, which they called clean, meaning it would not have additional provisions like Border Security provisions attached. Another option would be ticking up the senate continuing resolution, which the senate has not passed yet, but will be working on today. Host what are the chances of any of those getting through both the house and senate . Guest the chances of that happening before the government shuts down are virtually zero. The government today is the end of the fiscal year. If a temporary spending bill is not passed by congress, signed by the president , the government will shut them. Shutting down over the weekend is not a big deal, but a shutdown would start on monday. Host the senate has their own version of a cr. How much republican support does that have . Guest the initial vote to towards the faa bill, which would be the vehicle for the cr has a lot of support, 76. Since then republicans have raised concerns over this. Republicans have discussed amending the cr with Border Security measures. Some republicans in the senate are saying they would like to try to take up a cr that could actually go somewhere in the house. Republicans and democrats were discussing adding these Border Security measures yesterday. They really are stymied at this point. It is unclear whether there will be an agreement to add Border Security provisions to cr or make other changes to it. Host what are republicans looking for . What is it that democrats are not in agreement on without . Guest it is a combination of things. If you look at the cr that did not pass in the house, it would split a silent eligibility for migrants coming over the border. It would increase penalties, it would restart border wall construction, and a number of other things. In the Senate Republicans one idea was to add about 6 billion in Border Security funding and also add some Border Security policies. It is not really clear, the details of that are not really clear yet, and it is possible that republicans will decide they are not even going to attempt that. Host there were some spending bills that were passed in the house. Tell us about those. How many were passed and what was the senate saying about those and what are those stakes in the senate . Guest a couple of days ago the house took up 4 spending bills, department of defense, Homeland Security, state, foreign operations, and agriculture, and actually passed 3 of the four. The did not pass agriculture. These bills have lower spending than the bills marked up by the Senate Appropriations committee. They have a lot of different writers, antiabortion writers and policies that democrats object to. There was a wide golf between gulf between these housepasse appropriation bills and what the Senate Appropriations committee has passed. The senate has not yet passed any actual appropriation bills. The house has passed 3 more this week, so the house is passed 4 Appropriations Bills. Host there have been rumors about the speaker losing his job, and there being a motion to vacate. What are you hearing about that . Guest congressman matt gaetz from florida has been routinely threatening to bring up such a motion. He said he even might bring it up soon. Speaker mccarthy has dismissed those threats. It is not really clear when it might be brought up, or with the result would be. Those threats continue. Host with the lead contender be for that job . Has anybody expressed interest in that position . Guest no one has as far as we know. When mccarthy first became speaker, it went through 15 ballots because of Republican Opposition. Some Republican Opposition to him. There were various jim jordan from ohio was a favorite of some of the opponents of mccarthy. Jordan said he was not interested in the job. A number of people have been mentioned as possibilities, Steve Scalise from louisiana is one person who has been mentioned. The wip has been mentioned. It is not clear that anyone is interested in the job. It is not clear whether anyone besides mccarthy would be able to get the votes. These rebels as they have been called, these republican rebels, they may oppose mccarthy, some of them, and prefer somebody else, but there are a lot of moderate republicans in the house, they would not necessarily support that choice of the rebels. Host the question often comes up about members of congress continuing to receive paid during a Government Shutdown. This was brought up by nikki haley during the last gop debate. Where does that stand . Our members of congress able nancy mays has said that she would not accept pay. Is that a possibility. Guest i dont know how that would work. Several members have said they dont want to collect paid during a shutdown because many government most Government Employees would not be paid. The military would be paid if Congress Passes the bill to pay the military during the shutdown. Congressional members, all of them would not lose their pay. Some are saying they dont want to collect their pay. Unclear how that would work out. Host paul gosar, Senior Writer at cq. You can find more of his writing online. Thank you for joining us. We will go back to your calls now about the possibility of a Government Shutdown tonight at midnight. Gary is calling from sterling, genia. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Shout out to bill om goshen in goshen. Im sorry mcconnell is going to have another head injury because of this. We went through this three times during the obama administration, and each time it was a failure. The last time i lost 12 of my 401 k , and i did not get it come back to equity for 10, almost 11 months. How many kicks from the mule in the head does it take mr. Mcconnell to have . Host you are blaming mcconnell in the senate, not the republicans in the house . Guest both of them. Mcconnell tom mccarthy about these thing mcconnell taught mccarthy about these things. We have 2 types of people in this country. Those who are fools and those who believe in common sense. You have half the population of the world you are going to let take advantage of you, and your saying i none of them will. That is a bunch of nonsense. Common sense would tell you some of them will. That is exactly what 4 teenage girls did. They all got pregnant. One went on to have two juvenile the link wents. Host we are getting a little off subject. Lets go to billings, missouri. Caller how are you . Host what do you think, barry . Caller caller i want to point out that the rules of government, rules is just another word for algorithm. We need to prioritize a dignified life above all else, so governments everywhere should provide food, water, shelter, clothing and health care, and that will cure capitalism. It will solve reparations. It will solve immigration. It will go very far to reverse Climate Change. There will be no more fear of stock market crashes or popping bubbles. The first leaders in the countries around the world that will enact this will go down in history as the first ones who did. Host we have a line set aside for federal workers. Lena is calling us on that line from illinois. Thank you for taking caller thank you for taking my call. I made government retiree. I am 90 years old and they keep going out bonaire utilities and everything. Going up on our utilities and everything. If electricity keeps going up, i have medicine and everything. I full have to figure out how to pay that bill. Republicans should be the first ones should not to pay their to take their checks. Host i was going to ask you about the last Government Shutdown. You might have been affected by that as well. Caller it is hard to catch up after a certain time off, and when you dont have nobody to help you, you might have 2 over the amount that you need to get help from the government w ell, from the state even. I cant even get food stamps because im 5 over. When my daughter died and i had her two kids to take care of, they offered me food stamps. Some of these older ones now, they dont even remember what they are doing. That man stood up there and didnt even know where he was. I think they should redo the whole government because this is getting ridiculous, and all the murders, and you are scared to go anywhere. Host we certainly wish you the best. Ray is in ithaca, new york. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I consider myself a strong republican, but mccarthy needs to do resolution. The panic is setting in. This will only backfire. I blame a lot of this on matt gaetz. I think mccarthy has done a good job. He has to work with the democrats. I dont think there is anybody who wants the job who can actually get the votes. You have to do what we have to do to stop it, dont make ourselves look bad, and move on. Host ray, there is a pro public interview with the president. Here is the headline from that. With shutdown looming, President Biden calls out Kevin Mccarthy. Lets take a look at a portion from that interview. [video clip] the speaker has made a terrible bargain in order to keep the speakership. He is willing to do things i think he knows are inconsistent with constitutional processes. Number two, i think it says that there is a group of megarepublicans who generally want to have a fundamental change in the way the system works. That is what worries me the most. Host said to be published tomorrow, if you would like to take a look at it. Richard is up next in buffalo, minnesota. Good morning. Caller morning. This is pappy benson in minnesota. I am 80 years old. I lived up on iron ridge in the early 80s. Back then democrats and republicans got along. We survived the 80s and 90s. I am a proud american. Right now, we are looking like this stupidest people in the whole world. We looked dumb. We supposed to be the shining light and we look stupid. That is all i got to say. Anyone who knows me knows who i am. I wish this country the best it can get. Host guarded. Look got it. Lets go to cedar rapids, iowa. Caller i sympathize with the republican moderates who have to face, especially those in marginal districts, have to face election next year. These radicals will cause the republicans to lose the house next year. Same could be said for democrats on statements like those of representative omar, senators and others. It just drives these moderates crazy. With as close as margins are these days, the radicals need to sit back and ask is it worth losing our House Majority because of this craziness . Lets talk to tom next to host host his a federal employee in the flam, pennsylvania host lets talk to tom next. He is a federal employee in bethlehem, pennsylvania. Caller i am a former federal employee. Host did you live through one of the former shutdowns . Caller i did. If you get two parties together and one party says this is dead on arrival when it hits the senate, and the other party says this is dead on arrival when it hits the house of representatives, should on the government until they reach an end to this dead on arrival stuff. Host next caller is lisa. Caller i had a couple of questions. My heart goes out to the lady who called a little bit ago. I just wonder who will be affected by this. I am on Social Security myself. Are we going to be affected . Host Social Security checks will still go out. There was a really good website here, if you go to factcheck dr. The work factcheck. Org. They have a piece on what Government Services would be affected by a shutdown. Lets take a look at House Freedom august member andy ogle. He was one of the 21 House Republicans who voted against a temporary spending bill, and mentioned the idea of a seven day temporary spending bill. [video clip] if you go back to january, we promised an appropriations bill. That was the deliverable we continue to work on, on of the Appropriations Bills. Have you spoken with your colleagues in the Freedom Caucus about trying to unify . I have spoken to some of them, but not all of them. With the sevenday proposal include all of the border stuff . It would be a pared down version of the 30 day. I dont know that the votes are there. It is worth having a conversation. We have until midnight, on saturday and we should stay late, get up early, and work late tomorrow. It would reauthorize it every seven days. If we were unable to obtain whatever deliverable that might be, we could come together as a congress to say we will head towards another sevenday authorization or maybe it is a shutdown. We have an obligation. We should have stayed here in august,. When you come back 00 when you leave when you leave in july 40 days to pass this shutdown. There was no way to get to anything but a cr when we left august 1. We should have stayed in august. The fact that we left is why our backs are against the wall. Some of my colleagues do not like it, but they signed up for this job. Should stay here and work. Host andy ogle, the representative from tennessee. The house will be in session today at 10 00 a. M. We will have that for you as usual. The senate will come in at noon. We are taking your calls about a Government Shutdown. Caller my name is matthew. I think the republicans and democrats, if they dont want to pass the budget and help the people who need help in this country, they should not get paid for doing their jobs when they dont show up. Today. Have a good day. Host lets go to gainesville, florida, independent line, good morning, christopher. Christopher, you have to mute your tv. Caller yes maam. Oh, mute the tv . Host go right ahead. Caller im calling because this is ridiculous. If you dont call your representatives and asked them what is going on, because that is what is going on with the lobbyists, interests going on at the own time. We should look out for our soldiers and their families, and the fallen soldiers. It is ridiculous. Yall cant take care of the veterans and widows. Their kids can go to college. Their kids can eat properly, while their mothers and fathers are overseas protecting their country. It is ridiculous for these politicians to play with this country over this issue that they have. This is exactly what is going on. I dont care what party you are in, if that person is of american citizens in this country, you need to vote them out of office, and get someone who will do the job and not go in there bickering about republican or democrat. America, get off your but, stop going after each other. That is one of the main problems that is going on right now. Get together and figure it out. Host lets go to ed in newcastle, pennsylvania. Caller my comment is very simple. Watching cspan last evening and through the morning here, watching them in person debate in the house was very interesting, and now coming to the simple conclusion listening to some of the republicans, it is pretty simple. W aree going to save this country or we are not. If we dont cut the spending, if we dont secure the border,i f we dont pull back on of the reckless spending of biden, what we have left . Host all righty. Jeff, alston, maryland. You are a federal employee . Caller i am a current federal employee. I was in the military for the 1995 clinton Government Shutdown. Host tell us about your experience. What are you expecting this time around . Caller we are expecting to be notified tomorrow morning what our status is. We we have a plan moving forward. Biden keeps his supporting all the other agencies in the government. It is frustrating how that is going. We are expecting we will be employed from the 14th through being furloughed monday morning, so there is still some questions up in the air. As an employee of the government, i think it is really frustrating that we havent figured out whatever Political Party is in power at the time, i think we really need to safeguard congress should fund the government. Your projects, your agendas, you pass after order word afterwards. It has been the same thing to up september 30 same thing come september 30. Do know if you will be expected to come into work or host host if you will be furloughed . Host do you know if you will be expected to come into work or if you will be furloughed . Caller we have a plan. I think the agency is still a little nervous, they are trying to brocade employees who will work and then be furloughed one week. It helps share the load. We have a responsibility to keep our organization running. Host im under the impression that the 2019 law only applies to federal employees who still have to show up for work, who were still working and the furloughed ones, it was not necessarily in law that they would get that back pay. Caller it was my understanding that it was the opposite. Prior to 2019 the employees who did show up would receive their backpay because of their exempted status. I dont have the whole bill in front of me. Host we have a guest coming at 8 00 a. M. Eastern, and i will be sure to ask her about that. Karen in virginia, democrat good morning. Caller to the young lady who called about the snap benefits, snap will 100 be affected, so you need to know that as a republican woman, that you are not immune. All of this is the classic stuck on stupid philosophy. Kevin mccarthy sold his soul to the devil for this position of power. Anyone who will put yo the job on the put his job on the line just so he could take the seat away from nancy pelosi, shows that he had no intention. My husband is a federal employee, and he is essential so he has to work. It is embarrassing. Everyone likes to blame biden. The point of the matter is we are supposed to be the most progressive country in the world, and we cannot even keep the government open for 30 days, let alone a year. We need to get off of our behinds stop being narrowminded. It is not about biden, it is not about trump. It is about living in american life. Pay attention. Shut downs happen in the Democratic Party. You can talk about aoc and omar, but they are not holding up the government. Host to be fair, there were shutdowns during democratic administrations. I hear your point. Christian is in arizona. Caller thank you for taking my call. First of all, my heart goes out to the folks who are going to be impacted by a Government Shutdown due to the inability to pass a budget or the fact that there will not be a continuing resolution passed by midnight. Secondly, i will say that all Political Party is inherent to the people. It does not blunt to the government. It does not belong to the government. Because the people in our country control the political parties, that means that if we tell our elected officials that we do not want something, they have to do what we say. The reason why most of the time, and im going to say most of the time, democrats do not have this problem is because most of the democrats power comes from the top down so they tell their voters what they are going to do. On the upside republicans, most of the republicans, the voters and the Precinct Committee inside the Political Party tells the republicans what we want them to do. I would say to the rightleaning voters and to the republican voters, the folks that fought hard in the last 2022 election, who got there u. S. Senators elected i would say be encouraged, keep doing what you, are doing keep putting the pressure on your elected officials to do what you want them to do, and the last thing i am going to say is if inflation continues to go up, the money that you get from the government will not be worth anything. If inflation continues to go up, when you go to the atm, you will not be able to get any money out of that atm. If people keep going over that border, not only will that drive up inflation as well, but you will have problems with your fire, your police, your school districts. Host christian brought up the border. Lets hear from matt gaetz. He talked on the floor before the house failed to pass that shortterm funding bill about the need for stronger Border Security. [video clip] the house of representatives has passed bills to Fund Border Patrol and state foreign ops. These are the core operations of government. The senate should pass those today but the role we are on now passes a continuing resolution that weakens republican positions on border policy. Last night we passed a department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that was lasted policy requirements. They had to do certain things to fix the border to get the money, and one of those things was everify. Last night we stood together and demanded that everify be included and mayorkas wanted the money. This continuing resolution that the rule we are on right now takes it out why would republicans overnight back away from such a strong and necessary position . I will be voting against of this resolution because i want House Republicans to have the strongest position on the border. The American People will come along with us on that. I know big businesses do not want everify, but host that was representative matt gaetz from florida. We are taking your calls on the possibility of a Government Shutdown. Lisa is in alabama. Caller i think we should sign before we fund another country. [indiscernible] with nothing else on it. We always have to add something. Host all right. Nicholas is in baker. Caller this is what i want to say to yall. Clinton, from clinton all the way to right now, we have been bailing out, democrats have been bailing out the republicans from what they have been doing. Towards the border concern, the way that was in the 1970s and 1980s, the businessman used to use everyone who came before. Now that they cant do it, they will come together to secure the border. You should be able to come together, but you have so much politics. We are not very good at being american. If you look back from clinton all the way to right now at the stuff that they have been doing, the republicans, clinton, all of the democratic president s, we had a shutdown. Every president that came in was some kind of problem. Host all right. Trevor is next. He is a federal employee in quantico, virginia. Caller good morning. I think matt gaetz makes a great point about the border. Americans all agree. I have not met anybody yet this is difficult for all of us federal workers. I im shutting things down on standby. Im not comfortable with the blame game. This is on all of them, specifically one party who owns two thirds of the power. Host you are in quantico so i can guess where you might be working. Are you essential . Will you be working through the shutdown . Caller i am. There are about a dozen or so of us who will be here. Host financially, are you ready for that . Caller you try to always be. It is still a scary thought. Particularly, some of my workers are not. Some of them are not in a position where they can handle this. Fortunately, i am but that is not the important thing to me. Some of these guys are not going to make it if this does not get done. Host what options do they have . Have you talked to them about it . Caller we have given them several options. There are Credit Unions who are able to fund things for them during the shutdown that they will reimburse. There are Employee Assistance programs. It is not something they look forward to. It will not cover their everyday expenses. Host trevor, we wish you the best. James in akron, ohio. Caller a few things here. First of all, we talk about the border. We have been for many, many years trying to get some type of an agreement on what to do with the border. We have no border rules. Therefore, the border is open because both democrats and republicans have not gotten together and put a border plan together. That is one of the problems. We keep talking about running out of money, but we have been decreasing the taxes ever since Ronald Reagan to the wealthy. The rich, if we tax them more, we could not text them enough to pay our back taxes. It is just like alone. Over a period of time if you do not pay the bill, it keeps getting higher and higher. Every times the democrats begin to get things moving again and get some of the tax money back, the next thing, it has been done five times. Everyone was on the Republican Party. Then they complain about not having any money to do anything with. It this common sense it is common sense. Sarah host sarah, next caller. Caller im very concerned about the Government Shutdown. Ive been hearing a lot of talks about security, namely securing the border. There is another Security Matter that is of particular concern. I had read that the senate was thinking of cutting the ncsb at 18 million. Host you said the ntsp . The National Transportation safety board . Caller the nonprofit security grant program. That money goes to securing various organizations security, like jewish organizations. It would Fund Security cameras, etc. Im not sure where things stand with that, but at this time with rising antisemitism, that is one fund i would oppose any cuts to. Other than decreasing the funds i would support increasing the funding level. Host all right. Tessa is in University Place washington. Caller how are you . Host im doing ok. Caller thank you for having me. Im a resident nurse. I work in the er. I came from brazil. I am a democrat. The citizens of the United States, they take it for granted a lot of things in here. Politicians are not thinking about the citizens. They are thinking about their own pockets. I can say one thing to my understanding why politicians are voting on this, their big check comes like nothing has happened, while the workers have their paycheck cut every single time every time they are fighting for funds. As people we should put the paychecks of politicians on the same level as the workers. Host lets take a look at White House Office of management. [video clip] more than 2 million Service Workers would not get their paycheck. Nutrition assistance for nearly 7 million women and children who rely on wi would be jeopardized. Smallc businesses would lose out on loans. What kind of choices that . In addition to the 2 million Service Members who will not get their paychecks, we are talking about more than 1. 5 million federal civilian employees by current estimates roughly a quarter of whom are veterans missing paychecks. Meat and food inspectors, Border Patrol agents, tsa agents just a small example. Federal contractors have no guarantee of backpay. None the thousands of federal contractors who serve the mission of this country to serve the American People, no guarantee that they are made whole. Folks i see around my office every day, people you see around your cleaning here cleaning who can least afford to miss a paycheck, no guarantee they will be made whole. Host that was the office of the omb. Just a few more minutes left in this segment to take your call about the possibility of a Government Shutdown at midnight. Our next caller is in randolph. Caller thank you for taking my call. My feeling is if we shut the border down only for entry of immigrants who come in legally, not illegals, not criminals, and shut down the funds that come into support them, we would have enough money to pay for everyone else that are currently suffering with this shutdown. I dont know why we are funding the legals. We funding illegals. We are destroying our country. Host you said you wanted to end illegal immigration into the country as well . Caller illegal. I support the everify. I support immigrants who come in legally. I do not support the illegal, the criminals and so on. No one seems to want to address that. Susan host his and clarks host susan is in clarksville, tennessee. Caller i love this program. My nerves are a little rattled. Host youre doing great, susan. Keep going. Caller as far as the border goes i do believe since a lot of the wall was purchased and it is just sitting there rotting that it should go up, since it is already done, but i do believe that trump is behind these magas. He is running the show. I know putin definitely wants ukraine, and trump will do what putin wants. Host what do you think of the possibility of a shutdown, susan . Caller it is scary. Im supposed to go visit my grandkids. My son is in the military. He did get paid, thank god. I dont know. Im scared to go anywhere. Im going to missouri, which is very trumpy. It is a scary time right now. Host an tsa agents at the airports will be working but not getting paid as well. Caller it is sad. I dont care about the federal contractors. They tend to nickel and dime the government to death anyway. It is hurting the people that are not wealthy. Feature the journals of willis and clark following the louisiana purchase. An expedition to explore the west all the way to the pacific ocean. Well clark led the mission which covered 8000 house from 1804 to 1806. Was and clark kept detailed journals on the train, made people, the author of several books on lewis and clarke books is a traveler of the lewis and clarke trail. Watch monday live at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. We sure to scan the qr code. You can learn more about the authors. Book tv every sunday o cspan two features leading authorsisssing their latest nonfiction books. It lived a noonastern, the author of survival of the richest joined book tvs indepth to talk about the digital revolution and the consequences, human autonomy and more. At 7 00 p. M. On afterwards, New York Times reporter looks at the successes and failures in his book the times. Watch book tv every sunday on cspan2 and find a quote schedule on your Program Guide or watch online atime at book tv. Org. Of the democracy doesnt just look like this, it looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work, a republic drives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the nations capitol to wherever you are, the opinion that matters the most is your own. Cspan, powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back. I am joined by molly wisner, a reporter for federal times. Lets start with how many federal workers there are and how many could be affected by a shutdown. Guest there are roughly 2 million federal employees across enteral agencies in the government doing all different kinds of jobs from tsa workers to d. C. Headquarters. All of them will be affected by a federal shutdown in some ways, not the same way. It is a large workforce and it includes untold number of contract workers who support them and other folks. Host ended 2 million also doesnt include the military, isnt that correct . Guest thats correct. There are civilian workers in the pentagon but Service Members scattered across the country and the world really are likely to be affected by this. Host so we are looking at somewhere around 3. 5 million is the number i have heard including the armed services. During a shutdown, federal workers will either be furloughed, accepted, or exempted. Lets go through each of those and if you could explain what that means. Guest for the average employee, you will fall into two buckets and we have heard essential and nonessential in the past. It is clear that every employees work is essential to an operation. Generally speaking, you are wondering what happens what happened next week, if could be basically accepted from a furlough meaning your work is critical to national security, the protection of life and property. Think of the folks working in air traffic control, federal Law Enforcement agents. They would be generally required to keep working during shutdown but that does it meet meaning they will be paid during shutdown. Those who work in research and development, hiring, training, audits, administrative support and contracting offices, those folks depending on how their office is funded may be more likely to be furloughed. Host we will put on the screen the accepted categories so that people can see them. They are employees necessary to perform activieexpressly authorized by law, necessary to form necessarily implied by law, or necessary to discharge of the president s constitutional duties and powers and finally to protect life and property. That is according to the office of personnel management. For those who are furloughed and the paychecks stop, once hopefully the government gets funded and the go back to work, how long does it take for that to come back . Guest that is the big question and anyones guess. In years past we realize once the deal is reached and once employees are called back, there is a lag time. To have to get back to their offices and depending on how many offices it is a large number. You can look at 2018 and 2019, all told those working without pay was of the 800,000 number. There are a lot of folks that will be waiting on a paycheck putting pressure on offices to trim them out as quickly as possible. It is not just where it picks up. They will have to be subject to the resources they have and will do the best that they can but it is certainly not an immediate process. Host you can join us if you would like to make a comment, our lines are democrats 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001 and independents 202 7488002 if you are a federal employee it is 202 7488003. What are the options for furloughed employees . They are not allowed to go to work even if they wanted to. Are they able to get Unemployment Benefits . Are they able to get another parttime job to make ends meet . Guest the short answer is yes. Those in this area in d. C. And across the area are somewhat accustomed to having to prepare for potential shutdowns annually. Number one, Unemployment Insurance. The important thing to remember is each state has laws regarding their own Unemployment Insurance programs. I encourage folks to brush up on that now and get familiar with what the specific eligibility requirements are for your program. You should find that readily available online. You can look to the department of labor and they have questions and resources available. That is a good place to start. What might to be true for you may not be true for someone else working in a different state. In years past municipalities and counties have put out resources and webpages. I would encourage folks to look at their local county and State Government sites for information and applications for those programs once they open. The other thing folks can do and not every fed has deep financial reserves, a lot of Credit Unions that have worked with military families and also federal employees, they have some programs. They differ, sometimes they can be no cost or lowcost loan or other programs you can inquire about because they recognize they are Civil Servants and this is a realistic threat every year. The advice a lot of Financial Advisors has given is explain your situation, whether that is through the credit union or you your utility company. It never hurts to be honest about what is going on and explain your status. It never hurts to ask and over communicate that. Host you have an article in the federal times, federal Agency Contingency plans lay the way for shutdown notices. Tell us about the contingency plans. What is in them and is every Agency Required to have one . Guest each agency has a contingency plan. They are publicly available and you file with the office of management and budget and there is a webpage. I encourage people who have questions on where they fall to check those out. They are pretty detailed. These plans are what they sound like, a plan b that agencies have on file well in advance of a shutdown or the potential of one and they lay out which Agency Operations would continue, which are funded independently some are feebased for example. You can take the Postal Service as another example. They dont take money from annual appropriations process. You can see where your office money comes from and these plans are supposed to be updated every year. They should have been updated in 2021. You will notice that not all of them are. The majority are updated. Those are very much changing and some are still outdated. For the most part, agencies will have all that laid out. Host will show that. It is that whitehouse. Gov. You can for the contingency plans in hear the agencies listed by alphabetical order. You can click on it and to see the pdf of their contingency plans. When do employees get notified of their status . How much notice do they have . Guest not a lot. Monday could be very unusual work date for folks. We wait for the supervisor and they will get the word from the agencies and the white house a memo was sent from the white house primary them and be prepared of the possibility. Come monday morning, some folks may have been told to come in to work and they may have been sent home if they have been furloughed. Every plan will tell you exactly how long it takes to basically trigger that. There will be folks in offices on monday to carry out those duties and close out the last remaining payroll functions. Any work that can be done is simply to put notices on email and whatever you can do to prepare for not being in your office. Host lets talk to callers. Eddie is in arlington. Caller i recently retired from the federal government and if you were to do a survey, most of us look at this as additional paid vacation time. It will eventually be settled and we will be given back pay. I think we are shedding crocodile tears. I know many federal employees are actually gleeful and are hoping that the shutdown takes place because they are going to get time off and they will get paid for it eventually. Guest i think some may be optimistic. Folks who have been through this before sort of have the approach of i will wait and see and then start worrying. We have heard from unions and employees about those on the lower end who may not be making as much money and have Student Loans to start paying back. The bills dont stop coming in because there paycheck doesnt. There are definitely some folks who are concerned that if it drags on for a long time those effects would be more felt severely. Host bernie is up in new york, democrat. Caller first i would like to thank the previous caller for giving me a different view of the proposed shutdown. My understanding is that donald trump has encouraged the republicans to shut down the economy. Can you confirm that . Guest i dont think we can definitively say either way. It is a very complicated situation. Several weeks ago we didnt expect to be here and all of this has happened and involved very quickly. What that comes down to in terms of cause and effect, that can be looked into. It is definitely a complicated situation. Even today we will see may be small developments but still very match and much an uptotheminute thing. Host there is an article, the headline from the New York Times, how trump is complicating attempts to avoid a shutdown. Former president has been pushing a shutdown but views are shaped by his own handling of the 2018 shutdown. That is in the New York Times if you would like to look at that. Remi in brooklyn park, maryland. Caller thank you for taking my call. At 707i am looking back over history here and where we at 77, i am looking back over history here and where we are you look from vietnam to afghanistan. We are looking at a 33 trillion National Debt. The problem with that is it started with the bushcheney administration. Are we going to keep running this debt to 100 million and keep putting it on our kids and grandkids . At some point the implosion is bound to happen. What is it we are trying to do to circumvent that . That is my comment. Host any comment molly . Guest the Historical Perspective is important. Several political scientists and folks who used to work in government who have a backward looking view has said that shutdowns of a recent memory have become a lot more damaging. They feel more spiteful which ties in again to the anxiety surrounding all of this. There was a time when shutdowns didnt happen, really for the 1980s before the 1980s or even before that. They were a couple hours or days at most. Look at 2018 and 20 1990s, they were much younger and much more damaging look at the look at 2018 and 2019, they were much more damaging. Caller pat is up next. Host cat is up next. Caller the people who caused the shutdown pat is up next. Caller the people who caused the shutdown should be punished. My view is the democrats should all be in jail for supporting a criminal organization, running our border. Host this has come up as far as members of congress who make 174,000 in salary continuing to get paid. Guest that is true. Have seen some fits and starts with adulation to try to hold their salaries essentially until a deal is reached, much the same way the fed is. That is something you see every year and the call you see every year that folks are frustrated by that. Host tina is next in greensboro, north carolina, democrat. Caller i would like to say the Government Shutdowns are a bad idea that hurts people, especially the poor, children, the ill and those who are just living on the margin. I have an observation. It appears that women have been selected to be the bearer of bad news. This is not a good look for us and it doesnt make that bitter pill easier to go down. It seems like men create the problems but we get to tell the good news. I have a question about personal testimonies. People affected by Government Shutdowns pros and cons instead of third parties would enhance the understanding nationally if you hear it from those who are actually experiencing what happens instead of third parties. Thank you. Host molly . Guest federal employees have been really vocal about this. Personally in writing to lawmakers and unions, one thing we have seen talking about women and families, childcare becomes a factor. The schools dont close but you have to take care of your kids and meet those needs. Childcare centers are affected by this. In general, it is just disruptive. People have a kink like anyone else and they go to work and secure people have a routine like anyone else and they go to work and secure their children. Federal employees in no Uncertain Terms have said this is not good, whether short or long. Shutdown of any magnitude is destructive, frustrating and very stressful. Host you mentioned childcare for those who are expected to go to work still have to pay for child care, even if they are not getting paid. Guest absolutely. Host from ohio, a federal employee. Host you said counter employee . Caller i worked for the highway department. The county. Host go ahead. Caller can you hear me . Host yes, go ahead. We can hear you. Caller i hope the government doesnt shut down. Host why is that . Caller because i dont like republicans. Host thats go to covington, kentucky, republican. Caller ali, you and the moderator keep explaining that the military is not going to get paid. For what date arent they going to get paid . We are paid on the first of a month. If it falls on a weekend, we are paid on friday. We are all just paid so the next paycheck will be november 1. How many times in history have we shut down for 30 days . Host molly . Guest one thing to note with pay as it applies to the federal civilian workforce is depending on what happens, if the Government Shutdown is in the middle of a pay period or between that, folks will get credit for the time they have worked while there was funding for it. The uncertainty is for everything after that point. So monday onward is for the question is when a paycheck stop occurs. In street, the last few, 2018 and 2019 was upwards of 30 days. In the 1990s there was a longer one. Can we follow the trend lined and is it continually on the up . Might this year be an exception . I would like to have a crystal wall on that but it is an open question. Host as far as health care benefits, those would continue during a shutdown. Guest yes, they would. You might be thinking is if you are paying for the Health Insurance through payroll deduction and im not getting a paycheck, what happens . For those under the federal Employee Health benefits program which covers 8 million employees and dependents, the good news is your coverage does not lapse. All of the premiums you would have been paying contributions to will pay catch up on the back end when you get a pay period. To get a grace period but the bill is coming so be prepared for it. The same thing is long care insurance, vision and dental. Host lets go to ohio, janet is a democrat. Caller hello. I cant understand the shutdown. I just dont understand it. Who is to run to their aid . Why are they going to rent to their aid . Why are they going to run to their aid . My husband lost his job in the 1980s, and nobody rushed to his aid and he had to work two years , two years without a job. His job was to mow grass, paint houses, any job he could, and he got a parttime job for six months and then he got another little parttime job and he worked the midnight shift. Host janet, we are going to move to and in austin, texas, independent line. Caller i called because i am upset with the other callers calling in in relation to the shutdown or the border. Immigrants are not our problem. They are very value. Without Illegal Immigrants my family would not have been able to keep my mother at home when she was dying and out of the nursing home. They make many valuable contributions. They become a scapegoat that it is ok to hate on. Biden ran on proimmigrant stuff and then he has acted antiimmigrant. I think having scapegoat that isnt the real problem prevents us from addressing the real issues. Host last comment for the segment. Guest eight dont know ultimately what is going to happen in the next few hours we dont know what ultimately is going to happen in the next few hours. Ask questions of your supervisor. They should be your immediate contact. They only know what the rest of us do so be aware of that. For any questions, reach out to our team and we will do the best to track them down. Host molly wisner, you can find her work at federaltimes. Com. Next owashington journal, university of myland and Baltimore County Political Science Professor Emeritus roy meyers discusses the history and impact of Government Shutdowns. And Bloomberg Government reporter discusses the impact federal funding negotiations and a potential Government Shutdown could have on reauthorization bills. Yesterday a budget white house official addressed the public. [video clip] it has been four months since President Biden, House Republicans and democrats, Senate Republicans and democrats all made a bipartisan budget deal. You all were there. I was there. You remember what it took to get to that deal. We should hand two thirds of congress voted for it and the president signed it into law, a commitment to the American People that reduced the deficit, protected critical programs and assured their government remained open. Today, four of those five arch sticking four of those five are sticking by the deal. House republicans are fusing to live up to their end of the bargain. They have turned their back on the deal and are on an island entirely by themselves and of their own making. They are chaos and chaos alone is threatening to push us into a shutdown. This is not only a violation of the deal. The president signed the deal into law. Lets be very clear about what they are committing as a condition of government open. It is all for right there. Plain lack and white, black and white, instead of working in a bipartisan fashion to keep the government open, they are tripling down on their plans to stop programs. Their bill includes devastating 30 cuts, you heard me 30 caught. Cuts. It would eliminate 12,000 fbi agent, almost 1000 atf agents and more than 500 local Law Enforcement. Kick almost 300,000 children out of head start, rub of seniors from intrusion Services Like meals on wheels. And guess what, if they dont get their way and we dont go along with the devastating cuts they want to force a shutdown to hurt our economy and national security. More than 2 million Service Members wouldnt get their paychecks, longterm Disaster Recovery would be further delayed, nutrition assistance for 7 million women and children who rely on wic would be jeopardized and Small Businesses would lose out on loans. What kind of choice is that . In addition to the more than 2 million Service Members who wont get their paychecks, we are talking about more than 1. 5 million federal civilian employees, roughly one quarter of whom are veterans missing paychecks. Meat and food, tsa agents, a small example. On top of that, federal contractors have no guarantees of backpay, none. The thousands of federal contractors who serve the mission of this country deserve no guarantee they are made whole. Folks who i see around the office every day, people you see around here cleaning, who can least afford to miss a paycheck, no guarantee they will be made whole. Our message is simple, House Republicans need to stick to the agreement we have already reached and they already voted for. Do the job they were elected to do. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back. We are joined by roy meyers where he is a Political Science emeritus to give us more information on the history and impact of federal Government Shutdowns. Welcome to the program. And you walk us through how many shutdowns there have been in the past and how budget process is supposed to work . Guest sure, lets start with the latter. It is not supposed to include shutdowns at all. Appropriations bills are supposed to be backed by the end of the fiscal year. If they are not, congress and the president would agree on acr, providing temporary appropriations for what is called Discretionary Spending programs. We are not talking about most of the budget. The discretionary plans are 30 of the budget but include much of what the government does, education, transportation and the like. The others are called permanent or direct spending and sometimes called mandatory, Social Security, medicare, medicaid. When there is not a cr, there is what is called a funding gap, when there is an appropriation and that leads toward the current, we are about to face in the shutdown of the federal government. There was a excellent report by jim sue turner jim said turnout jim seturnaue he found six funding gaps ranging from eight to 17 days long. Government agencies did not shut down. It was not until president carters attorney general issued several memos, one in 1980 and 1981 that it became clear if there was a funding gap agencies that didnt have a current appropriations for their Discretionary Spending accounts have to shut down. They did that because the constitution says in article one , section nine clause seven that nobody shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. If theyre not appropriations his rationale was that Government Agencies have to stop operating. The antideficiency act, a law passed by congress, based on exception. Host we seem to have had quite a few of these in recent history and sometimes they are called a Government Shutdown and sometimes a partial shutdown. What is the difference . Guest partial shutdown is if Congress Passed one of the 12 Appropriations Bills beforehand. For example, in the 20182019 trump shutdown, it was a partial shutdown because congress shut down some of those Appropriations Bills. In other cases such as now, none of the 12 appropriation bills have been passed so we are likely to see a complete Government Shutdown. Host Sticking Point seems to be ukraine funding and Border Security and these are what seem to be holding up the current funding negotiations. What sorts of other big issues have historically led up to Government Shutdowns in the past . Guest sometimes you hear members of Congress Talking about issues like Border Security as the real motivation for closing down government. I think that was really a case in the 20182019 shutdown. There was a televised sit down between speaker pelosi, leader schumer and president obama and president obama in that shut down said, i am proud to shut down the government for Border Security because the people of this country dont want criminals. Host you said president obama, i am guessing you met President Trump. Guest that was a mistake. President trump said i am proud to shut down for Border Security. The impacts about Border Security is more an attempt to shift lame to President Biden because the real issue which has been the case in other shutdowns, such as during the 19951996 shutdown which was a big difference between republicans and democrats about how much money the government should be spending. Republicans have been arguing for lower appropriations than democrats would want. Host the most recent shutdown was in 2019, the longest in history. Hollinger Government Shutdowns typically last and what factors determine the length of the shutdown . Guest that is a good question. That 20182019 shutdown was 34 days and that was the longest. The one during the Obama Presidency was 16 days long. There were two in the clinton presidency. The second one was 21 days. Most of the others are one to three days. One times when the funding gap lasts one to three days there isnt a shutdown completed because it takes a couple days for the agencies to finish shutdown operations. There was a short shutdown in 2018 when senator rand paul closed down passage of senate and the bill because he was upset but not being able to propose amendments to cut spending. Host so we usually when we are on our way out of these things get continuing resolutions to either avoid or delay a shutdown. What are some of the challenges and those shortterm funding agreements . Guest there are a number of problems but i think the problem that is most obvious right now is a lack of agreement within the majority power about what that continuing resolutions should include. That is actually a big problem right now because there is a great adversity of opinion in the Republican Party particularly in the house, about the extent of funding for example for ukraine. Unlike during the reagan era when there was a great deal of republican support for financing Defense Activities across the world. Right now there is a big difference of opinion. Some republicans in the house would like to see acr without ukraine funding and others would like to see a lot of ukraine funding. Under a divided government you have a requirement that all that is passed be supported by the house, senate. You have conservative republicans in the house arguing that the house should pass the continuing resolution that is entirely consistent with their policy and that assumes the senate and president will go along and that is not the case. The House Republicans also are reluctant to consider the senate bill that is likely to pass in the next day or two which was supported by a vote of 7622 and a motion to proceed. That has quite different policy preferences regarding total spending than the conservative House Republicans want. Senate bill sticks to spending levels that were agreed to in the agreement between President Biden and Speaker Mccarthy when congress and the president agreed to suspend the debt ceiling back in late may. House republicans want to go back on that deal. Host why the big concerns during that debt ceiling debate was the Financial Impact and even now i am looking at the axios article, looming shutdown sparks a financial panic in congress and that there are a lot of potential ramifications a Government Shutdown could have on the u. S. Economy. We could have a Credit Rating downgrade according to moodys and they said on monday they would view a shutdown as a creditnegative for the u. S. What are some of the other economic and market implications of a Government Shutdown based on what we know from past shutdowns . Guest in past shutdowns there wasnt much of an impact on federal borrowing costs. That was much more of a problem during debt ceiling impact. The real problem associated with Government Shutdowns is the loss of Government Services or you have federal employees not being paid but more importantly to many citizens, citizens not receiving the services they want. They are not able to go to the National Parks or get Food Assistance because appropriations for Food Assistance is not being provided for that shortterm period. You have delays in how agencies make decisions and are unable to sign contracts for procuring services and are unable to send out grants to state and local government and nonprofits. In effect, the effect of a Government Shutdown is more just inefficiencies and not receiving services that many people want to receive and that has a longerterm impact. He also said note that our economy now is in a remarkable position. We have had a very good soft landing from the disruptions of the covid period. We have not had a recession and very low unemployment. Now we are going to have, if there is an extended shutdown, a lot of disruptions in federal operations, including federal employees not being paid. There is a slight risk it could tip us into a recession. Host there is a lot of blame being shifted in washington in terms of who is responsible. I want to look at a poll owho voters would blame for a shutdown, 29 say republicans, 14 say democrats, 13 say President Biden but more people would blame it much everyone. What do you see as the political impact of previous shutdowns on the Political Landscape and Voter Opinions . Guest that is a great question as well. It is one that has a complicated answer. At pole response that you describe is consistent with what lyrical Scientists Say if you are strongly attached to one party or the other, you tend to blame the opposing party for something that has happened. There is also the general opinion in the United States that congress is very dysfunctional institution and that relations between congress and the president are often very poor. That leads toward blaming all involved in washington. I think there is something to be said for that point of view, particularly because every year in recent years congas has failed to pass a budget resolution and it takes a long time to bring appropriation bills to the floor which makes it more likely there could be the risk of a funding gap. On the other hand, if you look at the history of shutdowns, there is no question that House Republicans in particular, and during the 20182019 shutdown with President Trump, they were the prime proponents of a shutdown. If you look at the history of the long shutdowns, the one during the clinton and obama and trump presidency, the polling afterwards tended to place much more blame on publicans than democrats. It did it hurt them at the polls the next election . It is hard to measure. It wasnt a help and probably unbalanced and reduced voters for the Republican Party because of the greater role in leading to a shutdown. Host we want to hear from everyone, democrats can call in on 202 7488000, republican line is 202 7488001, independents 202 7488002. We have a special line for voters for federal employees, 202 7488003. I want to talk more about the blame game and the role for president s in particular. What role did president s play in shutdowns a lot of the attention falls on congress. Guest a good example is a 1995 1996, the five day and then 21 date shutdown day shutdown. It was on the success of republicans taking the house in 1994. New speaker was Newt Gingrich who adopted a much more confrontational stance than Previous Party leaders. He won that election in part by putting out a contract with america which proposed very large spending cuts, not just for discretionary but for medicare and Social Security as well. When they proposed the appropriations bill that had a writer rider on it, president putin vetoed it and that led to the shutdown. Republicans tried to claim president clinton vetoed it and that led to the shutdown. Republicans tried to people said that the republicans tried to get rid of medicare and medicaid eric it was a very successful campaign. Republicans were basically forced to drawback on their attempt to cut spending using that method. It is a good book about that and the title of the book is called tell newt to shut up. They were losing the Public Relations battle his president putin was a skillful user of the bully pulpit. There was strong criticism of republicans for trying to take away some of the first and limitation of the Affordable Care act through the shutdown and then it President Trump on the other hand was not very skillful in convincing americans the shutdown was worthwhile. He did receive a lot of press attention for his positions on the border wall. During that long shutdown of 34 days, he vacillated between insisting that additional wall funding to be put in the regular appropriations will and then saying maybe it wasnt necessary. In the long run he gave up and the appropriations bill was passed without the additional funding. Then he transferred money from other accounts, such as for defense construction into wall construction and in effect got away with some members of congress thought was an illegal act. Host the wall street journal has headlined today, how painful could a shutdown be, talking about the white house can interpret for the shutdown. How much leeway do the individual executive agencies have in terms of determining who stays and who goes and who is on furlough and what closes and doesnt . Guest it is up to the president. When you go back to the carter years when his attorney general was saying people have to start working, he was in effect saying there are very you exception. That was the practice in shutdowns up through the obama administration. Drink the Trump Administration on that shutdown took place, republicans who were afraid they would be blamed for the lack of access to services did two things. One is the majority leader of the house proposed a number of bills that would have provided appropriations to publicly favored agencies such as the National Park service. It didnt pass the senate. The office of management and budget provided many more exceptions to the shutdown requirement that occurred under previous administrations. I doubt President Biden would do that because he and the House Democrats and Senate Democrats are in the position of blaming republicans for the shutdown and even though the democrats would like to keep Government Services in place, they probably are tackling with that they could receive with the lack of access to public services. Host rick in idaho on the republican line, go ahead. Caller good morning. I have a question for you. A report april 16, 2019 as foreign aid. Host can you your tv for us . Caller can you hear me . Host go ahead. We need you to mute your tv first. Caller a crs report april 16, 2019 the last three pages, in 2013, 40 1000 veterans died in v. A. Health because they were underfunded and there was no shutdown. This was brought to light on cspan. V. A. Was underfunded. My question is, if the government does shutdown, will the v. A. Still continue receiving funding because those veterans in the hospital need attention. Guest thank you for your service, as a marine server. I dont exactly know the answer to that question. Is something i intended to look into but havent had time. One thing that happened the last couple of years at the Veterans Health administration was placed on an an advanced appropriations schedule. They received appropriation for its current year, the year before hand. My guess is that the v. A. Will not be subject to this but i will have to defer to experts about that particular situation. Host lets go to the line for federal workers. Caller i was part of the 1995 shutdown and i had to borrow money because i was an essential worker and worked without pay. Coming to today, thats forward to now, it has been so crazy. Hundreds of millions of dollars is going to the you green ukraine bailout. We are bailing out a woman with a luxury sweater shop and in our country we have had riots buyers and small distances, some of them until today are boarded up and they never got help and we are bailing out ukraine . I just think our priorities and then zelenskyy is asking for more money and praising canada for praising nazi heroes. Host how different is this shutdown we are likely to see it starting at midnight from previous shutdowns . Guest i think it is different in part in its causes. It is fair to say by and large republicans have been proponents of shutdowns. In all of those shutdowns, there have also been republicans in the house that didnt want to shut down but their influence was outweighed by their colleagues. That is especially the case now. In 19951996, the leadership had support from republicans leading to the shutdown. That is not the case now. I dont think actually Speaker Mccarthy wants to shut down but he is being forced to in effect by the Freedom Caucus members of his conference. One thing that is particularly noticeable now in this shutdown is that contrary to the general trend of the past three or four decades, which is a weakening of committee, right now we have both appropriations committees week weak and that will make it harder to solve it. Host arthur in bartlett, illinois on the democratic line. Caller i have an opinion. It is based on the fact that when the congress which is causing so much political issues about the shutdown, my personal belief is that 72 hours after the shutdown, all of congress except for security should be shut down as well. Thank you. Host roy . Guest congress will keep on operating. Members of congress will have to be paid according to the constitution, though members of congress can decide not to accept that paper the staff will be paid, essential staff such as employees of the Congressional Budget Office will keep on working because Congress Needs help to try to resolve the situation. Host roy myers, thank you so much, Political Science Professor Emeritus at the university of maryland, Baltimore County. Thank you very much. Guest thanks, emily. Later on we will talk to Jack Fitzpatrick of Bloomberg Government with the latest on where we stand with the shutdown that could be just hours away and we will take more of your calls here democrats, call in at 202 7488000. Republicans at 202 74801 independents on 202 7488002. Once again, we are lking for a full who are federal workers or retired federawoers at 202 7488003. You can also text us on this line, include your na and where you are from. We will be back in just minute. Louis chose William Clark to help lead the mission, which cover nearly eight miles from 1804 to 1806. Lewis and clark have detailed journals threat the trip, native peoples of potential trade routes. Watch books that shaped america monday, live at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan now or cspan. Org. Skim the qr code to listen to our command and dashed scam the qr code live sunday on indepth. Author and theort Douglas Rushkoff joins book tv to talk to jake about the consequences of the digital revolution. Human autonomy, cyber culture and more. His 20 books include present shock, throwing rocks at the google bus and survival of the richest. Published in 2022, detlshe plans made by a group of tech billionaires to survive after earth becomes uninhabitable due to Climate Change or some other catastrophic event. Join in the conversation with ur phone calls, Facebook Comments and texts. Indepth with Douglas Rushkoff ve sunday at noon eastern on book tv on cspan two. A healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work. Where citizens are truly informed, a republic thrives. Get informed straight from the source. On cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to wherever you are. Because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back to washington journal. We are taking your calls on the possibility of a federal Government Shutdown that could be coming as early as midnight tonight. In other news this week, we saw the death of senator dianne feinstein. House speaker Kevin Mccarthy, who is a fellow californian, paid tribute by highlighting some legislation they worked on together. Here is a portion from friday. [video clip] as californias longestserving senator, senator feinstein broke barriers and blazed the trail for women. Her career was by any standards historic. Speaking personally, i worked with the senator for quite some time. Together on many different bills, but the one that i think stands out was our water legislation. It was historic. It was the first time in california history and more than 25 years we were able to pass water. It was the win act. I remember the hours and the nights we would have to work to try and work through, and the challenges. We come from different parties, we have different philosophies but put our state first. At the same time, arbor boxer opposed it. It was one of the last votes of the senate and more than 70 votes at the time. I believe at the end of the day, the trailblazing of the first woman elected mayor, even coming from a different party, inspired women from both sides of the aisle to seek elected office and have their voices heard. Host that was House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy speaking on the death of senator dianne feinstein. We are taking your calls on the possibility of an upcoming Government Shutdown. Those numbers are 202 7488000 for the democratic line. Republicans on 202 7488001. Independents at 202 7488002. Federal workers at 202 7488003. Lets go for that federal worker line to suie in michigan sue in michigan. Caller i want to make sure everyone out there knows that President Biden and Kevin Mccarthy both made a deal that this was not this would not happen. And the republicans reneged on that deal because Kevin Mccarthy is afraid of a few of those republicans. Like Marjorie Taylor greene, the person who actually threatened her coworkers. [laughter] to the point where one of them moved her office entirely, because she was so afraid she may hurt her or kill her. [laughter] some of the other people there and some of the other people there. To think these republicans would allow this to happen. Some of these people, we have secretaries and budget assistance and people coming up the ranks. They do not have that kind of money. There was one call a while back the man said, it is like a vacation. He must have been a republican. He is not thinking of other people. He is only thinking of himself. Host have you had to experience any shutdowns yourself before you retired . Caller yes, but i was lucky because i had my sister. We worked together on our money and saved our money, thinking Something Like that might happen. But, other people in their, i am telling you. Everybody thinks Government People are so rich. That is not true. Some of these people are single mothers, single fathers, out there trying some of them are coming to another job after their job with the federal government. To think that the republicans would be so nonchalant what they want to do is hurt President Biden. After thisthey have to make sure after this is over, things slow down terribly. And the country is going to have to rev up again and they are going to blame it on President Biden. You people need to make sure you know this is a republican shutdown. Host i think we have got your idea. Lets go to terry in tinley park, illinois on the independent line. Caller yes. Thank you for taking my call, cspan. I have a question. I agree with the lady. I am a retired civil servant. Civil service employee, and also in international guards. They made an agreement. Is that agreement public somewhere . Can the public they should have made the agreement public, like when they make those others and make those public. They should have made their agreement public, then all of america would know they made the agreement. Host terry, i believe the caller was referencing the agreement to raise the debt limit that happened earlier this year. It was an agreement, a gentlemens agreement one might call it, between biden and mccarthy to raise the debt limit which had some spending caps for how they thought the Appropriations Bills would go. Caller ok. Thank you. I thought they had made an agreement about the sorry. Host no problem. Lets go to benton in missouri on the democratic line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to point out the shutdown is occurring because he the republican asked because the republicans in congress are holding because he republicans in congress are holding the American People could hostage for picking democrats to lead the senate and to nearly beat the in the house. They do not have much of a lead, but they feel they should try to create some kind of takeover with the narrow majority that they have in the house. The stuff they are asking for, they caused themselves. They have given power to individuals that should not have it. They cut off funding years ago. Aiding countries south of the border. Now, they want to blame democrats because people are coming towards the border. Caravans of people. When you cut off aid, that is what happens. The same thing with the ukrainian funding. They want Vladimir Putin to not have to be defeated by the ukrainians, because Vladimir Putin is their friend, their bedfellow because he presumably helped trump when the 2016 election. They are doing everything they can in order to help trumps buddy. They are punishing the American People and they have a chance to do something patriotic. And create bipartisan host thank you. I think we have got it. Lets go to benton in missouri. Go ahead on the democratic line. Sorry, we just let you go. Lets go to karen in elgin, illinois on the federal workers line. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller i just wanted to say that i worked for the department of commerce. Fortunately, we will not be effected because we have reserves. Host ok. Thank you. Kevin in fort wayne, indiana on the federal workers line. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. First of all, i would like to his press express my sip at the end support for the federal workforce. I am a retired employee from the Veterans Administration of the past. I personally, along with many of my employees, experienced four shutdowns during the time i worked for the federal government in 30 plus some years. I have to say and reflecting on the current situation, it is just a continuation of a pattern that has occurred through both democratic and republican administration. And republican and democratic controlled congresses, which is symbolic of the failure of congress as an institution to perform its basic constitutional duties. Namely, to pass 13 that is right, 13 major appropriation bills, not 12. One thing they keep overlooking and do not mention to the American Public is amazingly enough, every year, congress manages to pass at least one major appropriation bill right at the outset of the year. That is, of course, the appropriation bill that funds the operations of congress, including the cbo. It is amazing how an institution that fails to function otherwise manages to make sure its funds are in place so they can funct ion as a body. Host thank you. Kevin was just talking about military, the effect on the military, as well. Earlier this week, we had a there where ill ceremony offering life of service to the outgoing chief of staff chair general mark milley who made a veiled reference to former President Trump as he was speaking about the constitution. Here is a portion from friday. [video clip] we in uniform are unique. We are unique among the worlds army. We are unique among the worlds militaries. We do not take an oath to a country. We do not take an oath to a tribe. We do not take an oath to a religion. We do not take an oath to a king , queen or tyrant or dictator and we do not take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the constitution and we take an oath to the idea of america, we are willing to die to protect it. Every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, guardian and coast guard, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price. We are not easily intimidated. More than 1. 1 million in uniform have paid the supreme sacrifice to include the 400,000 that rest in eternal peace at Arlington National cemetery. Those who sacrificed themselves in the altar of freedom in the last two and a half centuries in this country must not have done so in vain. Host that was outgoing joint gene of joint chief of staff mark mentally. Caller think you for taking my call. The whole thing is, to extend the existing budget until october the 31st. Not one democrat voted for their own budget because the democrats were in control until january 1 of this year. The republicans took over this year. They were voting on an extension of their very own budget and they voted against it. If the government shuts down today, it is the democrats fault. If we continue to october 31 and it was shut down, then it would be the republicans fault. If it shuts down today, ladies and gentlemen, it is the democrats. They did not vote for an extension of their own budget. Host bill in illinois on the independent line. Go ahead, bill. Mute your tv. Caller ok. Host great. We are here with you. What is your comment . Caller i am calling in regards to the shutdown. I think number one that mr. Mccartney should grow a spine. Number two, in some instances they do agree with republicans about the money that we do give away to other countries, the ukraine, other countries and securing their border. And making the people of the United States pay for it all. But, i do disagree with them when they want to cut spending for the people of the United States for people that are on disability, like myself. People that need mothers and them that need money, you know, to help out with their children and stuff. We are supposed to be the greatest country in the world, but yet, we have people that live on the streets. Homeless people. We have kids that are, you know, underfed, undernourished. That is simply wrong. These clowns in washington should get their act together. The American People did not send these people to congress to fight among themselves and play childish games. We sent them there to do a job for the American People. All of the American People. Host as bill was mentioning, house Republican Opposition to ukraine has been a major issue. There is an article here from nbc news threatening that this opposition is threatening bipartisan agreement that was made in the senate that would send over to the house or does not have support in the house because of that ukraine funding. That is something that has been an issue from this process. Lets go to ralph in manoa, new york on the democratic line. Caller yes, good morning. I am a uaw worker from upstate new york. What were hearing a lot as far as the Government Shutdown and spending, all we are hearing is spending. Just one side of the equation. Very Little People are talking about raising revenue. As far as we hear a lot of the complaints about the money spent to help the ukrainian people, once we care once we compare that to the tax gap in this country, what is old to the federal government, what is paid . I can guarantee you the tax gap in this country is a lot higher than the billions of dollars that we are spending on helping ukrainian people. The problem is, the Republican Party is catering to their wealthy constituents. They do not want to raise any revenue. They do not want to increase taxes on the wealthy. That is our problem. I thank you. Host from south carolina, david on the republican line. Caller good morning. I am going to make an analogy. Even though i am calling on the republican line, everyone, listen carefully and think about this. It is much like heroin. Heroin is a wonderful drug from nature. When used properly. Just like the federal government, ours is the best ever designed. The problem is, we are addicted to washington. Anytime you tried to break from an addiction, there is pain. While the simple analogy is, the mother brings a child in for an in use asian, they and him immunization, they see it and scream. The solution is not to give more heroin, but to slowly get the victim demanded down slowly over time. The solution for our National Debt is, the people have been fooled into thinking that mother washington is going to take care of our basic needs. Much like the services the federal governments provide, it is not taken for granted should be in the hands of the state, counties, cities, delegates and families. That is the way we get off this addiction, if we ever do. Sadly, i think we are headed for an overdose. This is nonpartisan. Host ok. Lets go on the independent line to doris in georgia. Caller yes. I am appalled at the ignorance of some people who do not see the big picture. I give kudos to some of these former callers. If you really listen to them, you will see what is happening. Host what is the Bigger Picture . Caller the big picture is, mankind has had 6000 years to try to use every form of government they could think of. They have all failed due to corruption and immorality. That is where we are now, this whole world is in a mess because of greed and corruption. It is getting more and more dangerous for that reason. Host how do you think this is playing into the risk of a shutdown today . Caller i am sorry. Say that again. Host how do you think this may be affecting the risk of a shutdown today . Caller well, peoples minds are so muddled by putting their faith into other human beings who are so greedy and corrupt. They are not out for our own individual benefit. They are out for themselves, just like some of the other callers brought out. Here is something i want to point out. People are looking at all the time and just do not see it. On the corner of the United Nations building host we are going to keep it to the shutdown today. Lets go to eugene in new york on the federal workers line. Caller good morning. I would like to say that this whole thing, everybody keeps saying the republicans are not showing why they want to shut down the border is the biggest. Second would be the ukraine. Third would be, our people in this country. Our border and our country should be first. Ukraine should be second or third. We should not be supporting them and paying their retirements, their insurance, their mortgages, whatever we are supporting them. All of the other countries in this u. N. Nation and Human Coalition should be paying also, not just americas citizens. Sending billions of dollars over therefore no reason. Have a great day and god bless america. Host we are hearing similar comments on mine online. Michael says on x, when are the American People going to understand that d. C. Dems and gopers do not work for us. They work for billionaires, wall street and military industrial complex. They do not care about what happens to any of us. We have a comment from truth sayer. My feeling is, biden will make this painful to weaponize it against republicans. It is a blame game in either party is going to put the welfare of the country first. We have a comment from dhs. If a Government Employee is not smart enough to have an emergency rainy day fund, he or she is probably a waste of taxpayer money. Anyway, Government Shutdowns are merely paid vacation even if the pay is delayed a week or two. Lets go back to some calls. Carl in gettysburg, pennsylvania on the republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I was a union guy for over 40 years, but i am a republican. That should tell you something. So. I think the caller before me who talked about all our tax dollars going to ukraine and all of these other countries and our border is wide open 50 Million People have strayed through in the last two years to take our jobs and needed the jobs for us to do. I just think about ukraine, i think that is a Money Laundering deal. I think that has to stop immediately. If we cannot see that when donald trump came into office, if he would have got all the swamp rats out of his administration, he would host ok. Tony in florida on the independent line. Caller good morning. I have three quick points. The first, i am tired of hearing people whining about the shutdown. Tens of millions of americans were shut down for over a year because of covid. We lived. Federal employees and contractors will live. If they did not have a rainy day fund, bad on them. The next is ukraine. I wonder, why are we willing to shut down this government if we do not fund ukraine to the maximum . We should be suing for peace right now. We should force ukraine to enter into cease fire and negotiate, go back to the borders that President Biden was willing to accept as recently as last summer. We do not have to chase every last russian out of ukraine. It is not our business. It is not our business. The third is, we are being governed by emotional red scare new red scare. It is like the current left studied mccarthy, and learned how to panic people so much so that canada gave a standing ovation in ottawa for a nazi. Because he fought against russia in world war ii. Host ok. Lets go to nancy in louisiana on the democratic line. Caller thanks for taking my call. I would like to bring this back to what we are discussing about the government funding. Number one, we do not need to shut down the government. We need to shut down the Republican House because they are children. They need to watch some type of documentary every single day before they start the congress. Number two. The fact that general milley is resigning just shows how bad this country has become. When you have military individuals that have served this country their entire adult lives in beyond and you have them retiring do to the hold up due to the hold up in the house due to the republicans. Number three, when everybody out there is having this issue about the war in ukraine. Number one, they did not start it. Russia did. Number two. If it would not have been for the consciousness of the time that President Biden spent in our government many, many years, he was wise because we did not need to go up against russia and go into war world war iii. Host ok. Rose in illinois, lets give you our final call on the republican line. Caller good morning. What i have to say is about three points. The first one is, biden shut us down like he was a tyrant and put a lot of businesses and people out of work. They gave pennies on a dollar, did not even pay rent for a month out of a year what they got from the government. Nobody is crying for spilt milk for the American People who deserve more than what they have been getting from the government. Number two, i worked in factories most of my life. There were shutdowns a lot. We always got shut down with when business got slow or the season got bad. Nobody cared, nobody backed us up and nobody gave us pay for the days we were shut down. They should be treated like the rest of americans are. Everybody should be equal. We went on unemployment lines. If these people are crying spilt milk they are going to be shut down, let them go to unemployment lines. Since they are going to get their backpay anyway, they do not have to suffer like the rest of us americans. They are treated like they are special. Nobody in this whole country should be treated like they are special. Host thank you for your calls. Next up, we are going to have Bloomberg Government Congress Reporter Jack Fitzpatrick on to discuss the impact of these federal funding negotiations and how a potential Government Shutdown could affect reauthorization bills three authorization bills, as well. We will be back. Monday, watch cspan c was in partnership with the library of congress, books that shaped america. We will feature the journals of lewis and clark, the journals came about following the louisiana purchase. President jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition to explore the west all the way to the pacific ocean. Louis chose William Clark to help lead the mission, which covered nearly 8000 miles from 1804 to 1806. Lewis and clark have detailed journals threat the trip on the terrain, plant and animal life, native peoples and potential trade routes. Stephanie ambrose, author of several books on the lewis and clarks petition is a veteran traveler of the lewis and clark trail, will join us to discuss the expedition. Watch books that shaped america featuring the journals of lewis and clark monday live at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan now our free mobile labial app free mobile video app. Authors charlie gray is a canadian born in Great Britain who now lives in a suburb of ottawa. Her book titled passionate mothers, powerful son is about jerome churchill and Sarah Roosevelt peered the former Jennie Jerome was born in the United States and was the mother of winston churchill. Sarah delano mother James Roosevelt and became the mother of fdr in 1882. Author Charlotte Gray writes that one of the reasons to write about these two women it is their reputation different in their lifetime, have both suffered since their deaths. Author Charlotte Gray on this episode of boonotes plus. Bo notes plus is available on the cspan now free video app, or wherever you get your podcasts. A healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work, citizens are truly informed, a republic thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to wherever you are. The opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. The span, powered cspan, powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Host welcome back. We are joined now by Jack Fitzpatrick, a Congress Reporter for Bloomberg Government. Caller good morning. Think you for having me. Host we have been talking a lot about the federal government potentially shutting down tonight at 12 01. There are several other things set to expire tonight, including reauthorization bills. Can you explain how the faa and farm bill specifically reauthorizations are different from these annual appropriations and spending bills that congress has been working to pass . Guest yes. This is an unusual circumstance because there are more expiring authorization measures than usual. The faa bill and the farm bill are fiveyear bills. Their last deadline was five years ago. Every once in a while when you get to september 30, you will have a packaging of government funding along with other authorization measures. There are more issues at play right now. The faa measure, the effect that it would have on the functioning of the faa has to do with the amount of money that they could receive. The authorization for the faa allows them to take fees from airlines, but without the authorization being at least extended, it is not an actual, full faa authorization bill. There would effectively be a tax holiday for airlines. That money helps go to airport improvements and other costs that play into Public Infrastructure in flight. Looking back to the last instance of the last authorization. In 2011, the faa lost out on 30 million a day. It is fair to expect that number would increase during a lapse at this point, given inflation. There is a major question as to the revenues that go into the faa and allow it to continue to function through the authorization measure, in addition to the effects of a shutdown in which employees would not be paid. As for the farm bill which has a fiveyear authorization, the biggest portion of that dollar for dollar is snap snap snap, the countrys biggest nutrition aid program. If the authorization runs out and there is a shutdown, the secretary of agriculture has said they believe they could continue snap nutrition aid payments at least into october. If it is a particularly long shutdown and lapse of the authorization, then they are not sure how long they would be able to continue funding snap beyond that. There are other farm bill measures that have a december 31 deadline. There are funds that go out based on harvest deadlines. The first people to be affected if this were to be an issue going into next calendar year would be Dairy Farmers. They have enough time, there is an expectation on capitol hill they can take care of that. First thing that would be affected due to the farm bill authorization that a lot of people would notice would be snap payments. Officials think they can delay the effects of that well into october at this point. Host lets go back to the faa reauthorization. The hill. Com calls it a double whammy for the Aviation Industry as the shutdown looms. What would that mean for travelers and people trying to fly in the midst of all of this . Guest the immediate noticeable effects would probably be due to a shutdown rather than the faa authorization bill, given the fact that faa employees would not be paid. Also, aside from the faa, if you are going through airports tsa employees would not pay. Issues in the last shutdown of a higher rate of people using sick leave and paid time off, given that they were not being paid for an extended period of time. Some of the morale issues and longerterm recruiting issues could have a noticeable effect due to employees not being paid. In addition to that, as for the functioning of the faa, during a shutdown they can continue to have people working for an essential dashboard essential purposes, but they cannot spend money on training new employees. If there were a shutdown that stretched on for a long period of time, that could have a compounding effect. Also, as for the authorization, if the faa is simultaneously losing out on revenue that they would normally get from airlines in addition to having those shutdown restrictions in place, it would lead to a greater lack of resources for the faa overall than you normally see during a shutdown. Host this week, the senate voted to move the reauthorization forward by tying it to the shortterm spending deal. What happened with that . Guest the senate have been slow down. They are still working on a bipartisan stopgap measure. There are two reasons they cannot do anything in time for tonights deadline. As of right now, that stopgap funding measure has additional aid to ukraine. Senator rand paul from kentucky opposes that and said he is not going to allow for unanimous consent to skip many procedural steps that tend to move slowly that the senate has to take in order to pass a bill. It could be at least sunday, probably early next week for the senate can hold a vote on this. They are still negotiating possible Border Security and immigration measures that Senate Republicans want to attach to that stopgap. Until there is a deal there, they cannot move forward on votes on an amendment to tweak that. The senate tends to slowly. This is a good example of that. It is currently in the senate proposal, which is the most bipartisan proposal we have seen to fund the government. There are site discussions about a clean continuing resolution. If it is truly clean, it is fair to assume it would not have authorization measures, not that the faa authorization measure is a particularly controversial one. It is up in the air and even though the senate is still moving forward on that, they are moving too slowly to avert a slowdown and a lapse in those authorizations. Host we are taking your calls. Democrats at 202 7488000. Republicans at 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. People who are federal workers or retired federal workers can call us at 202 7488003. You can text us on that line. With the farm bill, can you talk about that authorization and the current status and what are the Sticking Points there . Guest the farm bill has moved pretty slowly. That is traditional in congress. It has been decades since they managed to complete work on a farm bill in an even numbered year. For months, lawmakers in agriculture, policy were working on that have said they do not expect to finish work on a full farm bill until maybe early next year. Sometime, there are discussions about giving themselves a oneyear authorization for more time to work on that. But, a lot of the time when you have a lapsed authorization in congress that aligns with a shutdown deadline, you would see that being tied to the length of a funding stopgap. Some of the dates we have heard for anything that congress is going to address is maybe a 45 day stopgap, maybe something to november 17 was mentioned as the next deadline. The farm bill potentially could be tied into that. That is also a bit up in the air as to how many authorizations they are going to tie to a stopgap funding measure. But, it was not a surprise that they did not have a full, fiveyear farm bill ready to go at this point. It is just that, if they were going to give themselves more time and make sure that snap payments were totally taken care of, they needed to give themselves an extension of some period of time. That is as with the faa authorization measure, up in the air as to whether there is going to be support to tie that to the funding stopgap and take care of this in one single vote and how long it would go before there is another deadline for the farm bill to be reauthorized. Host speaking of additional deadlines, i am looking at this article from nbc news. The Government Shutdown is also poised to halt the federal Flood Insurance program, that has an authorization that expires around the same time. Can you talk about that one . Guest that is another authorization measure. In some years, you can imagine a circumstance in which the Flood Insurance program is ineffective even during a shutdown if they were to reauthorize that. It is a technically separate issue from government discretionary funding, but it it has that september 30 deadline. If congress does not at least provide a small extension of its authorization, the noticeable effect would be that there would be a blockage of homebuyers ability when they are closing on a home in a flood risk area to get the required Flood Insurance. There has been an estimate from a homebuyers homebuilders National Association of homebuilders that would be about 1300 property closing delays per day if there is a lapse in the authorization for the national Flood Insurance program. That would be the noticeable effect, if anybody is looking to buy a home and it is in an area where Flood Insurance is required. There would likely be a holdup in your ability to close on the home if that authorization is not extended in time by host the next deadline. Going back to the idea of the faa reauthorization struggling during a press conference on wednesday, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to a question about these looming deadlines. [video clip] things we are concerned about, the consequences of a shutdown. There are consequences of the cuts that some House Republicans are demanding as the price of avoiding a shutdown. There is the consequences of a lapse of faa reauthorization. That would have a number of negative impacts. A lot of people would not be able to effectively do their jobs. We would not be able to collect revenue or spend revenue from the trust fund some of that might never come in. It is like a tax holiday for airline charges that never come in to improve airports and meet other critical needs. It is alongside the other forms of disruption, something we do not need now and we are urging there be a reauthorization or at least an extension to keep things operating normally. Host welcome back. Lets go to some of your calls. John in buffalo, new york on the federal workers line. Go ahead. Caller hi good money. Good morning. I have a statement and a question for mr. Fitzpatrick. I just went to say that as usual, this what is going on now shows how little our elected leaders care about federal employees and government workers. The politics involved and the funding, the border wall who knows what they are fighting about. The fighting, it gets old. I have been in the service now for 20 plus years, i have seen all these shutdowns. It goes to show you how little these elected politicians care for federal workers and the responsibility we have. I am going to work on monday. I work in immigration customs. Host you had a question for jack . Caller yes, yes. The question was how much does the antiefficiency act play into this shutdown and our union . They had filed lawsuits in 2018 regarding backpay. Those never came to fruition. What does the antiefficiency act have to play in the shutdowns . Guest the antideficiency act is the core law that bars the executive branch from continuing a lot of the operations they would normally do during a shutdown. Actually, before the antideficiency act was enacted in the 1970s and before some opinions from the attorney general in the early 1980s at the end of the Carter Administration, shutdown a lapse in appropriations would not lead to the shutdown we understand today. The current understanding since the end of the Carter Administration is the antideficiency act which essentially says that if congress does not provide funding for something, the executive branch cannot continue to do it. That is the simple version. The latest opinion since the early 1980s is a great number of Government Operations other than the work deemed essential cannot continue. That essentially created the dividing line between essential work, which tends to be focused on the protection of life and property versus longerterm work that federal employees do. That is the law that underpins the functioning, the limited functioning of the federal government during a shutdown. There has been back and forth on how to interpret that law. For example, there were areas during the Trump Administration in the last shutdown 2018 to 2019 where some open aspects of the government were deemed to be illegal. According to the antideficiency act, the g i o found many of the National Parks, some of which were still open in the last shutdown, was actually a violation of the antideficiency act there are some other laws, agency by agency, that come into play. That is the biggest, most relevant law that executive Branch Officials look at when a determine what they have to shut down in the government during a shutdown. Host constant in maryland on the democratic line. Caller hi, thank you for taking my call. Why cant we just lift the cap on Social Security and tax the rich . That way, we will not have a problem with government funding. Problem is, it is not too many people paying into the system. That is my response. Thank you for taking my call. Host ok. Merle in far rockaway, new york on the independent line. Caller yes, i just wanted to call to make somebody smile today. I want to say i blame the indians for everything that is happening. Host are you talking about native americans or people from india . Caller american indians. I blame them for all of this. None of this would be happening if they had built a wall and none of us would be here. None of this would be happening. I hope somebody smiled. Host mark in columbus, georgia on the republican line. Caller thanks for taking my call. We have a bloated federal government. This is beyond anybodys ability to comprehend it. Shooting the government down right now sorry, i am referring to my notes. The government is in an opportunity to do something if they shut the government down. We have an accumulation of debt that is going higher and higher. Now, this increased Interest Rate is having to be paid is going to cause it to accelerate. Is anyone really looking down the road at this 33 trillion with a plan and how to get off the rails . If we do not, we are going to destroy this country. We do not have enough revenue to continue to spend an extra 2 trillion a year. It makes no sense. I would like to see somebody there have been some things on the internet trying to address this, but nobody has a solution to this. We have to stop the spending somehow. Host ok. Let me get your response to that, jack. This has been a common narrative we have been hearing on the house floor about the debt and deficits that we continue to have. Guest the first and third collars there touched on something that i think many people need to clarify. During a shutdown in fact, all of the Appropriations Bills under the government that congress is supposed to be negotiating right now, none of that touches mandatory spending which is, in any given year, about two thirds, maybe three quarters of federal spending. The things they are negotiating right now are not Social Security or medicare, which are the biggest mandatory programs. The first caller mentioned the possibility of she was referring to the taxable income cap that contributes to Social Security. That is the kind of thing that potentially could get bipartisan support in congress, but it is not something they are actively negotiating at this point. Those are the big drivers and big expected drivers in the future of the federal debt. You can have a conversation about revenue versus expenditures. In terms of expenditures, the growth of mandatory programs that tie into an aging population especially Social Security and medicare are expected to contribute significantly to the growth of the debt. Because those are mandatory and a shutdown in these negotiations are the discretionary side, they are not actually having that conversation at this point. It is a fairly small portion of the federal budget, about one fourth to one third that congress is actually fighting for now. Host from oregon, george on the democratic line. Caller hello there, thanks for taking my call. I think honestly what it is coming down to with the shutdown , it seems like it is political retribution. On the republican side. It seems like they have run into a desperate time where they are seeing that if they do not so they do not do something to try to backlash at the Democratic Party and make them look bad, then their political survival is not going to do too well. With everything they are complaining about, how we have been complaining about or the republican site has been complaining about with ukraine, with the border, none of this stuff is going to affect us with us funding these things. Right now, they are supposedly about the border. Yet, we are not funding them because of this shutdown. Host lets get jack to respond to that idea. How much of this is actually about some of these issues versus the political maneuvering . Guest there are a lot of of politics at play at this point. Unlike previous shutdowns, it is pretty difficult to say exactly what issue is being fought over during this shutdown. There has been some focus, some attempts to make this a policy fight over the border. A lot of the holdup has been over ukraine aid. Some of it has very broadly been about conservatives in the house pushing for greater spending cuts than what was already written into the government funding bills and their own chamber as conservatives push for steeper spending cuts than what lawmakers previously agreed to, those outlined in the debt limit deal enacted in june. It is a nebulous issue. I am sorry to not have a very clear answer to it. At this point, one thing that makes this shutdown standoff unusual compared to previous years is that it is not entirely clear what policy area there has to be a deal on in order to reopen the government if there is a shutdown, because it is that triad of border issues, a ukraine fight and a broad fight over spending levels on Discretionary Spending. Host john in massachusetts calling on the independent line. Go ahead. Caller i am hoping the illegal aliens funding will be cut for feeding them and housing them if this happens. It takes two to tango. As i understand, the democrats did not vote on a continued solution. There have been four Appropriations Bills that have been passed in this congress. There have been none passed in the senate. Everybody keeps saying it is the republicans fault. I think the democrats are holding everybody hostage. We should not be paying for all of this stuff for a legal aliens illegal aliens. I hope this happens that the republicans keep shutting things down. We do not need to have funding for women in the military to get abortions. They are traveling across state lines, they are getting more time off and it does not count against their leave. We need to set some of these things straight. You have so many whistleblowers on biden, it sounds like a bird sanctuary. Host lets he mentioned a discussion what is happening with the republicans in the midst of this. What are the democrats up to . Guest in the senate, the democrats and republicans are working together on that bipartisan stopgap funding bill. As i mentioned, the senate moves very slowly. They previously were working on a package of three regular Appropriations Bills before we got so close to the deadline that they had to shift their focus to a stopgap. It is true every democrat in the house voted against the stopgap measure that failed yesterday. Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats are moving forward in a way that many members view as a bit more realistic because the Senate Republicans are working with them on it. But, if you are looking for who to blame for the fact that nobody seems ready to meet this deadline to light tonight at midnight, the slow movement of the senate is a factor in that, host definitely. Host we are waiting on the house to come back probably a few minutes to the top of the hour. I think we can get in one more call. Brian in east sandwich, massachusetts on the republican line. Caller thank you for letting me talk. You started your interview with mr. Fitzpatrick about the farm bill. I would like to know, i am not in agriculture economist. We have a of it being supported with the in florida. What about support and things like that happening . How do you feel the Government Shutdown is going to hurt people like that that are involved in those host lets get to that. These different components of the farm bill as they there are two prongs to this. The farm bill authorization and the shutdown. The biggest part of the farm bill authorization expiring would actually be snap program funds. Agricultural support is delayed to a december 31 deadline because they work all year round. If there were to be a delay in they miss the end of year deadline Dairy Farmers would be the first affected. The shutdown of fact and the blockade on funding for certain programs aside from the farm bill authorization would also have an effect on a variety of rural issues. But also, the marketing subsidies that allow for farmers to