Senate. Thats where i want to start with you congressman yarmouth. , john mccain cast the deciding last night deciding vote that seemed to put an end to the republican plan for Health Care Reform. The system still has big problems it has to deal with your how you see this playing out . Rep. Yarmouth it is great to be with you. I did not watch the whole thing but i happened to wake up when they were about ready to declare the bill dead. And watch the speech is afterwards. I think it is going to depend on how republicans feel and what positions the administration takes. The republicans know how to fix the aca, the individual market, which is where the problems exist. They know that because they sabotaged it. They know where they sabotaged it. Interestingly, in their initial bill in the Senate Republican bill, they had the reinstitution of reinsurance programs. They had costsharing reductions which are in the Affordable Care act. Those are things they set out to use to sabotage the functioning of the bill to begin with and now they are trying to reinsert them. I think the optimistic sign is that those provisions would form the foundation of a bipartisan approach to fixing the individual markets. I think if they decide to be cooperative and reach out to democrats, they will find a lot of willing participants on our side. . Usan alan rep alan i wanted to get a sense of what this means for what is coming next. With a budget that needs to be passed. When you think this means for that . Rep. Yarmouth that is a really good question. We parked of the budget last week in the house three month , after it was supposed to be done. The appropriators have begun. They finished all the 12 appropriation bills in the committee and we voted on that on thursday night. It is really a good question. I doubt if they will ever pass a budget resolution in the house because right now it makes no sense. I think that they will end up budgets passing a skinny got to find a new word. , like we did earlier in the year for the end of 2017 fiscal year. Because i know they want to use reconciliation to try and pass tax reform. My guess is that what we will do. And then it will be interesting to we do on the appropriations side because the bill passed on thursday violated the budgetary caps part of the budget control act of 2011. Actually what that bill last night thursday night was a illegal and the other Appropriations Bills once we get , back from august recess, we only have 12 legislative days between then and the end of the fiscal year to get all of that work done. My guess is well do a skinny a budget agreement with reconciliation construction and some kind of continuing resolution to get funding through the end of the fiscal year because i dont see how we go through regular order and do appropriations in that short amount of time. Alan what happens to the 2017 reconciliation instruction if it is dead . Rep. Yarmouth once the reconciliation instructions are passed for 2017 2018, the 2017 ones are invalidated. I dont think that matters right now. Effectively the instructions used to do Health Care Reform are moot. David what did you learn about the republicans use of the reconciliation process going through imagining when democrats take back the congress . That allocation saying they will move with 51 votes and put in a lot of what we wanted without going through the 60 Vote Committee process. What should democrats take from that . If there is pressure to pass Something Big and ambitious like singlepayer without going through republicans for votes . Rep. Yarmouth i wish we wouldnt do that. I wish we would take the position that any massive important piece of legislation should be done in a cooperative manner. Ultimately i know we are polarized in unprecedented ways. I was part of the process in 2010 with the Affordable Care act. We actually reached out to republicans, that is one of the myths used in this debate currently that we never reached out to them. I was on the ways and Means Committee. I remember meeting in which it was just the members there and our chairman said to the republicans, is there anyway we can write a Health Care Reform package that any of you can support . They just coldly said no. In the senate there were a lot of republican amendments accepted. There were a lot of concessions made in the attempt to get republican votes. None of them worked. Again it is not good for the , country whether it is democrat or republican where you pass a bill that is only partisan votes. I would hope that would be the lesson. The other part of the lesson is dont be sure you can control your caucus or your conference. You dont have in a narrowly divided body you dont have to lose too many votes. What is the next opportunity you see for costsharing to be passed . The white house threatened publicly let costsharing subsidies stop. This bill wouldve funded them as a way to get the next best wheres the next vehicle the markets might be stabilized. Rep. Yarmouth first let me say in this dynamic what we are talking about for the most part, were talking about troubled markets in states run by republicans and where the state administration decided not to try and make the Affordable Care act work. Withholding the csr payments, the administration would be penalizing republicanlead states of a lot of their voters. The next opportunity would be to do it as part of a massive negotiated spending package sometime in september. I think we will do the debt ceiling as part of that negotiation. I think there are opportunities to take those steps that can for up the individual market. Would democrats make raising the debt ceiling conditional on the csr . Rep. Yarmouth i dont know if we are there yet. We havent had a discussion about that with our leadership yet. But one of the agreements that has been made on an informal basis between the republican and democratic leadership is that any kind of in terms of a clean debt ceiling bill, any amendments or other provisions would be mutually agreed upon. So that we wouldnt insist on something republicans couldnt accept and they wouldnt either. I suspect that agreement will hold. That being said, republicans at least in the senate, wanted to reinstitute the costsharing reductions. I shouldnt say reinstitute them because they exist already. What republicans want to do is essentially reaffirm the legality of the question in costsharing reductions. There is also a lawsuit challenging them. Again, i think thats a possibility at least on the senate side, republicans agreed with doing that. On the debt ceiling omb , director mulvaney has called for changes to the budget process and changes to the cbos to be tied to a lift with the debt ceiling. You see any need for changes to the process . Or for changes to the cbo . Rep. Yarmouth i would certainly be open and have told the chair and black of the Budget Committee that. I told former chairman tom price that when he was chairman. I think the process is not functioning, not because the actual methodology is functioning because of a lack of , political competency basically. What you need is essentially political courage to put these things together. I dont think the process is whats holding us back. Do you think senator mccain s vote last night and the sentiment could potentially herald the new era of bipartisanship . Rep. Yarmouth that would be wonderful. It sure could. I think it is unlikely. I think we are still in a very , very sadly polarized situation on the hill and in the country. Part of the reason is i think one of the flaws in republican thinking on our approach to health care, and i think as is true in a lot of ways, they are really severely handicapped by two core philosophical beliefs. One is that the free market is always better and the federal government cant do anything right. And as long as youre in that mindset, finding a governmental approach is going to be really difficult if you dont believe the government can do anything and are only interested getting the government out of the particular field like right now, many republicans are trying to do with the air Traffic Control system. This consistent ideological bias that has made it very difficult for republicans to govern effectively. Partisanship, this long week began with democrats releasing the better deal that mightn i be run on in 2018. Democrats and number of discrete policy proposals they would vote on and did vote on. How much more do you think democrats need to put together for 2018 . Should discrete bills you can get a vote on if they have the majority, should they be part of that . How much do people know about that in 2006 . Were they aware that if they want democrats would raise. , does this stuff penetrate . Rep. Yarmouth in my particular race in 2006, my first campaign, i dont think does the issue at all. I actually never used that. I wasnt quite aware of it. I think your incumbent candidates that year probably used it. I was mainly focusing on two things, that was the iraq war and the problems with the bush administration, and the unfairness of the bush tax cuts. I was basically running on effectively a more shared prosperity, let the economy work for everybody, and also against the bush foreign policy. I cant my experience wouldnt tell you how much those things work or dont work. I know to talk about an aspirational message remember the 3 pillars of the better deal are better jobs, better wages and Better Future. I think the aspirational aspect of that narrative is something that is really important. We will flesh out that slogan with a lot of individual specific policies. We already have some and there will be many more to come. Ultimately we are trying to introduce the concept of a better deal and a Better Future before we actually get into specifics. You will have discrete proposals that you will want democrat to vote on. The president has come the logo and given speeches. The have a sense of anything democrats could introduce that could get acted on in 2019 . Rep. Yarmouth first of all we are definitely going to be talking about infrastructure as a way to create good paying jobs. An infrastructure proposal that does not rely on enormous tax cuts for already wealthy investors. That will be first and foremost one of our policies. We are going to be talking about retirement security. We will talk about education and job training. Those are things that are solely needed. We have to figure out a way to match our workforce with the jobs of the future and i think the first Party Politicians who, come up with an Effective Program to do that are going to be very successful. That is what the American People are looking for. The American People understand the economy is changing rapidly. That, i think, is one of the frustration of many people. They feel dislocated and disconnected from where the world is going and we have to figure out a way to do that. Do you think infrastructure is something you can work with President Trump on . Thats something he has said is one of the areas where he sees is a possibility to work with the democrats and be part of partisan bipartisan. Rep. Yarmouth it remains to be seen. I think we would be more than willing to do that. What ive seen out of the president so far is somebody who seems to be totally content and of sask with governing for the people who voted for him and thats it. He has shown absolutely no willingness to try and gain favor or gain support from anybody other than his base and he has never reached out to anybody in congress to get anything done on the democratic side. If he persists in that attitude that he only is going to work for the people who go to the rallies and applaud for him, then i dont know. Even if we agreed on some and something policywise, it may not help. Just on other potential areas of agreement, trade is one where democrats seem to have some similar views with mr. Trump. The potential for steel tariffs caused the eu to suggest they could retaliate with tariffs on kentucky bourbon of all , products. With you make of that and trumps views . Rep. Yarmouth that would be the shame and we would be penalizing very thirsty people around the world if we did that. I think that is one of these very significant pitfalls with a trade policy on an ad hoc basis. Because it does lend itself to anecdotal repercussions and reciprocations. I would say this is why it is useful to trade deals. I voted against tpp, not because i didnt think there were a lot of good things in it and because i thought the theory behind it was not valid, i thought it was very valid, but if we didnt determine the terms of trade in asia then china would. The problem is that i couldnt go to some of my most faithful supporters, workers throughout my district and say this time its going to be different. By that i mean trade deal sometimes are great as long as you enforce them and we never enforce any trade deals to any extent. I think whether we proceed with this trade agreement in the european union, one with brexit, and we try to revitalize over tree some of the ppp revisions, tpp provisions, i think that could be a very productive Bipartisan Initiative as long as we make a commitment as a country we will enforce the agreement so we are not truly at a disadvantage even know on , paper we are playing on an equal playing field. Susan we have seven minutes left. I want to ask you, in terms of tax reform now, where do you think things will go now that health care is off the table . Will they be increased urgency to get something done there . Are you expecting any kind of possibility of democratic ideas getting into a tax bill . Rep. Yarmouth i think its highly unlikely there will be a comprehensive tax reform bills if it is all republican initiatives. That is just not going to fly. This recent experience shows republicans if they are trying to do that. What this does me is the very policies coming out of the white house. Vague policies coming out of the white house. Initially a onepage paper and last week, six paragraphs with very general principles on tax reform. In tax policy, everything is related to numbers and specifics. What concerns me is it doesnt seem to be any significant strong leadership on the issues. That is a recipe for chaos. Particularly with something is as complicated as tax reform. The proposals that the white house put out, cutting Corporate Taxes and business taxes to 15 and allowing them to pass through which means every sophisticated highend Company Income earner around the country will restructure their life so they can pay a 15 tax rate, those of the types of things democrats will never , ever support. But i think democrats would be amenable to a moderate reduction in Corporate Tax rates. I think the average rate of the oecd countries is about 27 . I think president obama was willing to go to a 28 . I think that by itself is something we can Work Together on. How low would you be willing to go . Rep. Yarmouth i might be willing to go to 25 . I would have to look at with a loss of revenue would be versus the potential gains in economic activity. That is the tradeoff. But then you get into the personal situation. If youre talking about doubling the standard deduction which , basically for most people makes the Home Mortgage deduction irrelevant in make the charitable deduction irrelevant, all of a sudden you have every Nonprofit Group in the country lobbying the congress against that. Then you of the homebuilders and the realtors, everybody in the Real Estate Industry on your case. I think the pressure against those types of changes with the enormous. I dont know if you get conference of tax reform done in this environment. Everybody remains committed to a tax system that is simpler, that is fairer, that allows middleclass people to keep more income and working families. It may be as a little bit more. They really add to the economic inequality in the country. It does away with preferences that at economic inequality in the country. The carried interest provision which allows them to pay 15 taxes. The Warren Buffett lynette Warren Buffett the one that Warren Buffett is offended by. Those things were actually getting on the table i think hopefully we could negotiate on a bipartisan basis. Susan about three minutes left. How would you finance and expansion of health care . We are talking about ways to relieve taxes on the middleclass class people, the way we funded the aca is through higher taxes hit a lot of people. You can hear republicans already attacking democrats for it. Because they cant pass a repeal, the threat that your taxes would explode under a Single Player plan. What mechanism makes the most sense if youre going to expand medicare . Rep. Yarmouth i think if you expand medicare what you do is you ask employers in Corporate America since youre going to be presumably relieving them of the burden of thousands of dollars per employee, you ask them to pay more taxes. I think most ceos i talked to, unfortunately most of the month most ceos will not talk about this in the record. Most would tell you we would gladly pay several thousand dollars per employee to put them and all of our people on medicare. I think what you will see in the next probably five to 10 years is we are going as a major push for medicare for everybody and its going to come from Corporate America, not from a political system. Because corporations are competing globally with companies that dont have to pay directly for their employees health care and i remember a few years ago, General Motors said their Health Care Payments were the largest single component of the cost of a car. Businesses again are saying this really is not sustainable anymore particularly when we are , competing worldwide. I havent run the numbers. I know there is one report that said if you went to medicare for everyone it would add 32 trillion to the cost of governmental expenses over 10 years, but that is basically taking all the money spent in the private sector and transferring it into the government, so im not sure systemwide whether there is an not an opportunity to save money. Susan we have a minute left. Let me ask you this, you return home for august break, what he going to find them of your citizens . Rep. Yarmouth what i find on a weekly basis when i go home is an incredible amount of angst. This administration has traumatized a lot of the country and they fear for the future of our government. They fear they are concerned about our loss of stature in the world and abdication of her leadership role. They are just arrived by these constant barraged by these constant scandals and crises that occur on an almost hourly basis. I suspect in going to continue to see that this week. The hasnt helped is scaramucci situation and the Health Care Bill and the Jeff Sessions controversy. I suspect im going to see a constituency that is very anxious about whats happening with their government. Susan thank you very making a stop at newsmakers. We appreciate your time. John yarmuth of kentucky, the democrat on the house Budget Committee. Thank you very much. Friday morning as we are taking taping this we had late night last night. You are outside of the plaza, lots of members of the public. Where both sides represented . The striking thing about this process for me having covered the tea party was a complete absence of people asking for repeal bills on the street. There is no public pressure for repeal. There was a little bit from industry conservative groups, but a general vanishing of the idea that repeal would be good as policy. That it would be a political victory, but that was enough to get people protesting. I saw fairly small but fairly targeted. , the coalition of groups doing this focus on sending people to offices. 10 people at an Office Without a would have a larger impact of video town square with 1000 people. Culmination was similar to that. Fairly small but people telling individual health care stories. Its a strategy that works better for democrats than they expected given where were the Tea Party People . What was in a mobilization . Im not trying to be patronizing, but without the idea this is being opposed by a person unpopular with republicans, the policy itself and democrats were able to polarize and 20 tengion and point attention to the medicaid extension was part of this, the various gains for middleclass people were part of this. They seemed kind of political and limp. Absent the political power of the presidency of nancy pelosi in these people, just became part of your reality. Republicans didnt have a vision for why your health care would be cheaper and better apart from the president saying it. I think that was it. I kept waiting for a response. Even talking to conservative groups. Had libertarian republicans one, but what republicans came up with was not as compelling as defeating barack obama. Susan does that surprise you . A little bit. This is not a president that has trouble drawing a crowd. The favorite super pac of the propose the idea of having some protest during the longer recesses. I should say rallies in favor of this, and people werent showing up. The Tea Party Groups that exist have strong since the Movement Since they are mainly focused on 2090 2010. Having these meetings with Top Republicans saying pass it. They did not have when they had a concrete goal it was something to do and i have purchased in the Senate Republican caucus. Something like repeal everything and start over, which was easy for them to say. Just run the 2010 election of the failure of obamacare. Very difficult to elect a republican he said sorry you lost insurance for we need to fix this after the next election. It did not cohere at any point in the process. Susan big week for john mccain. What are your observations and the senator performed this week . This whole drama. The speech he gave earlier in the week when he came back dramatically from his illness on the senate floor was quite poignant and i think people were surprised when he cast his vote , which motion to proceed seemed to contradict this intimate he was giving there. There needs to be regular order and bipartisanship, but of the final on the left by casting the vote to essentially kill the reform effort was quite striking. I think it surprised a lot of people. It helped him perhaps her claim his maverick motto from years past. I think as an elder statesman with nothing to lose, probably not running for office again considering his health concerns, i think he was really standing up for probably not running agan because of health concerns, i think he was standing up for what the senate is supposed to stand for. I wanted to ask about leadership, Mitch Mcconnell, what is next for them with regard to their legislative agenda . The Republican Leadership has a freedom caucus. Force arge petition and vote on obama care. If they didnt do so they would find what we found this week. There are seven republicans who voted against the plan. As far as the leadership, they dont have a plan yet. Congressman yarmuth says they have run out of time in two months. There was a realization in people like Mitch Mcconnell that it would be easy or to move on to tax reform instead of keep digging into this. 30 seconds. Care will probably never die as long as republicans are in charge. For the moment there is more urgency for tax reform. In a joint statement from the Republican Leadership yesterday, they will be dressing forward in that. We will see if he can articulate the call for it. Thanks to both of you for being here and the questions for congressman yarmouth. Announcer tonight, on q a, one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the vietnam war. It shocked me because the was somilitary command out of touch with reality of what was happening in the of younghey got a lot americans killed. What general west moreland denied that the city had been taken. It was a fact that he continue to deny it. As a consequence would never concede the sheer number of enemy forces in the city. Small units of marines and troopers were being ordered to attack positions that were held by overwhelmingly superior enemy forces in entrenched positions. Announcer tonight on cspans q a. Cspans washington journal with news and policy issues that impact you. The democratic think tank third way talks about the report on how democrats can retake the house of representatives in 2018. Texas republican congressman who chairs the house ways and Means Committee discusses tax and health care policy. The hill talking about republican tax reform proposals. Watch washington journal monday morning. Join the discussion. Now Border Patrol and customs and Border Protection officials testify about various technology being used to secure the nations borders. This is one hour and 25 minutes