Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130919

Host here is the Washington Post story on what is going on in washington. To be fundts vote obamacare. Obamacare. Host that is from the Washington Post this morning. Lots going on. We want to hear from you. Marianne in carson city, nevada, democrat line. Caller thank you. My observation of our country is the fact that the top one percent are still raking in millions and billions of dollars. And they are complaining. Them sitting very nicely. However, while they are making money on wall street and the top corporations, i also notice that people are just making 7. 25 an hour, which basically has only 1. 23 raise in the last 36 years. Host federal budget showdown is looming in congress. What is the solution, in your view . Would likesolution i to ask is, why cant we bring back the glasssteagall act . Host this is bobby in fitzgerald, georgia. Republican. Would first of all, i like to just say that i am ugly head we have a Republican Congress. I am glad i am glad that we have a Republican Congress. I am glad we even have a debate within the Republican Party. Everybody seems to think thats a bad thing. I just want to say as far as c span goes, it seems like they cant wait to put congress out there to be blasted every day when we have a president , ok, that hardly ever gets any light shines on him. The congress is over 400 people. Viewports are going to vary as much as the phone calls that are going to call in today. It is a lot harder to be in congress to get something done, then to be a president like we have that does everything we can to just have his way and his way or the highway. Thats all he wants to say. I just dont want to callin to cspan anymore. You are going the rest of the way of the rest of the media. Host bobby in fitzgerald, georgia. Here is the hill this morning. House cancels recess. Returning september 25. Host the next call is sally on the independent line. Delray beach, florida. You are on washington journal. As we get closer to september 30, what are your thoughts . My thought is, i am very obamacare. Ont think the republicans what they are proposing is worthwhile. Host thank you until they didnt wait this time to put something out, which is too late. Host salle, thank you for calling in this morning. Of davidgs cq roll call writes host les, kentucky. Caller thanks for having me. Weve got a tremendous fiscal issue in our country. Weve got an executive branch and that in my humble opinion is oblivious tos the massive amount of gridlock, the tremendous amount of debt that we have on the taxpayers, on the burden of the taxpayers of this country. Weve got way, way too many entitlements, from the cradle to grave. Weve got some serious issues across the globe. Army, navy,s air force, marine corps they are having to the programs for training, equipment. There are a lot of issues that this administration i just see someone who is so inept and oblivious to what is going on. This issuees regarding the one percent versus the 99 . You know, weve got to get people back to work. We cant give incentives for people to constantly sit on their butts and draw welfare checks or government weeksoyment checks for 99 or 99 months or however many years they want to draw it. If it came to a Government Shutdown on september 30, would you support that . Caller absolutely, yes. Shut it down. Weve got to have something to wake people up. Seriousst got too many issues in the country to allow stuff to continue. I suspect aans, and good many of the democrats are saying, look, lets shake some stuff up here. Something. O do and shutting it down maybe a way to wake up the people. From that was les kentucky. Quite a conversation going on on our facebook page. Here are some of the comments regarding the federal government showdown looming. Host dot, louisiana. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am conservative, but i wish all would go ahead and fund of the stuff because in the next 10 years, this country is going to be absolutely bankrupt, and then we are going to see what will happen. Theres going to be millions of people in the streets, which is what needs to happen now. Weekt spend 1 million a in my Household Budget when i am making 50,000 dollars a year. And that is exactly what these fruitcakes in washington are doing right now. It is pathetic. Somethings got to happen. Or were all going to be like north korea. Off of trees before it is over with. Host this headline boehner bows to conservative demands on obamacare defunding. Another article on the hill host that is from the hill newspaper, as is this article conservatives in house unveil obamacare replacement bill. Host sherry in libertyville, illinois, democratic line. We want to hear your views on the federal budget showdown looming in congress. Caller good morning. Would like toi say that the way i see republicans is that they are just a bunch of bullies. I just feel right now they are saying, its all about a their dare. Just feel that i am stunned, honestly. I dont know where they are getting their news but i just feel that so many of them the way they talk him a there is nothing factual the way they is nothing factual. And i hear it over and over again. I just question where they are getting their information from. Right now we are paying as a family of three, we are paying close to 1000 a month. My husband does work for a small company. Thats a lot of money. Our monthly costs have come down from a year ago thered theres a number of things included in the health bee law that will no longer an expense. My husband and i are over 50. We both had to pay for each time. Es, 1500 that is included in the new health care law. I see that as a huge benefit. 1500 for a middle income family to save in the course of a year is a lot of money. I honestly just feel that they are just a bunch of bullies, just trying to stop their stuff and say we can do this. But they are so detached from reality. It is rather sad to hear the commentary from all the republicans and the way they talk and how every body is just trying to leech off of the government. It is so untrue and unfair. If we could only educate the children of the country. I mean, i believe everything goes back to education. If we can educate the kids than they have what they need to go out into the workforce. My son who graduated college atee years ago, he has been a very good and Expensive School and he has been in and out of job the last three years and it has just been devastating. Host sherry from libertyville, illinois. Usa today this morning. Their headline republicans plan showdown on health care. Host here is a little bit of the president from yesterday. [video clip] we now have is an ideological fight that has been mounted in the house of representatives that says we are not going to pass a budget and we will threaten a government repeal theless we Affordable Care act. We have not seen this in the past, that a budget is eliminating aus program that was voted on, passed by both chambers of constitutional by the Supreme Court, is two weeks from being fully implemented and helps 30 Million People finally get health care coverage. We have never seen that become the issue around the budget battle. So that is right now the primary roadblock to resolving the budget. Host the next call comes from joe from georgia on the republican line. This must be joe mcletchie and. Oligo it certainly is. I love cspan. I have never been so fired up. I have been tom grays Campaign Manager it was his bill to defund obama. I think he will be a future president. But i think tom gray in the house we will defund obamacare. The American People are fired up and that is what will defund this, the millions of american like me calling in energized, excited, and tom gray is, mark my words, he will be president. Host joe, what do you think about the potential Government Shutdown . Caller tom doesnt want it to happen. He wants to keep it open. That you know, peter, i am 73 years old and weve got to take a stand. I am tired of all these liberals we have 17 17 trillion debt and my grandchildren all the money. The democrats are just huge spenders. Thank god for tom gray. If we have to shut the government down i dont think it will come to that but weve got to show the American People we stand for something and tom gray is an american and national hero, along with ted cruz and the great mike lee of utah. Host what do you think of Speaker Boehner . Glad yesterday he finally coming capitulated abroad up a vote. Before that i thought we needed to be defeated. We need to defeat a lot of incumbents. M working with a governor i think all the republican governors if they are doing a good job, they should have nothing to worry about. I hope you get on the ball. If he does, he will be ok but if he doesnt i think you will see somebody like grays to be speaker of the house. Host we will talk to you again in 30 days. From the hill newspaper this morning. Host that is what he said to his conference. Tyler is in laurel, maryland. Independent line. Caller i wanted to address one budget proposal, the wall street sales tax. I agree with a caller earlier talking about people being on welfare, but the biggest welfare recipient there is is wall street. With all of these loopholes, subsidies, tax breaks. It is time they pay something in and not just get Something Else from the government when the working people are suffering every day. That is just my two cents. Host john is in arizona on our democrat line. We are talking about all the federal budget issues in washington. What do you think . Caller when i think is that all administration is doing issuesto confront some that have been long pushed aside. Big money and other entities are taking advantage of the federal government. Now, since the people voted for obama care by putting him in, it seems like the same electoral votes that ousted gore and b to put ther people back in a position where they can put money in their pockets, those same electoral up againstow coming an administration that is at least trying to correct the ii. Rs of bush i and at the same time you have guys making x amount of dollars, you dont see them taking a pay cut. You dont see them not giving themselves a raise. Even in lieu of the federal government shutting down, i can guarantee you immediately after that congress is going to give themselves a raise. Of thee governments states and the representatives of the states. The government needs to stop doing themselves a raise if our government is in such a shambles. They need to, as a matter of fact, take a pay cut until these things are settled. AreAmerican People suffering. It doesnt matter who you put in that chair as speaker of the house or whatever. What does matter is the Government Works on behalf of the people and not on behalf of their pockets. Host thank you. Morning o this host that is because the senate will not accept the entirety of the 3, 900 86 billion continuing resolution that boehner will attempt to pass , 986 billionnth continuing resolution. Host a little bit more intrigue there. And one more article from tical politico host yolanda, corpus christi, texas, republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have been listening to several of your caller is this morning callers this morning. I also heard you read the Washington Post editorial. I tell you, the Washington Post opinions are so biased. Maybe that is why theyve lost so many readers and credibility and money. Host just wanted to clarify, that was not an editorial but a news article. Sorry, news article. As far as the speaker is concerned, i applaud what he is trying to do. I dont believe that their goal is to shut down the government. They just want to defund obamacare. Obamacare is a train wreck. Has been sebelius rewriting the bill. They have given waivers to big corporations, to unions, and to special Interest Groups but not to the individual american. Obamacare, in my family, we will have to pay 3200 more to maintain our insurance policies. And i believe the Republican Party is going to come up with a proposal, a 200 page proposal speaking to health care. I really do applaud what the speaker is doing. I hope that they hold firm. And as far as being a bully my goodness sakes theres no bigger bully than reid. Reid does not believe in any kind of bipartisanship. And obamacare was voted totally on a partisan vote. Anyway, thats all i have to say. Host thank you so much. Lets read some tweets. Lots coming in. Host heres the Financial Times this morning. Ir headline host lets take the next call from sally from vermont. Caller i just want to say, i democraticcourage Party Members from constantly saying the republicans are trying to shut down the government. Because the American People are not stupid. But democrats look petty, spoiled, and ridiculous. Republicans, they are just trying to do what they think is right, and it is in the hands of obama and harry reid to shut down the government, and not the republicans, and they are threatening to do that if they dont get their way on everything they want. I know these are hot issues, but i think that stooping to insult and accusations that the American People know are not really the case are not really helping. Host betty from albuquerque. Democrat. Good morning. Peter, you really deserve a commendation. I dont know how use it there with your beautiful straight face and listen to these calls. You are a wonderful moderator. I just want to say that obamacare him of the genesis of obamacare obamacare, the general the genesis of obamacare is the republican heritage foundation. Republicans are not afraid of obamacare as it is now, because they are the ones who originally created it. What they are afraid of is who is going to take the credit. It is the first step to Single Payer Health care. It is a wonderful thing. 30 Million People are going to insured. Rt it will be obamas legacy. And it hasnt even been implemented yet, so how people can talk about rising costs at this stage of the game, i dont know how what happens. The wall street journal is against the shutdown. Even the chamber of commerce, which is in bed with the biggest corporations, is against the shutdown of government. This is a real coffin sealer for the republicans or what is left of the party. They shut down the government and we can be assured that the midterms are going to turn democratic, which is exactly what they should be doing. Host betty in albuquerque. From the Washington Times is this chart on Health Care Costs. The source is centers for medicare and medicaid. Host you can see, according to cms, 6. 9 was the average increases in Health Care Costs m 20002009 host bob in pennsylvania is calling in on our republican line. What is the name of your town . Merging of thes rivers, meeting of the rivers. I am calling to comment on the obama care system. I work for a fortune 500 company. And we have been seeing our Health Benefits you eroded away through our company, and it is a obama carelt of the system being implemented or the possibility of it being implemented in its full capacity. Seeinghave just been devastating things happening. We have also been seeing in our area where private employers with their own businesses really ofling from the possibility paying these exorbitant prices for health care, and we also witnessed people cutting back on their employees hours as a result of basically the penalties for having employees that are fulltime. This has been devastating. Good with the oil system and natural gas system going on appear. Host in usa today those quote in usa today is this article host is this something your company has done . Yes. R we havent but here in the next week or so we will probably be rolling out our new system for this year. Dont normally know what the outcome of our Health System is going to be until our company rolled out here in again, it is a very, very good fortune 500 company and i am very fortunate to be working with them. They are a very solid company. Ever know they dont layoff or fire people him above through attrition people, but through attrition, they are not hiring back. But it is the same thing. This is a company that has been here for 40 years. Host lets leave it there. That is bob in pennsylvania. A little bit more from this article in usa today this morning. Host that is in usa today this morning. This is an email from minneapolis host the front page of the Washington Times this morning. Host that is on the front page this morning of the Washington Times in case youre interested in reading it your self. Willis in fort worth, texas. We are talking about some of the budget battle looming in washington. What do you think . Caller good morning, peter. Angst for taking my call. Taking my call. Who is running the house . Is it boehner or cantor. It seems like cantor puts up the agenda. Not only that, most of us cant afford insurance. Most of the folks i know around me have gone to cash. I know some companies who hire 3400 people, they are not full time but they work most of the time, and they all work for cash. I think the world is going to cash. The currency is a fiat currency. Like to haveld you running the house, Speaker Boehner or eric cantor . Caller for sure i would like to see boehner stand up. I just dont understand how cantor has so much power, other than a few tea parties he works with. I dont get it. I dont think the public is behind it. I think it is a small fringe. It just amazes me. I just cant figure out why boehner cant stand up. Host got your point. We will move on to john from costa mesa, california. Democrat. Caller thank you for cspan. This is just reckless brinkmanship on the part of the Republican Congress. All i can say is that the lobbies and lobbyists must be really working hard on the Republican Party to push them to repeal a law that is two weeks it doesnt get implemented until january, but you can sign up for the exchanges october 1. It was determined by the Supreme Court that it was connected to a tax. And all of these people, Grover Norquist and all of these people, must be very influential. I just wish the Republican Congress would work for the people and not for the lobbyists. Democrat, what do you think about a potential Government Shutdown . Caller it is disastrous. We are trying to get on our feet. We have a war, we have all of these problems, and you want to put this country through this absurd exercise every three months . The president is totally right. Thebeen approved by Supreme Court passed it. It is a done deal, law, and it is just absurd. Host all right. This is the New York Times this morning host in several of the papers i dont know if it is in your paper this morning but in several of the major papers is ofs ad by Howard Schultz starbucks. A fullpage open letter on open carry in starbucks. The issue. Here is just a little bit about of what mr. Schultz writes here. Today we are respectfully requesting customers at starbucks in our stores were eating areas even in states where open carry is permitted, unless they are Law Enforcement personnel. Host next call on the budget issues that washington is comesnting, from grace from grace right here in washington. Caller thank you for listening to me and excepting my call. The issue is hello . Host we are listening. Caller in time of war, in the past, you always close the borders. You start deporting foreigners because some people come in here and they just want to come in for the benefits and not thinking about the health, the citizens who are already here, and the issue with the military. People elect you and put you in youce because we depend on when we get ready for retire. That we are in good hands. See that it is just really crazy the shooting down at the navy yard. What is going on with our military . We need to be more supportive of our americans and not so much of the foreigners. But i do support obama, or our government, if we decide to retaliate or a text area. That is fine. Because it is keeping us safe if we decide to retaliate or a tax. That is fine. Host a little off topic talking about the budget issue in congress. En article from the greta wir on fox news. The senator has an oped in profiravda. Host that is a little bit of senator mccains oped this morning in the russian newspaper. From the wall street journal host steve in baltimore, independent line, you are the last call on our first segment this morning. What do you think about some of these budget issues in washington . I think the Republican House lost the fight. Get over it. I think you are looking bad because you are looking like somebody who can be a good loser. I think if there was a Strategic Plan for the Republican House, they could get the changes they want. Let the thing pass. If its really trash, it will fall apart or it will get adjusted. There is a pendulum to this kind of thing. What you said about the Insurance Companies struck a chord with me. This is a market adjustment. This is where the nation is going. The companies, they either have to change or die. Thanks. Host thanks for calling in. Two final articles. , yes, 2016 poll. Paul got 20 , Chris Christie got 19 . Third place, jeb bush, 13 . , home state senator, came in fourth, 12 . Ted cruz, 10 . Marco rubio, paul ryan, seven percent each. Finally in the wall street ournal host well, we have three guests coming up. Congressmen. To scott garrett, republican of new jersey, member of the Budget Committee and we will be talking about some of the issues we have been talking about right now. After him, james mcgovern, democrat from massachusetts will be out here as well. Thee continue on washington journal. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] when helen taft became first lady in 1909, 1 of the first thing she did was address having cherry trees planted around the tidal basin. The tidal basin in the early 20th century was a mess. The japanese heard about her interests and they decided to give 2000 trees to the United States in her honor. Everyone was shocked. The trees that were sent were older and very tall and bug infested. So, it was decided they would have to be burned. In fact, president taft himself made the decision. Were veryse accommodating and understanding and decided to send a thousand trees, which arrived in 1912. It is those that we still have a few of around the tidal basin. Watch our program on helen taft on our website www. C span. Org first ladies or see it saturday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. We continue our series live next monday as we look atellen and edith wilson. The student cam video competition is underway, open to all middle and High School Students and this year we are doubling the number of winners and bright money. Create a fivesenate minute 57 minute documentary on an issue you think congress should consider in 2014. You should use cspan video, show varying points of view. If you need more information, visit student cam. Org. Washington journal continues. Host representative scott garrett, were you at the closed door republican conference yesterday . It is the regular weekly gop meeting that we have downstairs. Host can you give us a sense of how it went and what were some of the issues discussed and is there Division Within the gop . All ofsure, i can do these things. So, i would say it started out as a regular meeting. We have good attendance at these things now. In the past, as you can imagine, when the issues go by the side, not everybody shows up. This time, as we get into crunch time, all the members are there. The conversation was just all the topics you have been talking about previously just now. Is there division . There is always a difference of opinion. We have open mic after the leadership make their presentations. We run down the list with the speaker and the majority leader or the web and the whip, and the whip. There isay this probably more consensus at yesterdays meeting than a week ago or a couple of weeks ago. Comingay is thursday, so into the end of the week now with the farm bill and the snap a bill for the end of the week, i think there is more consensus there. And going into next week on what is there, there is more consensus going on as well. Host first of all, do you support the current gop strategy that Speaker Boehner announced yesterday . Guest sure. So, his plan now is to come up with one continuing resolution that would have two or three parts to it. One of the critical parts to it, i think, is a piece of legislation we already did in the past. Tom mcclintock from california had a piece that said, hey, we should make sure that will no matter what happens going forward, we dont want the government to shut down. There is total 100 consensus on the gop conference on that. We want to make sure that the administration, the white house, has the power and authority to in short endure the thernment ensure government does not get shutdown and we continue to pay our debts. The language will contain that and that is one area where there is 100 support. Ingt what about the defund of health care and the debt limit which have conditions attached to it . Of theon the defunding Affordable Health care act, that is also an area pretty good consensus. It is not 100 , but i think most republicans on the side where most americans are. The polling at numbers, the majority of americans have real questions about the Affordable Health care act, a. K. A. Obamacare, going into effect october 1. Even the administration is saying that part of that are not ready for prime time, if you will, come october 1. We are just playing off of what the American Public is saying and the administration is saying. If you are not ready to roll it out, lets kick it down. Host are you supportive of the speakers at strategy . Guest sure. I think this new piece of legislation we will be coming out with is probably the best that we can do in a difficult time we are in right now. What about a Government Shutdown, especially if the senate does not pass what you pass and they bring it back and you do not accept what they have done . By the way, the numbers are up on this rain, so if you would like to participate in the conversation, go ahead and violin now or make a twitter comment as well. Host if it passes the house, does not come out of the senate in the same form, does a Government Shutdown happened . Guest in every negotiation you need to have somebody on the other side of the table. Wea long period of time, have not had somebody over there and for a long period of time, the president like in international affairs, has drawn lines in the sand saying i will not do this or that, and it is either his weight or no way. Way or no way. It is not a good method to reach compromise but this is pretty much where the president has been on fiscal matters. We are hoping he will this time come to the table and that the senate will come to the table. And when our legislation goes over there, a broader agreement can be reached. Host what do you think of this s toline boehner bow conservative demands on obamacare defunding. Were writing that, maybe i would rephrase it to say americanhner bows to public on this issue. It goes back to a comment i made , if you look at the majority of americans i cant give poll numbers off the top of my head. You have the papers in front of you. The American Public does not want the Affordable Health care act, obamacare, to go into effect right now. We are just responsive to that. There also responsive to fact that the American Public wanted something to be done with regard to health care. We want to fix the situation. Piecesre are a number of of republican legislation that would Fix Health Care in this country and try to make it more affordable for the average american. Host representative garrett, its health care wasnt an issue right now, would there be any issue with the budget what would be the issues, if any, with the budget, continuing resolution, etc. . Guest if the Affordable Health care act were somehow magically solved, what will be item to o on the list . The overall issue of the fiscal sustainability of the country. The fact that we are 17 trillion in debt, the fact that we are on an unsustainable spending course in this country. The poll numbers would show that the public wants us to live within our means, dont spend more than we take in. The American Public often says when i go back home, my constituents you guys in washington should have to live by the same laws and rules that we do. And i totally agree. And one of the most fundamental rules of economics is that you cant continuously spend more than you take in. So, they want us to live by that rule as well. And we have not been for a long time. Both under republican president s and democrat president s. But now we are coming to a point where we have to fix the problem. That is the number one issue. Host scott garrett, member of the Budget Committee and Financial Services committee. In fact, chair of the subcommittee on Capital Markets on the Financial Services committee. Has been in Congress Since 2003, correct . Guest yep. Host want to get your view on this article. What do you think about jenny yellen for the fed . First, the headline question she is the most likely choice but we really dont know that he cuts the president , it would appear, is doing really what president which is be doing, sending up trial balloons to see the response. If i was on this Program Three weeks ago, the headline might larry, sommers summers most likely the candidate. That trial balloon was loaded. There was so much opposition to him. The opposition, as you probably have covered, did not come from the republican side of the aisle, oddly enough. The opposition came from his own party in the senate, from the democrats. That was one trial balloon that was floated and it was knocked down by his party. Now we have yelling yellen and the president , as far as i know, has not said correct me if i am wrong has not said this is actually going to be his nominee. We dont know if there is another nominee that is out there. I think the president has said he does not need any more information, but it does not mean you and i would be getting a phone call saying we are the nominee. To your last point on that, i guess my concern would be if she was in fact selected and approved, what her course of action would be on the seminole seminal issue regarding the fed. Oft is, the printing dollars, so to speak. The continuing buying the bonds in the marketplace and what that would do in the economy. We just host what you think of what the fed did yesterday . Guest confusing. Confusing. The one word that i hear all the time when i go home to my you are whether talking about Small Business, middle business, the business is uncertainty. With regard to the marketplace, with regard to the regard, uncertainty with to what is coming out of washington. Uncertainty, businesses dont want to grow or create jobs. It is our job to provide a degree of certainty. The fed has done just the opposite here. They were giving also to of indications in the days leading up to this that they were going to begin the process of slowing down on the purchase of bonds the slowing down on the printing of dollars. Wasket was slowing preparing for that certainty. Then they changed course midstream. Moment but if you talk to people on the street main street or wall street they are right back at it. Theres out of the fed. There is no certainty. Ohio first call comes from on our democrats line. Hey, melissa. Caller good morning. I am a democrat. With thefully disagree house position on the budget and the Affordable Care act. Be, if you would feel that the Affordable Care act is a terrible piece of not allow it to proceed forward to show what those effects will be . That would strengthen your position in the long run. You went on record saying you are not a fan of this legislation and did not wanted to pass. Guest that is a good question. Here is one thing. Seen some of the effects of the Affordable Care act even though it has not been fully implemented. I am looking at all these newspapers all you have to do is see any of these newspapers in the last days, weeks, or months and look at what is happened to unemployment in this country and businesses in this country and what they are doing already in anticipation of the Affordable Care act. If you are a Business Owner and you know that once it goes into effect fully that the law is going to apply to you, you are not going to wait until october 1 to say that is when i am going to begin acting. Are acting in anticipation of how the law will play out. What are we seeing them doing . Businesses are laying people off. Theyre cutting hours. They are telling employees that we provided you Health Insurance for years and now we will not provide it to you and your family anymore. The point is, we have artie seen the effects of the afford we have already seen the effects of the Affordable Care act. It is only going to get worse once it is implement it. You see even more people without Health Insurance. More people going from a 40 hour workweek to a 29 hour work week. Because they dont want to provide Health Insurance. We have seen the effect already. It is not good. We need to stop it now. We need to replace it with some of the reform proposals that republicans have passed over to the senate. They die over there. Proposals that i have personally handed to the president of the United States. I say, can you support some of these things . He has never called back. We have a number of reform proposals that we think will fix it and we would like to work with the administration to get those in place. A tweet guest is it an artificial budget crisis . No, it is a true budget crisis. Much. Spending way too 17 trillion in debt. We will be borrowing again. Borrowing more money than we are spending again in this budget. In this budget year as well. Those are all not good things. We have to resolve them and we have to try to resolve them in a bipartisan manner with amenable actors and both sides. In the senate and in the house. Until they are willing to sit down at the table and discuss these issues, you could call that a crisis. In another tweet coming i agree with ron. Our memories are shorter. If you think back to the days and weeks before the sequester was going to go into effect, and if you tuned into this program and watched what was going on on youfloor of the house, would see democrat member after democrat member come to the floor and say, the sequester is about to happen tomorrow, next week, and the world is going to end. People are going to be losing this, people are going to be dying, thrown out on the streets. All horror was about to occur across the country. Airports would be shut down, aspitals would be shut down, litany of a terrible situation that was going to go into effect once the sequester hit. Well, guess what, the sequester has hit and the country has survived. Inc. Seven gone on things have gone on. The world has continued. All of the terrible stories that they predict it predicted would occur with the sequester it not come to pass. But we have begun to slow the growth curve of spending in washington and put us on a trajectory to living within our budget. Host next call from glen in beaumont texas. Said thate president the debt and the budget are not affected by obamacare and have nothing to do with it. The fact is, that is the exact opposite of the truth. The fact is, the debt and the we are printing 85 billion a month. We have been doing it for years. Trillion every year. , whenou are going to do you have an a trillion dollar what areself, you going to do when you have as aal trillion dollars debt all at once . And you are going to use money that you gin up to pay for obamacare. In the meantime, there are people like me, who have been we did notyed even count on the list of unemployed because we are invisible nonpersons. Working of us that are parttime, 1, 2, and three jobs, they dont count either. Numbers and you give yourself fake numbers to work with who was employed and who is not you were going to get the number that you want. My Unemployment Benefits ran out a little bit before they were because they change the number of who was employed. Host can you bring your statement to a conclusion . I think there should be says, or something that when the house votes for something, such as the appeal repeal of obamacare, and they have a nice majority i dont care what dictator is in charge the senate needs to be no, d to vote, yes or garrett,resentative any thoughts for glenn . Guest i appreciate your call. You do count. You are not invisible. Ando recognize that you many other americans find themselves unfortunately in the same position as you do. That are overlooked here by some in washington. We recognize you out there. We recognize the hardship youre going through because you are unemployed. Reason your unemployed you are unemployed is because of the terrible economic position that the country finds itself in. You are not able to find a sustainable job, a good paying career to go back into. That is what washington should be focusing on. Issuesuld be the other if we could get the obamacare issue resolved . If we could come to an agreement and postpone that again lets really get down to the issues of the day. The issue of the day should be letting you and others have the jobs you want to to support yourself and your family. Thathould have a job allows you enough to pay for Health Insurance for yourself and your family. To get the economy going, to get we can do it. If we put the government on a fasttrack to a balanced budget. If we put the government on a fasttrack to creating jobs. Giving businesses the certainty they need. Stephen in indiana. Caller good morning. Was reelected you dont have a plan. You are saying how the sequester prediction was wrong by the democrats. Like you guys are going to be right . Guest lets run down some of those issues. The example i gave you on right or wrong predictions. The sequester, right . The democrats were predicting that the country would come to a standstill and to a halt. The airports would close down and the hospitals would all shut down and the trains would stop running. Were they right or wrong on that . They were wrong. We predicted that they would continue on and operate and the government and the country would continue on. I think we were right. That is one where they were wrong and we are right. The other one is on the Affordable Health care act. They predicted that the cost of Health Insurance would go down. They predicted that if you have Health Insurance today, you would be able to keep that same plan tomorrow. Ok . They predicted that this would not affect employment in the country. Lets he with the reality was. The cost of Health Insurance has gone up. They said it would go down. The number of people who would be able to keep their Health Insurance just the way it was that was their prediction. What is the reality . We have seen millions of americans being forced to give up their Health Insurance or change to a different plan. They were wrong on that prediction. The other aspect was that they predicted that this would not affect employment. Because they put the limit at 30 hours, they were wrong. Businesses across this country are laying off people were cutting their hours. Those are those definitions and what we predicted on each case. As the point, as far republicans have a plan, and you said no we dont, you are basically saying the same thing that president obama has been saying for the last three years. I know where you are coming from. The president said, republicans have no proposals, they have no plans, we have to do it this way. A 32nd story stephen 30 secon d story. President obama came to congress to give a speech to tell us what his plan is. He said, republicans have no proposals. The same thing you are saying. I happened to be sitting right on the aisle of the congress at the end of that speech. The president came down the aisle and i reached over to him and said, mr. President , i appreciate the fact he want to work with us, i know you said we have no proposals. I took out of my bag a package of about 30 pages listing all of the republican proposals on the reform of health care to make it more affordable, ones that would not hurt jobs but actually help create jobs. I handed it to the president and asked them to look at it. To see if we could work on it. That was three years ago. Im still waiting for a call back. We have lots of ideas. Make realwe can improvement to your life and your neighbors life as well. We would like to work with the administration and get it done. Host tweeting into you congressman we were in session last week, we are in session this week. We willbe in session be doing what we have been doing all along. We passed bills. We send them over to the senate. We dont have to be in session while they are debating. You have to be in session once they ask. The frustrating part is this i often use the expression, the senate is where all good bills go to die. By that i mean, the house makes great bills. We send it over to the senate. Sometimes in a bipartisan manner sometimes not. And sometimes they die over there. We are waiting for the senate to act and unfortunately itll pass much of anything. Maurice in oklahoma city. Democrat. Because i amalling learning about the investment in our future in our health area. We arent making any progress because people wont talk. They say they are doing all they can. They have a plan. We never hear about that plan. We are just hearing about air. The future is important to us. We are not making that investment. Host what is your question . Caller we are talking about jobs and we are not doing anything about it. We are talking about health care withe seem to want to stay where we are. They can deny us coverage of we have a condition if we have a condition. That is not good for us. T thank you, race maurice. Guest i appreciate your concern maurice. On investment, there is a lot of bipartisan support for that. In the area of health care and health care research, you go back in time to the bush years and bring it right up until now, under both administrations, republican and democrat, you have significant investment in ih, for theearch, n investment they need to make the basic studies and research to help create new treatment methods and new methodologies and new drugs, what have you. I think there is bipartisan support in those areas. Know, ae, you difference of approach values of the two parties. Ist you see in washington that some people think you can solve the unemployment problem by creating more government jobs. Included,le, myself inc. You can help it buy more private sector jobs. Local businesses in your town. You can only do that if the local business guy feels that the economy is improving, he feels he can buy Health Insurance for his employees. All the stuff going on in washington right now basically prevents that Small Business guy from making any of those decisions. That certainty in the marketplace needs to come back so the local business guy can create jobs. Tweet guest ok. I guess there are two ways to look at every story. Some people would say, hey, the president was elected twice, get over it. Other people would say, i was elected six times, so maybe the president should. The house of representatives was reelected strongly with republican control. The American People mustve been sending some message there, as far as the last election in 2012. If you just look at what the polling and the polling is not an election, i understand that if you look at what the polling is today, the majority of the American Public says that they do not like what is happening with the Affordable Health care act. With the loss of jobs and the hiring. The majority of the public wants to see delayed for a. Of time. Electedans have been and we are reflecting the mood of the country today. Host dean in florida. I republicans line. Our republicans line. Morning. Ood thank you for taking my call. I want to say that i dont believe in raising the debt ceiling. I dont believe in obamacare. I dont need it. Im 93 years old and i pay my insurance every month. I have Blue Cross Blue Shield and metlife. I dont need obamacare. Did you say you are 93 years old . I did. Host she went away. Shoot. Guest god bless you, dean. For your entire long life. I appreciate your opinion as well. We havent talked too much about the debt ceiling at. Yet. A lot of these issues are complicated and i try to bring them down to a level where i can get my arms around them. I quit the issue of raising the debt ceiling to these letters you get from your Credit Card Company. If you have maxed out on your credit cards, you will still get this letter from your Credit Card Company that says, you have maxed out, we will give you the opportunity to raise the limit, so you can borrow more on your credit cards. You have to think before you do that. Can i afford that . Amaya spending more than im taking in am i spending more than i am taking in . Is the smart thing to do to take advantage of that offer in that situation . Tois the smarter thing to do say, no, i dont need to raise the limit . Im going to try to bring my credit down to a reasonable level and try to get my house in order. That is what we are trying to do over here. To get the house in order. From the hill newspaper this morning host what is your initial take on that . I used to be the chairman of the budget and Spending Task force. Not this year. As with every bill, there are different parts of it. There is a lot in that piece of legislation that is good. In, asjust been dropped you say, yesterday. Think it is a good thing that you brought that up, or raised the news story. We have had two or three tweeters so far who say that republicans never have any solutions or alternatives. There is a republican solution and alternative. With all due respect to the bill, those ideas and that legislation have been the republican ideas for the last several years as well. Now it is crafted in one nice, neat little bill. We have had solutions and i think a lot of them will be beneficial. Host tom, fort lauderdale, independent. Caller you talked about the budget in your credit cards. You dont have Nuclear Weapons that you have to keep running. That is not a good example. Going to health care, how do you get your health care and how many of your fellow congressman have given up their Taxpayer Funded Health Care . To set an example to the rest of the people . , theseea party people are the freeloaders of your society. They are complaining because they have to pay to get their health care to cover themselves in case they get sick instead of freeloading off the rest of america. Why are you in bed with these freeloaders . And this ted cruz. Do you agree with some people that he is a plant of fidel castro who is trying to destroy the economy of the United States . The deficit is going down, unemployment is going down, and now you want to blackmail the economy and shut down the government and destroy this economy . Host with a lot on the table. Representative garrett . Guest i think you described yourself well when you thought cruz was a plant by fidel castro. I guess the other viewers of the program understand who you are and where you are coming from. Let me go through some of your points. Some of them, as odd as they are. Have amilies dont Nuclear Deterrent that they dont have to take care of, very observant of you, tom. Every family has their necessities. For government, you are right, we have our necessities an army, a Nuclear Defense. I think you could probably come up with other clever examples, tom. Every family, including yours, as necessities. Right . You have your house. You have your health care, whether you get it from an Insurance Company or pay out of your pocket. You have your food, your transportation. These are all necessities that you have. Familycompare an average to a business or government in the sense that they have necessities and have luxury items. At the end of the day, a family still has to manage its budget. How much goes to necessities and how much goes to the extra things. At the end of the day, that family has to live on a budget. They have to make sure to not spend more than it is taking in for a. Of time. If you do, you go bankrupt. The government, tom, is no different. We have an army, a Nuclear Defense deterrent, whole bunch of other things necessities. Those are the responsibilities of the government. We have other things we would like to spend money on. At the end of the day, just like a business or a family, the government cannot continuously spend more than we take in. , we too will go bankrupt. If we do, future generations, your kids or grandkids, will be the ones, unfortunately, left a bill. , ass our responsibility responsible citizens and legislators, to take care today. And do so in a prudent manner. I think that is what a number of us, from both sides of the aisle, are attempting to do in washington today. Host the last call for congressman garrett. John in louisville. A democrat. Caller here is my point. I think the American People are for Government Shutdown is much as they were for a war. I know they have to cut food stamps. My point, i wish to god the two parties, im for the pipeline. Both parties get the same thing cut taxes, dont cut taxes. If they could teach these people in Eastern Kentucky like they teach people skills in germany. They told people the coal Mining Industry is dying. Is, i wish to god both parties could be practical. Practical. Pipeline would help. The republicans are always critical. They talk about tort reform. I have not done that. I wish you guys and gals could get together and do what is right for the darned American People. Sound reasonable, too. We could probably sit down and agree on a bunch of these things and get them done. We agree on the pipeline right off the bat, the Keystone Pipeline project. It does not affect my neck of the woods my neck of that much. We have tried on that over and over again, and you heard me say bills, andsing those it dies. The president says no to it. And the shutdown. Nobody republicans or democrats want to see the entire government just shut down tomorrow. We dont want to do that. We want to come to a solution on this whole thing, and i think there is one. And one that will provide all the issues, address all the issues we discussed, try to get us to a path to fiscal sanity, try to create more jobs and the like. Positive gainis a to all this if the parties can come together. We will stick to our principles, they will stick to their principles, but on the middle ground there has to be accommodation. Scott garrett, thank you for being on washington journal. Next, james mcgovern, democrat from massachusetts, talking about the same issues we are discussing. After that we will look at the benghazi hearings. And jeremygs today, herb from the hill will be to join us. First, this news update from c span radio. The gates at the Washington Navy yard have reopened for workers this morning, three days after a gunman killed 12 people there. The building where the shooting took place remains offlimits, and the base gym is being used as an fbi staging area. Investigators still trying to determine a motive for mondays attack. Right now focusing on aaron alexis Mental Health and the baby are he displayed weeks before the and the behavior he exhibited weeks before the shooting. A global rally in stocks. Japans nikkei jumped 1. 8 despite data showing that country trade deficit spending. At home, the dow rose 147 points 15,670ay to close at 6. 94, a new record high. Paying closel be attention to todays weekly jobless claims report. The governments secondquarter trade deficit report, the Conference Board survey of leading Economic Indicators for august. The National Association of realtors existing home sales for august, and freddie mac will mortgage rates. Some of the list of headlines on cspan radio. Washington journal continues. Congressman jim mcgovern, democrat, massachusetts, second ranking democrat on the rules committee. A big meeting yesterday. What happened . Guest we met on a bunch of things, including the new chief the nutrition bill and the continuing resolution. There is a lot happening in washington, but unfortunately not a lot of it is good. I worry very much that some of the cutbacks that the Republican Leadership has proposed will. Urt the most vulnerable i believe that if government stands for anything, we need to stand for those struggling, who are vulnerable, who need our help. Donald trump does not need government. Some poor person who lost their job who is trying to put food on their table does. The rules committee met, along meeting, and today a long meeting, and today we will debate the rules and we will debate majority leader eric cantors nutrition bill, which will do a lot of harm to people in this country. Tomorrow we will debate the continuing resolution. Host today in congress when they come in at 10 00 a. M. There will be a debate on the rule for the continuing resolution bill, which is the funding of the Government Plus the defunding of health care. Guest we will debate the rules, right. Host and then the rules on the snap bill. Any special rules involved with todays debate . Is it one hour host we have a republican majority guest we have a republican majority in the house, free flowing debate, all members we are bringing bills to the floor under a close process. It is particularly egregious that we are bringing it up under close rule because this is a. Ill that had no hearings there has not been one single hearing on it in all congress. This brought in no hearings. There was no markup where members of the committee could offer it was not a big considered by the Agriculture Committee. It was written in eric cantors living room, and the next thing you know it is before the rules committee, and we are going to debate it. It is a lousy way to legislate. Host will it pass the house . Guest i hope not. One of the things that troubles thatout this bill is according to cbo, 3. 8 Million People could lose food benefits. Unemployed workers,hildren, Senior Citizens veterans, and we have 900,000 veterans who are on food stamps in this country. Under this proposal, 170,000 would lose benefits. So i am angered by the callousness of this bill, but i am also saddened by the fact that combating hunger used to be a bipartisan issue. I went to college at American University in the late 1970s here. I interned in George Mcgoverns office. Berelation, he turned out to one of my closest friends in the entire world. I was impressed when i started working with him at how bipartisan this issue was. In 1968 there was a documentary about hunger in america. It. Les kuralt narrated the very next day, George Mcgovern reached out to bob dole and they formed a select committee on hunger and nutrition. The work that they did and others did that strengthened and antihunger safety net almost eliminated hunger in the 1970s. It was not a liberal or conservative issue, not a republican or democratic issue, it was just the right thing to do. Some ind for me to see the Republican Leadership blow all that up. I know a lot of rankandfile republicans are very troubled by this. They dont feel comfortable with a 40 billion cut in the snap program. So the question we will find out today is whether or not they will vote their conscience, whether they are too afraid of their leadership and will vote with the leadership. This is a big deal. It will hurt a lot of people and will make hunger worse in america, not better. 75 billion was spent on the snap program last year. Get foodion people stamps or benefits. That is 1 6 of the is becausereason why the economy has been so bad. The Waste Networks with economy is bad, the amount we spent the way snap works, with economy gets bad, we spend more. Policyter on budget priorities, a nonpartisan think tank, they compile data based on cbo materials it shows you they are predicting, their Economic Forecast is that the economy is getting better. As you look beyond where we are now, the amount of spending cuts that decreases. The way you deal with rising snap costs is you get your economy back on track. You put more people back to work. That is not some radical idea, it is common sense. Meantime, i will like to think that there is bipartisan consensus that people who need food, people who need food on the table for their families, ought to be a will to do so. I dont think that should be considered controversial. To suggest that some in the Republican Leadership to suggest, as some in the Republican Leadership have, that being on snap is a sweet deal. Everybodys dream is to get on snap. The average snap benefit is about 1. 50 per meal per day. That is not an overly generous benefit. For a lot of families, and who arely those struggling, this is all they have to put food on the table. The majority of people in this program are children. Senior citizens. Of those who are able to work, most of them do. For those who are not working, it is hard to find a job in this economy, it still is. As the economy gets better, hopefully republicans will shut will not shut down the d, you know,nd defun infrastructure programs, hopefully we will see this economy get better and we will get people off this program. Host what do you think the likelihood of a shutdown as . Me thinks it is not likely because it is such a stupid idea. There is another part of me that listens to people like marco talk and senator cruz about shutting the government down, i dont know. It is a stupid idea. Government, weed need to come together, sometimes that involves, as. We ought to get the peoples work done, this should not be this hard. Beilarly, we should not balancing the budget on the backs of four people. People,e backs of poor by taking food out of the mouths of hungry people. We should have a discussion in washington on how to end hunger in america. Not how you make it worse, but how do you edit. And it. The white house should be involved. I have urged the white house to do a conference. Everybody that has a role in this, there are other players in the private sector, food banks, food pantries, schools everybody has a role. Lets make it our goal to end hunger in this country. There are 50 Million People in america who are hungry. Close to 70 million of them are kids, we are the most powerful country in the world. This should not be the case. Call forst representative jim mcgovern, democrat of massachusetts. Jim, indiana. You are on. We are right in between gary and lafayette. Right in the middle. How are you doing . I was calling earlier. I am glad i got through. Itr the food stamps thing is unheard of in my opinion. I have a lot of we are in wirral indiana rural indiana. A lot of people that depend on that. People on disability, they get very little aid. I am in a about republican state they are trying to think about drug testing because youre getting aid from the government. They dont want to do that to the big farmers, they are getting aid, it is not considered welfare. Start taking everything away from our , we will endcies up with absolutely nothing. The sequester what they were talking about earlier it is doing great, it is doing this. I do not say. I have seen a grown man on tv cry because this child could not go to headstart. That is touching. I am thinking that we cannot take on aid and sequester instead of domestic aid . Host a lot on the table. Guest i agree with you on the sequester, it represented a high in recklessness and stupidity. The indiscriminate cuts make no sense, i dont care what your political philosophy is. Most people will agree that there are things that are wasteful, cut them. If there are things that are important in working, dont cut them. The sequester is cutting the nih. The organization that is designed to try to find cures to diseases, to find ways to keep us well, out of hospitals. It creates jobs, it lowers Health Care Costs and prevent human suffering, we are cutting that. The National Science foundation, these are things that we invest in to keep us competitive economically. The sequester i agree it needs to be changed. I am all for deficit reduction, but deficit reduction in another itself is not in and of itself is not an economic policy. To get this economy on track, create more jobs and reduce the to invest, weed cannot neglect infrastructure. One thing on the food stamps i think a lot of people dont realize this, percentage wise there are more people in rural areas who rely on snap in urban in urban areas. It is a very modest involved here. This is giving people food. You cannot use your snap benefits to buy a flatscreen tv. You can only buy food. You also mentioned some of the not that theals, small and mediumsized farmers, they are not getting enough. We need to support our agricultural community. Some of the big agro businesses, they are getting sweetheart deals. Pe are not cutting there, cro insurance, we are learning more and more about the abuse there. Majority leader cantor has gone after poor people and cut food stamps. That is a run thing to do. Secondim mcgovern, ranking democrat on the Agricultural Committee. Guest on rules, but i am on the Agricultural Committee. Host i apologize, i got it wrong. What is a massachusetts them at doing the Agricultural Committee . Guest i wanted to be on the committee because that is where programs like snap are dealt with. I think it is important that we understand that we need a 50 farm state policy. States in theple midwest. We have agriculture all over the country. We have got to promote that, support our small and medium sized farmers. We also have a moral obligation to make sure that there is a safety net so that people dont go hungry in this country. When i hear people say we cannot afford to do that. I remind them that there is a cost to hunger. Kids who go to school hungry dont learn. There are Affordable Medical costs associated with hunger. People showing up at hospitals because their immune system has been compromised, Senior Citizens taking medication on an empty stomach when they were told to take it with food. They cannot afford both. Lost productivity in the workplace, we are spending billions of dollars to deal with hunger. Believe, i hope that i can persuade my colleagues in congress, we ought not to make it worse by passing this cut in food stamps, 40 billion. They cannot pass a 20 million cut, then they doubled down on cruelty. Persuade her not to make them worse. I hope i can persuade them in the white house to begin a conversation to develop a plan to end hunger. You cannot end it by supporting food stamps. Int is one antihunger tool the toolbox. We a comprehensive plan. As we have come up with that, we ought not to make hunger worse by voting for this bill on the for today. Host is not bill the snap bill would authorize nutrition programs for three years. In a limited the ability of states to waive work requirements it eliminates the ability of states to waive work requirements, it calls for e workto impos requirements on parents. It restricts categorical eligibility based on receipt of other low income aid. Guest what that does is, it ability togovernors ask that people have longer time to stay on the program because unemployment in that state is high. We are coming out of the worst economy since the great depression. There are not jobs all over the place for people. Perry, notlike rick a bleeding heart liberal, sarah palin, have asked for these waivers. When she was governor as he is governor, they understand still for Difficult People to get back into the job market. By eliminating that, you say to people that you have three months. If you do not find a job or are part of a workforce training is not the bill providing funding for that, youre out of luck. People are going to be thrown off this benefit as a result. A bad idea. The procession of people on this program does not match the reality. Our it isnap, as diverse as veterans, children, seniors, people who work for a living and still earn so little that they are on this program. To think that they would not want to be working at a job that pays more is crazy. Recipients who worked in the year prior to receiving benefits, 96 , only four percent of not. Did not. The notion that you get on snap and not work anymore, facts do not back up that distortion. The other thing that people say is this is a program that is fraught with waste and abuse. This is one of the most efficiently run programs, if not the most efficiently run, and the federal government. 3 error rate. A i would like to see a Missile Program on with that run with that kind of error rate. This is an efficient program. Is it perfect . No. Wen people abuse the system, have got to throw the book at them. Sensible reforms, lets talk about them. You do not get sensible reforms by not going to the committee of jurisdiction, by not allowing the iron culture the Agriculture Committee to do its work and concocting some polarizing bill in the living room. That is not the way to legislate. I got on the Agriculture Committee because i wanted a say in the stuff. The other people on the Agriculture Committee got on the committee to work on these issues. The whole committee has been cut out of this process. This is unheard of. Here we are with the bill, no hearings, no markup, and a closed world. Host tweeting and, cut the fraught in snap. In thellion lost program. That is unacceptable. Waste, or abuse should be cut out. No question. The usda is doing a good job of cutting it out. Cutting down on people who or misuseeir benefits them. People are being held to account. We ought to do that in the department of defense with these contractors that she taxpayers out of billions of dollars. Is fact is that this program efficiently and effectively run. That is not my analysis, that is the analysis of the General Accountability Office of all, various, Nonpartisan Organization that have looked at it. This is a good program. It is about making sure people do not go hungry. Lets not mess it up by embracing a bill that would cut 40 billion out of this program and hurt a lot of people, including veterans. I have met a lot of veterans who are on this. They would much rather be in a job. They deserve better than us threatening to cut their benefits. Host andrew, new york, republican. Morning. Ood i appreciate you touching upon the importance of science. It says on your website that you understand that the primary engine gas results ability of the government is to keep people safe. Building seven was in freefall for over 100 feet when it was destroyed on 9 11, this is only possible if exclusives if explosives were used. Why doesnt congress acknowledge that . About 9 11, talking a campaign to talk about Building Seven on this program. Any comment or should we move on . Guest one thing about security. A newk we ought to have definition of National Security that includes things like making sure people have an em eat, housing, good jobs, a strong infrastructure. Thatnk that making sure people do not go hungry as a National Security issue. Snap when u. S. Troops need to feed their families, we should be ashamed. Donna, kentucky, democrat. Caller i would like to make a quick point. Showing how the republicans are skewing reality. Kentuckye in eastern and watch these rallies of obama, a war on coal. Everybody hates obama, they are hollering he has a war on coal. Actuality, it was the gas companies, halliburton, going around putting in gas service to the power plants that were business to gol down in Eastern Kentucky. That is one example of how the republicans skew reality to their base. They confuse everybody. On the street, the common republican doesnt have a clue of what is going on. They believe everything john boehner says. I would like to tell mr. Mcgovern that to stand strong, we appreciate you living in reality and standing up for poor people. I have been live for three years. N anything. Draw i work for myself, i haul junk, do whatever i can, cut grass, whenever i can to survive. I have two children. Pulling my weight. The Republican Party i used to be republican, they are not pulling their weight. Nobody asked who is paying for these buses, who is paying for this stage, it was the corporations, they pay for the guys that ran to the tea party. It is a big set up. Host thank you for calling in. Guest i wish you well. I have heard a lot of stories like the one you just told me about yourself from people all over the country. People who are still struggling as the economy begins to recover. Programs like snap are a lifeline. I want to make sure people didrstand even if we nothing to the snap program, because of previous cutbacks, because we have not renew the stimulus funding put behind will actuallyfit be decreased in november no matter what. I mentioned that the average benefit is about 1. 50 per meal per day, it will go down to about 1. 40. A family of three will see a benefit cut of about 30. There will already be a cut in benefits. To add this on how that on top of it is cruel. This should not be a partisan issue. Emerson, the late bill congressman jo ann emerson, tony hall bipartisan leaders. Democrats, republicans who have come together and made a real difference. Rather than tearing it apart, we ought to be not pledging to make things worse, and expanding the discussion to say how do we end this . How do we end hunger in america . I think it is a big enough issue that it ought to be a priority. I regret that it has not been. He needs to be. Host ron tweets in. We shut the government down under gingrich and clinton and ended up with a balanced budget. It can be worthwhile. Guest i disagree. You you have got could reach a balanced budget without shutting the government down. Number two, when you shut the government down, in addition to denying people benefits that they rely on, you also send a this economy is not stable. That anything can happen. One of the things that we need to ensure, to encourage more investment, is stability. The week when people were talking about Government Shutdowns or about not increasing the debt ceiling so we dont pay our bills, we get into the discussion, it sends a ripple of anxiety throughout the Financial Markets throughout the world. People wonder are we dependable, are we stable . What is frustrating, most of it is nonsense. The bottom line is, the Affordable Care act is here to stay. I think it is a good thing. Stay onod that kids can their familys Health Insurance until they are 26, we are providing more free preventative we are saying to Insurance Companies that you can no longer tell a woman that she needs to pay more because being a female is a princess the condition. A preexisting condition. Arench of things that happening are good. The president is not going to back down on his support for his legislation, the senate is not. We have some realities we have to deal. Lets get on with the business and not play these games. Host brenda, tallahassee, republican line. Thatr i would like to say mr. Mcgovern, you act like you are for snap. U. N. Democrats, if you are you wereemocrats, if concerned, would not have pushed obamacare tax. That is causing employers to drop assurance benefits and cutting fulltime workers to parttime. Not seeing that in massachusetts. We have been a model for the health care bill. It is working pretty well. Our economy is doing but in yours is in 4 better than yours is in florida. Rather than radio republican republican talking points, look at a state where we have a model of what the Affordable Care act will look like. Just as ist say this, believe that food is a right in this country, that everybody ought to have enough to eat, nobody should go hungry, i also believe that health care is a right. I believe everybody should have access to health care. If they do, your costs will go down. Right now, we are paying more for millions of people who dont have it. Get thisand the pool, done right. Is the Affordable Care act perfect . No. Can it be improved . Yes. Its figure out how to make better. Instead, we are being told to repeal the whole thing, all of the reforms will go away. Or we will shut the government down. That is not a way to negotiate. The bottom line is, the Affordable Care act was approved by the house, the senate, signed by the president , the Supreme Court upheld it come on. This is the way our country works. That is how it happens. It is the law. Better, but this idea of threatening to shut down the government if you dont defund it, crazy. Tweets, how many gop amendments did you allow to come to the floor . Guest the difference between this nutrition bill that we are talking about right now and the Affordable Care act is, the Affordable Care act went through multiple committees. Hundreds of hours of hearings, lots of republican amendments were offered. It went through committees of jurisdiction, it was brought to the floor under restricted role, but it went to committees. Some were some minutes are public and amendments adopted. Contrast that with what we are talking about today. A bill that was not even considered by the committee of jurisdiction. The majority leader wrote it in his living room. No amendments, nothing. D hearings, the debate, no ebate. What is going on here today is a disgrace. It is not just because the process stinks, the target of these cuts are poor people, the most vulnerable. To think that democrats and republicans can come together and say no. We all we have a bipartisan commitment to making sure that people dont go hungry in america. A commitment to trying to end hunger, monica worst. Not make it worse. It is meanspirited, the process is awful. Host ohio, independent. Caller hi. I applaud you. We duty to free people. Do need to feed people. Living in a rural area, we have food banks, everything i support. If everybody in america would look over their own neighbor in a 50 mile radius, we would not have some of the problems that we have. We have to take responsibility. However, two funds that could your the deficit is defense with the airplanes, lockheed. Not even doing a prototype and then correcting. Media, as, according to all these areas that we have jordan, from syria into we are spending just in three billion to feed the people. We need to feed people but we need to look at our own Country First and get back on our feet and not have poor people going hungry. That is my opinion. Guest i appreciate your call and your support. Will point out to the viewing audience that there is not a Congressional District in the u. S. That is hunger foree, not a single one. You dont have to look very far in Rural Communities to see people hungry. Food banks are at capacity. When people say let the churches and food banks pick up the slack if we cut these nutrition programs, they are doing it. What we are providing people is not enough. They are at capacity. Isgree with you that there savings to be had in the defense industry. I mentioned earlier that i wish the error rate and Missile Programs and pentagonood in the were as good and low as snap. Taxpayers are being place fleeced. To we need all these military bases . All the money we are spending overseas, deployments, we have troops in europe. Clearly, there needs to be a reevaluation of that. There are places to find savings. I would add one other thing, the best way to reduce the deficit is to create more jobs. When bill clinton was president , we limited the deficit because our economy was booming. We have people working. We had record economic growth, record job growth. That resulted in a stronger economy, in our ability to pay down our deficit. To reduce thes deficit, invest in our economy. If the goal, which is for some of these republicans in the house, to eliminate the Public Sector entirely, that is a different debate. Unfortunately, i think that is where their minds are. Host tweets in. There will be an occupied easy rally to call for president obamas resignation. Are these people nuts . He tweets from a leftist point of view, around his tweet is a picture of him wearing a tshirt that says liberal socialist. Guest i think that is crazy. The president agree or disagree, he has done nothing illegal. He has done nothing that would even suggest that anybody would call for his pregnant for his resignation. What he needs is more support from congress. To be able to get this economy back on the right track. After the election, the partisan bickering would subside, it has gotten worse. This president deserves a lot better than he is getting from congress. He deserves more support. Frankly, he has accomplished a lot more than he gets credit for, even in the media. Job. Doing a good i want him to go down in history as being a great president. He still has a little bit more time, a considerable amount of time. One of the things i would like him to take up is the issue to end hunger. If he is watching, i hope they will do a white house conference on food and nutrition. Host a few minutes left with her percent of jim mcgovern, democrat of massachusetts. Marilyn, democrats. Maryland, democrat. Caller i would like to thank the congressman for fighting for snap. This is a moral issue. The biggest selling point of snap, this is something that does not get talked about enough, every dollar that the government bans on spends on snap generate 18 to 19 in the u. S. Economy. Every piece of food has to be processed,aged, sold, shipped. It is one of the in addition to being efficiently run one of the best stimulus programs. The idea of cutting it by 40 million 40 billion is shortsighted. Guest thank you. That is important point. I am talking about it as a moral imperative. Secondly, it is an economic stimulus. Benefit, all you can do is buy food. It stimulates the economy. It helps the grocers, farmers, people who shipped the food, there is stimulus here. Not just my opinion and your opinion, that is the opinion of every economics analyst i have ever talked to. Secretary bill such is right. Economic benefit is a stimulus. For that and a bunch of other that people will call their representatives and say do not vote to make hunger ans andthrow veter children off of this. When parents lose their benefit, breakfastose a free and lunch in school. Why would you take this out on kids and Senior Citizens . The majority of people who are able to work to work do work. If wes a good program, have some imperfections, lets work them out. That is what the Agriculture Committee is supposed to do, not the majority leader in his home. Host peter, miami, republican. Morning. Ood thank you, congressman, for being on cspan. What we need to do is cut out the fraud. Here in florida, we have the ebt program. Disabled,orably discharged veteran. Paid 48 more than the person on welfare gets, which is horrible. I do get food stamps. For them to cut the veterans from the bill would be disastrous, just like the children. That is wrong. Mere was a woman in front of at a Publix Grocery store that irked me cards, that to no end. I followed her, she was driving a brandnew cadillac. I have been into other smaller theys to buy iced tea, were using their card to buy beer, they were paying double the price of the sixpack. Store aret owned the from another country. They are not from the u. S. People that host i think we have got your point. Guest let me say, i agree with you. Fraud, we have to go after it. The usda has been going after it. 95 of snap goes to food benefits. The error rate is around 3 , one of the most efficiently run programs. You ought to call usda, you cannot buy liquor with snap, that is illegal. People are trafficking snap car ds or benefits, that is illegal. Wherever there is illegality, we ought to go after it. That is the exception, not the norm to this program. Do not want to have happened, i hope does not happen, we find the guy who won the lottery and is still on snap, that is the face of snap that the republicans will present. That is a distortion. The face of snap are people like you. Children, Senior Citizens come a working people, people who want to succeed in this economy but are having trouble doing it. Lets not make it more difficult, lets not take away food benefits. That is a rotten thing to do. I hope this economy continues to get better, cbo tells us that as the economy gets better, i showedyour graph, i you the graph, it is typical cyclical. Lets focus on job creation, that is the best way. Hhs why isnt snap in instead of ag . Guest that is a good question. It is where it is. One of the challenges we have in combating hunger is the fact that these antihunger programs are not all under one committee. They are not all under one agency. Va, all got usda, hhs, these different agencies, they do programs that support nutrition. They are all over the place. One of the reasons why i want a white house conference on food and nutrition is to connect dots. We can do a better job of extending ladders of opportunity for people to get out of poverty. So that snap is not just there to provide you food during an willency, and getting snap help you get back on your feet. It is not by saying if you are not working in three months or thating in three months, youre also program. It does not help anybody. We have to do a better job of connecting the dots. Issolving this problem, it not just the government, hospitals, schools, food banks and pantries, everybody should come to the table and put something so we can create a conference of plan. Hillary clinton said it takes a village, she is right. But it takes a plan, too. Right now we dont have a plan. Let us not make the situation worse by passing a bill that will throw 3. 8 Million People off the program, 170,000 veterans. Host last call, virginia, independent. Sorry. Yes, i am i started calling about the snap gram, a couple other statements. Right in this the tontry for the government have food or Health Insurance. That is not a right, that is a privilege. Guest i disagree with you. It ought to be a right. Caller there is no such right. Isreference to obamacare, it a lot if it is a law, why does the president not follow his own law . He makes exemptions and continues to make exemptions. Democrats why does he not follow his own law . Guest first of all, he is following his law. In implementing this major piece of legislation, there are bumps in the road. That is not unusual with any piece of legislation. There always bumps. He is making sure it gets enacted properly. In onehey need more time area. Maybe they need to do things differently in other areas. The goal is to provide everybody Affordable Health care. That should not be controversial. Believel thing i do , in the richest country in the world, no one ought to be hungry. I am ashamed, you should be ashamed that there are close to 50 million americans who are hungry, 70 million who are kids. Million who are kids. What frustrates me, rather than working on legislation to give people a handout, we will deal with a bill that makes poverty and hunger worse. It is an awful thing to do. I hope republicans will join with democrats, this should be a bipartisan issue. I hope we will join together to reject this and come up with a plan to end hunger. Host a philosophical tweet. Do republicans have a different philosophy about government or do they just hate kids and the poor . Ofst i had the privilege serving in the u. S. Congress. Most people i deal with, including republicans, are good americans who care about this country. There are some members of the public and party of the Republican Party who are more libertarian and delete and survival of the fittest. There are some and believe in survival of the fittest. Sun, through ignorance or to turn aity, choose blind eye to the plight of poor people. Again, this issue of combating hunger, creating an antihunger safety net, this has been a bipartisan issue. Bob dole, bill emerson, tony hall, we have had republicans and democrats come together. Tom daschle and bob dole did an oped talking about not listen to hunger about not politicizing hunger. Inspired by those collaborations, they should be our example. An issue that should be politicized. I am hoping that there will be enough republicans to stand with us to defeat this and that we can regroup and focus on how to we end hunger. Host jim mcgovern, democrat, massachusetts. In about 10 minutes, a hearing will start. This is going to be a benghazi hearing, the oversight and government reform committee. 30, ambassador 9 pickering and admiral mullen will be testifying. Benghazi was just a little over a year ago when that happened. We will be live with this hearing at 9 30 on cspan 3. Here on cspan 1, we will be joined by jeremy herb of the hill. After this news update. Cspan radio will join this hearing live after washington journal. The number of people seeking Unemployment Benefits rose 15,000 last week. To a seasonally adjusted 309,00 0. The data was distorted by reporting problems in some state. The Labor Department says this level is only a little above the previous weeks 294,000, the lowest in six years. New census data suggests americans are feeling economic recovery unevenly. While poverty is leveling off overall, it is on the rise for single mother families. I race, a growing proportion of poor children are hispanic. A record 37 of the total. Whites make up 30 , African Americans 26 . Census numbers reflect widening inequality was lower income households making up an increasing share of the population. Finally, a decision expected from a federal judge in new orleans on whether to approve a agreement thata calls for Halliburton Energy to pay a fine for destroying oilence after bps 2010 spill. Halliburton can withdraw its plea if the judge regret the theement rejects agreement. It also calls for halliburton to make a 55 million contribution andhe National Fish wildlife foundation. Some of the latest headlines. Sometimes history does not remember all of the people who contributed to the story, that happens in American History all time. We know who George Washington was, it is an incredible story. We dont know that his own sister and brotherinlaw also played an active role in his success and in all that he accomplished. We are standing in the dining room at kenmore, regarded as one of the most beautiful colonial interior is remaining in the u. S. This room epitomizes everything that kenmore was intended to me. Built, it was was to be the showplace, the crowning achievement, their society tha all of they had arrived, they h blt themselves up. Unfortunately, kenmore never got to live up to that dream. It was a tragic story. They moved into kenmore in 1775, on the eve of the revolution. Much of what was supposed to happen at kenmore, the parties, the balls, never took place. In this room, the dining room, with its glorious plasterwork ceiling and expensive paint, all of those things were meant to impress visitors. Never used as it was intended. It is sort of a monument to all that could have been but never was. From kenmore plantation as booktv and American History tv look at the history and literary life of projects per of fredericksburg, virginia. Saturday on cspan 2. And sunday on cspan 3. Washington journal continues. A defensemy herb is reporter with the hill. We will start with an article from politico. Issa resumes benghazi crusade. Will resume harrowing hammering the white house after four months of silence on the subject as his committee interrogates two of the chief investigators of the attacks on the u. S. Diplomatic outpost in libya. Where do we stand with regard to the benghazi investigation . Guest House Republicans restarted their hearings this week. We are having three hearings this week. The main event. It is coinciding with the anniversary of the attacks, which occurred on september 11 of last year. We will see issas Committee Talk to the men who wrote the arb report which found the state Department Responsible but did not pin the higher leaders. Issas committee is saying it is not go after them, they should have interviewed Hillary Clinton and put the response ability of a midlevel leaders. Responsibility of a midlevel leaders. Host has there been any accountability . Guest yesterday, Patrick Hennessey testified. He said that the state department reassigned for employees as a result. Host reassigned . Guest republicans werent having it, they said people should have been fired. Twoarb singled out employees for disciplinary action but did not suggest they be fired. It is all part of this idea republicans are putting forward that there had not been accountability. Host here is the new York Department meted out the discipline over attack. Ed royce is the chair of the committee, here is a little bit from him yesterday. [video clip] the department was asleep on 9 11. This led to the accountability review board to find, in their words systemic failures and leadership and management efficiencies at senior levels within two state department bureaus. But no state Department Personnel have been fired or disciplined. No one has missed a paycheck. Accountability can be painful. Those making bad decisions may have long an otherwise good records, but the department cannot have a culture of accountability which is what any well functioning organization needs. Which is essential to protecting one is heldl, if no accountable for the mismanagement and poor leadership the arb identified. Host mr guest we will hear more of this today at the hearing with chairman issa. Mike mullen, former chairman of the joint chiefs they didnt suggest harsher actions should be taken. Mr. Kennedy yesterday at that hearing told the chairman that there was serious accountability, so going it was going to be one of the republican points and pushing this forward. Host are there missing pieces, in your view . Guest it depends on who you ask. This has been a partisan issue on the hill. Democrats say that this is essentially a witchhunt, that republicans are grasping at straws, and they point to this accountability review board as proof that this has been investigated. That is part of the reason we go after thisa report, that the white house will frequently say that we had this arb report and accountability there, so by poking holes in the report, it pokes holes in the white house therent, that there is no out there. Host we are talking about the benghazi attacks over year ago and some of the congressional oversight and hearings occurring yesterday and again today and the most recent hearing will be 3 at 9 30 this morning. Darrell issas the chairman, Elijah Cummings is the Ranking Member. You can see them there chatting. We will bring you a portion of representative issas Opening Statement as well. You can see the numbers on your screen. , patrick kennedy, undersecretary of state, was testifying and yesterdays testifying at yesterdays hearing. Lets show you a bit of what he had to say and get you to build on that. [video clip] we have made implementing the recommendations priority so that we can better prevent similar tragedies in the future. Focused atre we are the state department, and i know this is your priority as well. The unfortunate fact is that our diplomats and facilities abroad will face attacks again, as they did last week in afghanistan. Since the tragic attacks in benghazi, the tempo of threats and attacks against us has not diminished. We will do everything we can to deter and mitigate the effectiveness of any attack, but we will not, even with the most willing and capable governance of our partners, ever stop terrorists and extremists from mounting attacks against us in all cases, and we must continue to operate in places where host governments will not always be willing and capable of fully defending us as we wish. The risk to the United States as a nation, however, are greater we withdraw it then on the than what the front lines of our efforts face. Made more than 20 recommendations of with the state department should do to prevent another attack. Ofreasing the number Diplomatic Security agents at h risk posts to having ambassador stephens was killed of smoke inhalation. More thingss many they need to implement. That is where they are focused and where they need to look at going forward. We get back to the republicans who say the report is nice. It doesnt get to the accountability measure and doesnt hold people like former secretary clinton responsible. Host democrats line. You are on the washington journal. Caller thank you for taking my call. The shedding of blood is not a good thing, especially when it is american blood. You cannot draw a line in the sand and hold everyone responsible after 2012 and then everyone prior to 2012 is not held responsible. We have people in political positions who told us repeatedly that we had war at our door. We had weapons of mass distraction and that there was mushroomte imminent cloud over our head. These people have never been held responsible for what they said and did. Threea soninlaw who did scores and iraq. Toursee doors in iraq in iraq. I know what happened in iraq. It was not good. They lied from the beginning. If we are going to hold people responsible, lets hold them first. Guest thank you for the question. This was not the first diplomatic attack on a u. S. Facility. To theort pointed back 1998 attack in nairobi. Said, there is going to be attempts at attacks in the future. We had a recent attack in afghanistan. Accountability minute measure, it depends on who is in the white house in terms of whether they want to try and hold people accountable. Host samantha tweet sent, why are you not broadcasting the benghazi hearing . We are broadcasting the benghazi hearing. Were going to dip in chairman issa has just gaveled in the hearing. He has not said his Opening Statement. Allies are coming to is there on the lefthand side. Cummings is there on the lefthand side. The full hearing will be available on cspan3. Is imy question understand special forces were prior to from benghazi the 9 11 attack. No one seems to be talking about that. I believe it occurred months before the 9 11 attack. My question is, did it happen . I believe it did. Who is responsible . Who signed off on the withdrawal . Is the military subject of another hearing. The Armed Services committee is going to be talking with military officials about why they did not have a posture ready to respond on the anniversary of september 11. One of the issues that has been brought up is why did no one go in on the night of the attack . In tripolia group that wanted to come in. There was a standdown order. Chiefsns of the joint said that they were told to remain in tripoli because they were worried about an attack there. Some of the folks testifying ambassador tomas pickering, Mark Sullivan and former directive and todd keele are just coming into the room. Listen for a minute to see what chairman ison, how he opens this hearing. Committeersight exists to secure fundamental principles. Americans have the right to known that the money washington takes from them is well spent. They serve an efficient, effective government that works for them. To protect those rights. Our responsibility is to hold government accountable bowl accountable to taxpayers. Our job is to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American People and bring reform to the federal bureaucracy. This is our mission. I would ask for unanimous consent to read into the record statement from two witnesses not available. The family of the victims of the 9 11 attack on benghazi. Quigley. From kate thank you for your invitation to participate in the committees hearing. Attacks on thee u. S. Facility on september 11, 2012. For americans, including my brother were killed. Americans, including my brother were killed. I submit the following questions concerning event that led to my brothers death in particular. Theuse i am unaware of answers, these questions have been provided. My understanding is that it took for the to rescue rescue team from tripoli to and reach their destination in benghazi. There were no dedicated transportation assets in place. The team replaced received no help getting through barriers like the benghazi airport and checkpoints in that city. If that is correct, why was it so, given the urgency of the mission. Nevertheless, i asked if those conditions were had been different, would the outcome have been less tragic . Glen lived his life to the full the fullest. He died serving with men he respected, protecting the freedoms we enjoy as americans and doing something he loved. An American Hero to those who did not know him. For those of us who did know him, he is a best friend who leaves behind a giant hole in our hearts. My thanks go out to those in congress and the administration who strive to learn what mistakes were made that night so that u. S. Personnel can be better protected in the future. That assigned Kate Dougherty quigley. That is signed Kate Dougherty quigley. That is a little bit of mr. I openingmr. Issas statement. Ourcan continue conversation with jeremy herb. You are taking notes while he is making his for that portion of the Opening Statement. What did you know . Reading from the victims families. A group of panelists are going admiralstifying after mullen. From the state department, he wants to sit down for interviews with survivors. Those who were in the attack, injured in the attack. The state department has not let him do that and he has threatened that he is going to subpoena them if the state department continues to prevent those interviews. Is the state departments reasoning for preventing them . Given they say they have documents over and they are complying. I think it is sensitive. One of the victims is still in the hospital. Sure, but sorely far they have stonewalled surprise you that Kate Dougherty quigley had questions about eight hour delays and dedicated asset a year later . This happened over a year ago. There are still outstanding questions. We had the talking points that were incorrect saying this was the result of a protest video and not a terrorist attack. There has been that whole narrative that they are not telling the truth about what really happened. We have heard testimony from general dempsey saying there was no way for anyone else to get there in time to help. That has not satisfied some of the critics. Host kevin, you want washington journal. You were talking about accountability. With Hillary Clinton, was that the reason she was part part of the reason she resigned . Accountability for the investigation or other Foreign Policy investigations that are occurring at this present time . Secretary clinton after the attack happened, she said she took full responsibility for the attack. Thatthink the benghazi played a role in her stepping down. She always indicated that she was going to leave the secretary position. Going forward, i think republicans are looking towards clinton mayecretary run for president. If she does, you are going to hear benghazi on the campaign trail from republicans who are trying to knock her down. Host jesse. Tired of my getting taxpayer dollars being used for stupid investigations. They are not going to amount to much of anything. I believe we should concentrate on not allowing these things to occur in the future by properly that arehose sites where wet the world are trying to provide a better way for america to communicate with these countries. I am really upset. I keep seeing this. That is what i wanted to say. You certainly share an opinion of Many Democrats in capitol hill. We will hear from a Ranking Member shortly that he did not think these hearings should continue to go on and the committee should be doing the scope of the investigation that it has been doing. This was a tragedy, but it has become a partisan issue on the hill. I do not see that slowing down. Ron tweets in, is it true that the survivors have moved into the equivalent of the Witness Protection Program . Guest i do not know the answer to that. Wants to talk to them and has so far been unable. That seems to be the next step. Are focusedlicans on this report. I think we are going to look at get out ofhey can this and heard. The next people to hear from our the survivors. From are the survivors. I think Hillary Clinton could come back. She stepped down many months ago. She testified earlier this year. If she does come, it will be a highprofile event. Since she has left, they talk about her in my 16 has only increased. Host she is a private citizen. She doesnt have to come, does she . Guest they have they could subpoena her. It will be interesting to see how far he wants to push it. Host for those of you who have not tuned over to cspan3, chairman issa still making an Opening Statement. We will try to bring you a little portion as long as the house is in session. Carl, west virginia, republican line. I think i can speak on this. I served in vietnam. I have two kids that served in iraq during desert storm. When i see the commanderin opinion with is my the president on what happened with the president that night he had a Grueling Campaign speech and he had to get a good night off sleep. s sleep. Night cost the press has been covering this up. No one from your paper has ever asked, what were you doing that night mr. President . What time did you turning . Were you concerned about what was going on over there . The fact that this occurred last september in the heat of the campaign season, it plays a role in why it has become a partisan issue. Republicans are still unhappy about the way the administration presented what happened after the attack. They blamed it on the video, wasing to say what it will what it was a terrorist attack. Kerry, indianapolis, independent line. Kerry is gone, we will go to ron. This is athink witchhunt. If the representative was really worried i am sorry about the loss of these four men, but why are they not investigating this country. Looking into how this country was misled before almost 5000 troops were killed. Tens ofousands of thousands of men and women were wounded. We got your point. Guest we have heard a couple of ands about a rock iraq libya played a role. Whot of the republicans oppose action in syria, part of the reason was the attack in libya. Libya inmission in 2011, and they point to this. It did not go as well as we hoped it did. How does the situation strike you . It has beenguest interesting. I am interested to see where it goes from here. Anniversary, we had a rally that was how old held at the capital. About what the public is going to do and if they will continue to have an interest in this. Particularly if we get into 2016 and Hillary Clinton one runs. Host has it become just partisan . Think even that is a partisan question. Republicans say what they are doing is not partisan. They are looking for answers. Four people were killed and they want to find out what happened. Others disagree and say they know what happened, we had an accountability review board. There was a panel that identified best practices. They say this investigation is over. Partisannly has that tinge to it. Host craig. Caller i have a question for you. Yesterday we were listening to one of those Committee Meetings there wasaid suggestion there was over 40 plus people in benghazi that could have responded to this attack that they had. Why are they saying this is classified, that they cannot say how many people are actually there . Why not let us talk to these people . Thank you very much. The issue is that this wasnt just a state department facility. There was also a cia component to it. There were cia people on the ground. There is still a classified element to this. The report had a classified section. Were note four people initially named because of that. Pointed to the survivor issue and talking to the people that were on the ground. We will see if they come forward. I think that is one of the things to watch in the coming months. And, ifeelancer tweets think ozzie was a cia operation, why is mr. Issa pulling the state department into it . Guest we have not heard testimony from the former to former director petraeus. He has testified before committees and i believe before i said issas committee. Congress has heard from the cia, but the public has not. Host has anything leaked out . Guest not really. There was some talk of bringing scandal he had last year. I think that played a role in his moving aside. Tweet,nother administration knew what happened in syria. Were they lying about what happened in benghazi or just stupid . Was a sense that there was a terrorist attack from a cia and the talking nts issue where it became one of the main things that republicans have looked at. Susan rice, she went on the sunday show and said this was part of a video. It was spontaneous, it turned out to be true. That cost her a chance to be confirmed as secretary of state. Issue ofcertainly that what they know and when they know it is one you hear from republicans. Barrynext call comes from in florida, democrat. I have been a democrat for my entire life and what i hear from you is it is a partisan issue. I dont find it funny. I dont understand your smile. I am livid over this. I have been livid over this for the last year. That consulate was attacked twice prior to 9 11. Once with a 40 foot hole in it. The ambassador and the personnel begged for help. There were not given it. The personnel from the state is atment, because it state department operation, denied it. They were asked to redesign. Now they are back with positions in the state department. Nobody knows anything about anything. Gave theirfficers lives because they did not stand down. They came back and rescued the very people who were injured who are being told to shut up. A partisan issue. I am a lifelong democrat. I want some answers. Raised a couple of points about places where the state Department Might have been able to stop this. There were requests from ambassador stephens for additional security. A Security Group ghazi ahead of the attack. It is one of the things that chairman issa and the committee have pointed to as areas where the state department missed the signs that this was coming. The questions are about why they did not have anyone in the region. They said it would have taken at least 12 to 16 hours to get the armed what Services Committee is asking is why wasnt anyone ready to go. Is stillirman issa making his Opening Statement. The house is coming into session. We will not be able to dip in anymore at this point on cspan. If you go to cspan3, the hearing is live. The houses coming in and just a few minutes. They will debating they will be debating the rules on what we have been discussing this nutritiond the snap food stamp bill as well. They will be voting on them tomorrow. A lot going on in the house. A recent report says a cia employee has been suspended for not signing a nondisclosure statement regarding benghazi. True or not . Guest i do not know the answer to that. I cant confirm that. Host c in ohio, you have about 10 seconds. I would like to make a comment about republicans using this for 2016. The administration if the administration had been honest and forthcoming in the beginning, this would not be an issue. It gives everybody it is not partisan. It is answers arent being given by the administration. Theres too much stonewalling. The state department is not releasing the names of survivors after the attacks. We had the administration said this was a terrorist attack, had they been more forthcoming, i would say it would be interesting to see whether we would still be talking about what they are not answering today. Herb. Jeremy weve been talking about benghazi. The house is coming into session. They are to be debating the rules on the continuing resolution, funding of the government and d funding of obamacare. The senate is doing a hearing on efficiency. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, wa