Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130923

Shopping mall should ring should raise concerns about future attacks. We want to hear your thoughts about the safety of u. S. Malls and other soft targets in the United States. And what the attack on kenya means for us at home. Give us a ring. Our phone lines are open. If you are outside of the United States, it is 2025853883. Mail us at journal at sea span. Org. A very good monday morning to you. I want to show you some pictures from that ongoing attack in nairobi at a popular shopping mall. The us is from the front page of the globe and mail. Picture shows policeman hunting gunmen in the mall in nairobi, kenya. From the front page of todays usa today. One of the front page for you. This is the guardian. Pictures of soldiers and Police Officers searching for gunmen in that west african mall. I want to read to you from a piece from reuters this morning. That story from reuters coming out late yesterday. We want to hear your thoughts on concerns about u. S. Soft targets. What should we learn from the attacks in kenya . As a phone lines are open, i want to show you a bit of congressman peter king, a republican member of the house intelligence committee. He was on abc this week and said he is concerned about that terrorist group attacking the u. S. Heres a bit of what he said. A very sophisticated attack. Very similar to what we saw in mumbai. This was carried out by l shabbat which was raced out of some ali. Habbab. It was one of affiliates qaeda that is active outside of the United States. 50 somalisast 40 or have moved from the United States to be trained. Are looking into the somali American Communities today with any for any leads that may indicate any followup attempt in the United States. How about any information on whether any american somalians may be involved in the attack. Have you heard anything about that . I have not heard any one those involved in that. There are still 15 to 20 somali americans that are still active over there. That was republican congressman peter king. We want to hear your thoughts this morning. Heres another headline on the subject. This from the daily beast. Bit of thatad you a piece. It notes that in minnesota the mall of america holds lockdown drills twice a month. These are a precaution against random acts of violence like the shootings in washington last eek. If you want to read more of that piece, it is in the daily beast. Does the attack on the canyon mall raise concerns about you for u. S. Soft targets as theyre called. We will start with john from detroit, michigan, on our republican line. John, good morning. On nine 11 here, my first thought was the mall of america. I thought there might be a lesson elaborate planet would follow. I expected something large, such as a truck bomb. It would have been horrifying. As this is an israeli owned, westgate. I dont understand why we cant see red flags around the world anymore. Why things arent seen and prepared for. If they had snipers, for instance, you hate to think of things like that, i suppose, but in a place like that, this is located right next to somalia. You have to expect this. You have to expect the worst. John, are you talking about snipers at the mall . Be hard to, they can the staff, they can have other duties. There can be a number of them at and youplace like this hate to have to admit that you may have to do Something Like about themt what bringing it home to United States . Caller yes, i do. Fact, it mightas not be a bad idea to have former seals be part of the staff, blending and in the event that something does happen. I forgot which politician mention this, but you have to fight back at some point. That is my thought of the day. I just thought i would call. Vince onwill go now to our democrats line from cuyahoga falls, ohio. Good morning vince. I met union ironworker. Basically, democratic. ,hey had rallies in boston using freedom of speech to the hatred ofnce america. Its very alarming, its alarming. Im worried for my kids, my family, my grandchildren. Being a union ironworker, that is not something that comes easily. But i thought that when president obama got into office with that, there would be a change. Within a muslims views of when you talk about change, do you think changes should take place in america after this attack in kenya . Should there be increased security in malls and other soft targets . Caller caller right now we are talking about gun violence in america. Laws, they obey the need to be able to arm themselves. Background checks are awesome. I think that is great. What isople happening at the navy arts raises possible issues. Im very concerned about it. I do believe americans need to have the right to bear arms. Is vince from cuyahoga falls, ohio this morning. Attackscerns to the raise for soft targets United States. In, republicans to. Independence, also. King on the clip we played earlier talking about some of the concern over u. S. Citizens being involved in this. A story on that from nbc news. The fbi is investigating whether as many as five americans are among the small team of terrorists who took over that canyon mall. Investigation is in its early stages. That is a piece from nbc news on the Investigation Underway into that attack in nairobi. Here is the latest from the Associated Press us morning on what is happening at the mall. Efforts still underway. The ap notes that multiple large the mall. E rocketed black and gray smoke rose up from the mall. That was this morning about 15 minutes ago. What are your thoughts this morning on what that attack means for soft targets here in the u. S. Very mary is from new york, new york. Thanks for joining the conversation this morning. Caller good morning, yes. I am just so tired of the bombs and drones from america. That is what that is. And heat peter king speaks for his own culture. He doesnt care about anybody else. He is a warmonger. He speaks for the zionists. I wish they all would stop the bombs, stop the drones. Lets talk peace. I would ever going to hear peace again in this lifetime . Think talking you peace will better protect these soft targets that were talking about here in the United States . Caller im hoping so. The cause of someone mentions they put upeace and a flight to emphasize that, lets sit down at the table. We cant live like this. This is like the syrians. Provide and weo have to protect and we have to leave this place alone better than when we found it very it quacks the rom back reports refers to an earlier caller. The caller is right, the only way to weed out the bad guys from the good guys with guns. , oklahoman tom coburn republican. He was on cbss face the nation. Heres a bit about what he had to say about the attack quacks either have any specifics beyond what is in the press other than this is another indication that soft targets is where al qaeda is going. They are not on the decline. They are on the rise as you can see from nairobi. That was tom coburn yesterday on cbss face the nation. Piece, bine of that attack may trigger tighter security at malls worldwide. Screen] from paper on good morning. I think it is presentable. We have to put a sign up near sayingepublican vendors no guns allowed. Snarky, am just being but until we start treating the enemy as the enemy, we are doomed. That is all i have to say about it. Steve from pennsylvania this morning. Art is from new orleans, louisiana. Art, good morning. I have spent years in the military and been in combat situations. You are not going to stop anybody from doing anything to americans all over the world because there are people everywhere. The problem is that anytime a terrorist organization comes into the United States and recruits both black and white have as, that tell us we problem. Thatis not the first time area has been targeted. Is going to continue to happen until the people start speaking up. If you know people that are involved even if they are in your family, you need to bring that stuff out and stop holding onto it and then wish for something to happen that is not going to happen until everybody takes a positive look at exactly how this stuff is being committed and how successful they are. They have a lot of help from people saying things and theyre just not saying anything about it. Thanks for the call. We will continue taking your calls on the subject on the canyon mall attacks and what it means for us here at home. I also want to bring up that other story we talked about at the top, here is a headline from the front page of the usa today this morning. [reading from paper] talk about about the timeline for this potential shutdown and some of the votes that are going down this week, showing our eaders now a National Journal story from last week. What is the timeframe we are talking about . Procedural votes could begin as early as wednesday morning, but with the filing of cloture as early as today, a motion to begin to proceed, this could stretch out throughout the week with a couple of procedural votes and then perhaps in the on how itinal vote will handle last weeks house passed bill that does include funding of obamacare, along with a continued funding of the end of theed month expiration of the current funding bill. Host at this point it looks like its going to go right up to that funding deadline again. Caller the house itself does not get back to washington and does not formally get underway until thursday morning. House members arrive wednesday. They probably wont receive anything back from the senate until this weekend. Of course the deadline is next tuesday for when funding runs out areas essential government are no longer funded. Unless there is a new temporary spending bill passed. Youre talking about the house getting the bill back from the senate over the weekend and a tuesday deadline, that doesnt leave a lot of room for negotiation. Caller no, it doesnt. It puts Speaker Boehner in the house in a tough position. If you were to get a bill back from the senate on monday or sunday evening, he will have to decide how to proceed. As part of that, if a bill is brought back to the house, it does not he may have to rely on democratic votes if he can to get past. Or, he would have to decide and some other procedure or let Government Shutdown and blame it on democrats. As for compromises, i wouldnt call it a compromise but House Republicans thursday or maybe friday morning may even vote on tract. A debt ceiling bill that would allow the government to keep borrowing beyond what is anticipated to be an exhaustion of the current limit in october. They would add to that bill as well a defunding or delay of obamacare along with other provisions. Compromise, be a but it would be another way for House Republicans to save face is say, well, this battle the obamacare battle on the spending bill, but we are now continuing our fight with the debt ceiling. What is the timing on that debt ceiling. You said midoctober . Caller thats right. The treasury says they anticipate the current 16. 7 trillion ceiling will be hit. Congress and the white house will have to decide the white house disputes a decision has to be made, but Many Republican Congress Members say that they have to have a say on that and and force a vote on whether that can be delayed for another year. Houseyou can follow illi online. Thank you for getting up with us this morning, billy. Caller i appreciated, thank you. Is a story from the San Jose Mercury news. The story notes that the world wont end if a dysfunctional washington can find a way to pass a funding bill before the new budget begins on october 1. And Associated Press story via the San Jose Mercury news this morning. We are talking to our callers and those on twitter and facebook about the canyon mall attack, what concerns they have for you, for u. S. Soft targets. Laura is next from tasco, washington. Thanks for calling this morning. Caller i, hey, as far as the budget goes, you have to look at the comprehensive annual financial report, not the budget. Lets talk about those canyon mall attacks. Concerned far as im its just another false flag to take away our freedoms. Tsa, whatever. All not what you think it is. Hyattsville, maryland on our democratic line. Good morning. Caller i, good morning. I want to comment about the canyon shooting. Kenyan authorities should have expected this. To theo close insurgents. Think they should make Adequate Security available to them because if they know that terrorist nation, they always attack. I am not blaming them, but i think there should have been more of an effort and they have done more effort to secure places where more people are in public very host does United States need to do more of that at home . Does United States need to do more based on what happened in kenya . Caller whatever works in kenya would necessarily work in the United States. But having said that, i think we have a history of dealing with public shootings. Beefing up the street beefing up the security and the malls theres no indication that the United States is a target, although you have copycats who might try to in imitate that. Right now i dont think we need to do anything because that malls to provide more security and that means more money and therefore price of retail could go up. I do think at this point that would be a westing to do, at this point in time. Is on our independent line from North Carolina, john, good morning. Caller good morning, what are you up to . You know what i think . I think if the government would spend more time investigating insteadverseas events of monitoring the American People in spying on the American People, not only that, think about it, our border is still wide open. What is going to prevent other people from coming into this country . We have a Somali Community in this country. Shabaat. Are joining al we cant monitor anything. We have a president who knows nothing and does nothing. We use to take care of ourselves. Now we are dependent on what, obama and his gang to take care of us . I think we need a break here. They are trying to take our guns from us, you go to any mall, any mall at all, who had guns . The terrorists. What do you think is going to happen. Ok, thanks, but. Carol is on twitter and she notes that the attack means more here. Jaden miles wrightson on twitter, if malls are seen as a symbol of corrupted capitalism,. Hat would be terrifying you can email us. Here is an article from the Washington Post this morning. This from a reporter. When the local mall becomes a war zone. That is reporter rocco von in todays washington host. Post. Notice that in peschel are pakistan over the weekend, two suicide bombers on sunday killed everople in the deadliest attack against the nations christian minority. A wing of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. Another terror attack that happened over this weekend. We will go to angela now from jacksonville, florida, on our democrat line. Angela, tell us about your reactions to these canyon mall attacks. Morning, i have to make two points. Klees give me the time to explain myself, ok . Host go ahead. Caller the first thing i want to talk about this he fact of glorifying bomb violence. The second point is the agenda of the companies in the world. And sixexploited boarding and corrupting the governments of other countries. Like our guns, we want to make sure that everybody in the world knows that we have the biggest guns. That is an example to anyone who would think of doing anything anywhere in the world. They want that gone, too. So they do the same thing that we do. Secondly, we dont want to give up guns in america. No one wants to give up their guns. The second point that i was talking about was companies that are exploiting in these countries. They manipulate the American Government into believing that the governments of these somethingeither have they dont like or something they like. At the end of the day, we going backt to speaking about the gun we will go ont to marry in georgia on the independent line. I amr i was going to say sitting here listening to your program in listing to the callers. Im trying to imagine how we protect ourselves totally. It is almost impossible. We are a free society, we come and go as we want. I just dont know how we would protect ourselves from terrorist act. I have heard your callers and no one has said anything as to how we really protect ourselves guns is not the answer. Hiring more police, hiring more security, it is not working. There has to be a better way. Thank you. Do you have any thoughts on what that might be . Caller he cant sit down and have an honest debate. You have the name calling, it is just impossible. As long as we continue down this road, we are jeopardizing our country. It is about our country. You cant have an honest debate. I listened to these people calling in. All they want to do is name call , blame game, that is not the answer. We as americans have to be able to have an honest discussion. In this country, you cant have that. I want to read from our Facebook Page. John kraus writes on cspan,. Facebook. Com cspan americas lack of gun laws make it ripe for or a weapon attacks upon our malls. Transportation hubs, sports arenas. John kraus writes in. You can join the conversation on our Facebook Page, but on the subject of firearms, here is president obama, a picture of him via the New York Times honoring the navy yard victims from that attack last week at the u. S. Navy arts. Were are going to play a little bit of what he had to say. Alongside the anguish of these american families, alongside the accumulated outrage so many of us feel, sometimes i fear there is a creeping resignati that these tragedies are just somehow the way it is. That this is somehow the new normal. We cant accept this. About in grief and bowed inas americans grief and love. Nothing normal about our children being gunned down in their classrooms. Theres nothing normal about children dying in our streets from stray bullets. Endures advanced nation this kind of violence. America, thein murder rate is three times what it was in other developed nations. There is nothing inevitable about it. About because of decisions we make or fail to make. It it falls upon us to make different. The New York Times says that vincent gray, the mayor of washington d. C. , Adam Jonathan greene at, ray maybe its the secretary of the navy, and chuck hagel, the secretary of defense. Laws, andject of gun unamerican american softhearted, Edwin Christian wrightson. Talking about guns in u. S. Malls. Laws, subject of gun Wayne Lapierre is a national. Ifle association ceo he was on nbcs meet the press yesterday talking about those navy yards shooting. Heres what he had to say. Whole country knows there arent enough good guys that we have got. When the good guys got there it stopped. What we really have here is the Mental Health situation in the country is in complete breakdown. Talk about the security aspect. Can it be the sliding scale where you do have armed guard their but now there is not weugh armed guards . If only had an armed guard and we had teachers who had weapons, then we could stop it. Coulddoes it stop . How anybody look at what happened this we can say there was enough security there . There was one guy, a private security man. God bless him. There are six other senate regarding the gate. The capitol hill swat team was told to stand down. Wheres the outrage about that. The radios did not work. We have to turn seven minutes turn 30, we have to minutes before they bring down the shooter into seven seconds and 30 seconds. That is what we need to be doing and that is what im talking about with armed response. Theres not a homeowner in north virginia where someone is breaking through the door would be satisfied with 30 minutes. That was Wayne Lapierre yesterday on the sunday shows. We are talking with you this morning on the ongoing attack at a kenyan mall in nairobi. Concerns that you may have about u. S. Soft targets. Here is a piece from the usa today. Louise branson is an officer and journalist. Her piece that the stories of the deadly nairobi mall attack could easily have been an american story. Soldiersof kenyan owing to what looks to be a toy store and that kenyan mall. That is her piece in todays usa today. Maria is up next from westfield new jersey. Caller i agree with the people that have been calling and saying that it is a foreign agenda that is being pushed by our own government. Peter king obviously with his eye on this. Also with the saudis and the british. Hillary clinton got 500,000 worth of jewelry from the saudis. Our own president was sent to university by them, i think we have to stop all the foreign entanglements, bring all of our troops down, get rid of the illegals, put our troops on the border, advocate all the trade agreements which the president could do now, and get our own people employed. I think people ought to rise up, they have to call their Congress People the way they did about and necessaryia march on washington and if necessary start a revolution. We cant go on like this could be are bankrupted and we are hated. Thank you for your time. Host tom on our democrats lying, good morning. tom on our democrats line. Good morning. Were just going to move on. Were going to go to matt from north othman massachusetts from our independent line. Matt, good morning. Caller how are you doing . He can make the entire country a hard target. I really feel that we need to be able to protect ourselves. The Second Amendment guarantees our right to carry arms. I live in a state where that right is really being infringed upon, massachusetts. A of a homei was invasion in which i call the police and it took them over half an hour to get to my house. That bigtmouth is not of a place and it does not have a crime problem like the cities. There is no reason it should take that long. Also, since i am from massachusetts, with the Boston Marathon bombing, i feel that without guns, bombs would be used instead. More people would die then the in the shootings. That makes these crazy people more motivation of worldwide fame to do these things. It is just terrible. Thank you. A few other headlines. I want to run through for you this morning. The start advertiser noting that three troops died last weekend. Afghan turned his weapon against u. S. Troops saturday. From the front page of the New York Times, a profile piece that notes a new u. S. Player put on the world stage by syria. That is samantha power. Ambassador to the United States. If you want to read that piece from the front page of the new york of the New York Times. Hillary clintons recent interview with new York Magazine. Here is a Washington Post wrapup of her comments. That is Hillary Clinton talking. New York Magazine we are talking this morning about the kenyan mall attacks and what it means to softhearted. Mary from alabama. Caller im kind of upset because back in 1993 bill clinton issued an executive order refraining military from covering from carrying guns on the basis. Iowas thought we had military police for a reason. When youre there, the military, capknows how to use arms defend themselves on their own bases. It is kind of ridiculous. The president needs to go to chicago. A run on how many people who did this week on thursday and friday night, killed. That is a block from his house. He went from being a community from being a Community Organizer to being president of the United States. Welcome to reality, mr. President. He shouldnt speak poetically at a memorial. It is for disconcerting. Boring file clerk writes in on twitter. That is it for this first 45 minutes of the washington journal does quote this morning. We will be joined by the president of the committee for a responsible federal budget to talk about the current and fiscal future battles on capitol hill. Later, as part of our series on Affordable Care act, we will talk with Kaiser Health news about how the law is affecting fulltime, parttime and temporary workers. We will be right back. This is a garden that ellen wilson originally designed when she was a resident of hospitality. When she was in the white house, she brings the white house gardener back here to this garden at Prospect House and says to the white house gardener, lets recreate the row section of this garden at the white house. It becomes the famous rose garden at the white house. Allen tragically doesnt live to see the rose garden completed, however. She is dying in the summer of 1914. She is wheeled out into the space outside in her wheelchair and she walks into the garden but she doesnt get to see the completion of this vision she tonight, live at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Also at cspan radio and c span. Org. At the cableook industry in general, the cable industry has done such a tremendous job of deploying broadband all over, urban areas, small markets, role areas where our members live and work. As we look ahead, we see that our members businesses and the future really is a broadband business, when you look at the services they provide, today we work, but what band is really the key. They say that the speed and capacity and demand for broadband in their markets is doubling every two years. The head of the American Cable Association on issues facing independent cable operators. Tonight on the communicators on cspan two. Span, we bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u. S. House, all as a Public Service of private is fundedrade cspan by your local cable and satellite provider. Now you can watch us in hd. Journal continues. A looming battle over raising the federal debt limit. We are joined this morning by maya mcguiness. She is president of the committee for a responsible federal budget. As you look at this immediate budget situation, this potential shutdown that could be taking place, how do you see this all playing out over the next eight. Ays why are we budgeting in a way that we are to be one crisis to the next . Never fixing our budget but always jeopardizing the economy by going to the very last minute, the 11th hour come up to the wire on all sorts of different deadlines and still not getting the work done. I think what we are going to see this week is that the house has passed its first effort at a continuing resolution, which means it is the way were going to fund the government temporarily. Keep in mind there is no budget in place, but temporarily through the middle of december the house and senate have to work out various differences to put a longerterm budget in place. That is going to get kicked over to the senate. The senate is not going to pass with the house passed because they attached the requirement that you defund obamacare, which has become a priority of theirs. The senate is going to send Something Back probably midweek and we will see how this all plays out. We dont know where the votes are to pass something to temporarily fund the government. Oft means there are a couple different scenarios. One, the government could check down at the end of september when the fiscal year ends. The government could have a shutdown. Republicans and democrats in the house and senate could cobble andther a top line number then the real discussion begins about how youre going to lift the debt ceiling, what kind of budget are you going to put in place more permanently. Oneng i can guarantee thing i can guarantee is that it will be a mess. This is not how you should run a country. It is really disgraceful. I think every citizen should be frustrated that we are doing this again instead of putting in place a longterm plan to get this country back on track in terms of its budget and economy. Host for those who dont what , explain whatis this is. Nonpartisan, we dont have a political agenda, Nonpartisan Organization that has been around for decades. It is really neat because the director has served in government. They serve on the treasury department, the budget committees, the office of management and budget, the Congressional Budget Office. They have been in government and experience how hard it is to do the right and when you are trying to put a budget in place. They care a lot about fiscal responsibility and they have joined together republicans and democrats to work with members of congress to try to be more fiscally responsible. It is a Public Education organization, nonprofit, it has a number of different projects and we work closely with members on both sides of the aisle. Were talking about the possibility of a Government Shutdown this week and Congress Moving us closer to that possibility. Here is a bit of what nancy pelosi had to say on see an end state of the union. Republicans put legislation on the floor that was intended to shut down government. For them, that is a victory because they are antigovernment ideologues that dominate the Republican Party. They want to defund obamacare. No, they want to shut down government. Effect of putting the Affordable Care act on the bill is to shut down government. They know that has no prospect you know if you said to them we think this is a disaster because it is hurting businesses, it is causing businesses to go from full time jobs to parttime jobs so they can get out from under healthcare. It is an excuse, it is not a reason. It is an excuse. For the 42nd time this week they , one approach or another, defund the Affordable Care act. Mcguinessre with maya. Your thoughts on Nancy Pelosis appearance on cnn. The the planhing to defund obamacare is not going to work. Now has to come to a resolution, come to a compromise about how we are going to fund the government or it what is clear is that both sides have very different visions about the kind of government we want. We are supposed to have a normal budget process where we work through those differences. The house passes a budget and the Senate Passes a budget and then they come together and hammer out the differences. That is what theyre supposed to do and that is not what happened at all. What has happened is that the Senate Passed a budget, the house passed a budget, and then they didnt go to conference. It was the House Republicans that didnt want to put a conference together where they could work out the differences. So that process has stalled. What i think is troubling is that we are at the last minute where we should be hammering out the differences and everybody is entitled to that different vision of whether they want the government to be bigger or smaller, whether they want the Affordable Care act or not, but at this moment they are now faced up again is the deadline of how youre meant to pay for the government. We should be well past the discussions. Attaching things that are going to pass which is more of a symbolic or political vote, the moment to have done that was earlier in the process. What is disappointing is where our our political leaders. Crisis. Urtling toward a worse, a default is staring us in the face. Where are our political leaders . Theyre taking potshots at each other instead of trying to call for discussions and figure out how were going to fund the government, how we are going to pay her bills, by raising the debt ceiling, and how are we going to make changes that will put this Government Back on track . Right now, our fiscal problems are really looming out there with no plan in place to improve them. Ast one of those leaders is conservative republican from here is his take on the looming shutdown. We dont want to shut down the government. Wantt to make it clear, we to shut down obamacare. Americans have made their voices clear. Most of the voices i have seen in the last few weeks is that clearly there is a majority of americans dont want obama care. The president has suspended 41 of 82 provisions of obamacare. Yes given exemptions to congress. What is needed of the same exemptions to the american their register find this thing to not obamacare in the senate. Theyre going to wait to the very last minute and then youre going to have to vote on whether we just shut down the government. I would hope that senator reid would take the voice of the American People seriously, that they would seriously if they the defundingwith of obamacare, then come up with another proposal. But have a straight up vote on the floor. That is all were asking. This is what the American People want, they have made their voices loud and clear, and suddenly we are trying to enact the will of the people. Is Congress Taking the voice of the American People seriously . The Affordable Care act is not particularly popular and there are a lot of concerns about how were going to implement it area at i think the House Republicans have seen certainly what they are seeing and hearing. A lot of people are very concerned about this bill. Reallyth is, it is complicated. Even the people who put it together know that it is complicated and making big changes like this take a lot of Public Education about what is going to work and what is not going to work and how it is going to work. We dont know whether the Affordable Care act is going to be successful as it was supposed to be an expanding coverage and in some ways controlling healthcare costs. If seen some steps forward but it hasnt been in place long enough to know what the effects will be. We do know that at this time where people are talking about phasing event, is not very popular with the american public. Down country is hostage, the people who are attaching this to the continuing resolution are hearing in their districts that they dont want to have this bill go forward. It is an Important National discussion that is taking place at the wrong time. We should not be figuring this out when we have to figure out how to fund the government. We should be getting government funding in place, even temporarily, and then have a broader discussion about what parts of our government should stay on track as they are, what areas need to be reformed. I would also say that one thing in the white house makes his point regularly. In many ways the president ial election was a referendum onbil. It was a big topic of discussion. The president s win solidifies that this is likely to stay, the Affordable Care act is likely to stay throughout his president ial term. Host if you want to talk with Maya Macguineas on the committee budget, oursible phone lines are open. For democrats,202 7370002 for republicans 202 6280205 for independents. Howard, you are on with Maya Macguineas. Howard, are you there . Michaelt, we will go to this morning. How are you today . Host good, go ahead. Caller it is irresponsible of our government to do all of this baby talk type stuff. Elected congressmen who should be acting like adult instead of, you know, i did not get my toy today, so i will not play with everyone else. They are being paid to do a job in the need to be doing it. This leads us to a tweet host there is a push out there for not paying embers of congress. Is this something that the committee for a responsible budget has a view on . Guest it did push the senate to put a budget in place for a number of years. When i talked about how the process should work, they should reconcile the differences. In the past years the senate has passed the budget. This time we got farther. They still did not reconcile the differences. The no budget, no pay act only require that each body passed a budget. The question is should we be taking that farther . Fan of thosehugest kinds of tactics to get people to do what they need to do until you become desperate. Agree withntry, i the caller. I feel like we are watching a bunch of children who cannot govern. There is no other job where if one of us has a difference of opinion, we threaten to shut down the company as a way to hold it hostage. Likewise, we do not say that we will not talk about it. The point of where are our political leaders . How do we have Congress Running around like a bunch of children without getting anything done . The leaders in the senate, the house, they are all saying enough is enough. It has become so divided, so polarized. I share the callers frustration with congress. If you look at the popularity levels, they are very low. I cannot remember who thinks they are doing a good job. Does the committee put forth a Budget Proposal each year . That you hope the congress will pick up . Guest we do not put forth anything specific, but we do put forward a lot of options. Like on tax reform. In the senate and the house they are working hard on a planned reforms our tax code. Anyone who put anyone who pays taxes knows that our tax code is a disaster. Breaks of over one dollar trillion each year that do not work. More money from the tax breaks has to go to the well off. Tax system. Kwards the kinds of things we will do a bunch ofere are tax breaks that we can get rid of. Many of them are things that are quite popular. If you could get rid of tax breaks, you could bring those rates down and use the money to close the deficits. We will talk about how you can fix Social Security. Even on our website we have a simulator where you can go through to look at how you might fix Social Security, because as we all know it is headed on a course where it will run out of money before the next generation can collect the benefits promised. It is important to think about how to make those changes is a country. We put forward a lot of options and say that we have to start dealing with these issues, reforming the tax code, fixing Social Security, Getting Health Care costs under control. All of those changes would help to get our interest costs under control. We will have interest as one of the fastestgrowing parts of the budget, a terrible way to manage our budget. To circle back to the caller, i think that what we are seeing in congress is juvenile. I think that we should expect more and i share the callers frustration, these are real issues that affect american families, they are Kitchen Table in terms of job security, wages, and what we can expect from our children. Enough is enough. Bring up the tax breaks that have been highlighted. You can see some of those on our website. It is called the tax break down series that you have been doing to highlight some of those tax breaks. Jimmy is next to talk to Maya Macguineas of the committee for a responsible federal budget. Jimmy is on the independent line from georgia. Good morning. Caller code good morning. Iwould like to say caller would like to say [indiscernible] threatening the Republican Party [indiscernible] sickening what they do in the country now, get up there and do something right for the people. The Republican Party has a. Ittle bit more sense [indiscernible] out there to do things. I want the republicans and democrats to listen. The tea party never will. If they get by with this, next medicare, medicaid, Social Security, anything but welfare. The hogs is getting money out of nothing bill and aint but money for the farmers out of that. You cant help people there that does what they doing now. Guest i agree with your point. The Republican Party is having its own internal divide nothing but money for the farmers out of that are spilling over and affecting the process and that is not so surprising. We are political independents and it is hard to think that republicans or democrats are going to walk in lockstep, but at this point what the Republican Party is going through in the house is much more extreme than we have seen in some time. The most important and dangerous part of it is the tactics being used when they do not get what , they will hold up the government or worse. I cannot stress this enough. A Government Shutdown is dangerous, expensive, hurt people. Talking about a default on the country is unprecedented. We have never even thought through what this could mean. Those who missed that in the first segment, talk about the timeframe. Guest we will hit the debt ceiling in the middle of october. We will run out of money to pay our bills. Sometime between the middle of october and the end of october, possibly early november. At that point if we stop paying our bills, it would be a government default. It is unprecedented to imagine that Something Like that would happen here in the United States. We have seen that in other countries around the world, developing nations who borrowed not in their own currency, very different situation than here. This would be a selfimposed would send ripples and chaos through the Global Economic system. The fact that we are doing that because groups are saying that they might not he willing to ceiling increase is really dangerous. I will say that when we come up against the debt ceiling in the middle of october, it is a speed bump that reminds us that we are borrowing too much. It is true, more than 2 billion per day, debt levels the highest they have been since after world ii. Roman ceiling to world wr the deficit has come down recently tom a that is only because it was so high before. We are on track. When we come up against the debt ceiling, should we think about making changes to how much we borrow . Absolutely, those changes need to be made and needed to be made quite some time ago, but we should not say that we will default if we do not make the changes the way i want. I think the Republican Party has a lot of internal tension to work out but it is not as if democrats are acting completely responsibly. They are continuing to pull back from talking about how much we need to deal with the tougher issues in this country. Controlling Health Care Costs, securing retirement for an aging population, the biggest programs are driving the debt in this country. Are having a tough time talking about this because no one wants to talk about the real choices, so let me be clear, we have to raise taxes, cut spending, reform the entitlement programs. There is no way to fix the problem without talking about these solutions. In terms of what is driving this debate, this email from carol w this morning biggest problem is the longterm problem. We know, if you look at the charts, where the debt is headed in the long term, it is an unending march upward, a dangerous level. This is the congressional budget host this is the Congressional Budget Office report from last week. Talking about the debts today in the mid 70 possible range, expected to pass 100 100 of gdp by late 2030. Those numbers are on a strategy and dramatic march upward into territory we have not been in before and is already having some negative effects on the economy because we know changes have to be made and we do not know what they will be, meaning that people cannot plan for their own retirement or for how much they should be saving for in the future. The lack of stability is harboring economic recovery. Effects on the economy because we know changes have to beit wie sustained Economic Growth until the debt situation is under control. What that does not mean is that you have to start reducing the deficit today. It does mean you have to put in place a mediumterm plan where things are on track to get the deficit under control. The caller also talked about the sequester. What we have been doing in this country is trying to get control of our fiscal situation because people are starting to understand how important it is, but in all the wrong ways. I mean we have been focusing on discretionary spending, which in the email she said is that the real part of the problem, the growth comes from healthcare cost, aging populations, and borrowing. Those are the big drivers of the debt. The defense have caps on it. I think there is plenty of room for savings in defense. Domestic discretionary is a place where there is room for savings, but at this point we start squeezing out critical investments because we are not willing to look at the parts of the budget where the problems are. What we should be doing as part of the discussion that we need to have this fall, fund the government to replace part of the sequester cuts with smarter savings. Right now we have savings that are going after the wrong part of the budget. Switch those out for savings they go after the right part of the budget. Way would be a much smarter to do this. We need to put together a much larger overall package that is on a more sustainable path where the economy is growing faster than the debt. That is the critical metric. Can we get it so that the debt is not going faster than the economy . Host we have a couple of callers here for Maya Macguineas. Wendy is up first. Independent line, florida, go ahead. For 10 years i have been watching cspan and every other day there has been a crisis. Ings go on like normal the next day, it continues on. I think it is important not to get caught up in this crisis and make sure that we take care of ourselves. You go to a hair hairdresser, make sure that you look appropriate on television. Thank you. Host i apologize. Cynthia, good morning. Good morning. Yes, the republicans keep talking about doing put the. Merican people want to do they have been polled and the polls show that they do not want the Affordable Care act . I have not been told and i do want be Affordable Care act, so who are they polling echo where are the polls coming from . Who are they polling . Where are the polls coming from . Of course, the polls were wrong obamaople were outvoted, won twice. Who are these people polling, that is what i want to know. Overall the healthcare bill is not particularly popular, more people do not like it then do, a lot of people do not understand what is in the bill. The point that you make brings up a broader one i was thinking about, which is we do not have National Discussions in a way that is informative where people think through these complicated issues. Figuring out how to change the Healthcare System is in no way easy, whether you think this is the right way or the wrong way, we need to make changes. Instead of polling do you like it or not, if we met if we went back to the way it used to be, town Hall Meetings where people could learn about how things were working and share feedback. Instead they have become very peopleive courts where are very angry at their members of Congress Without learning the facts of the issue. I guess the question, in addition to these polls being right or wrong, how do we facilitate having more of a National Discussion between people with different points of view on these tricky issues . I think of that is something the country is not doing very well right now. A few more questions on how raising the debt ceiling works. Robert january asks not raising it does not mean automatic the fault, not money is coming in to pay interest on debt, he says we should cut spending. Can you talk about how that works . That is not the truth at all, if you do not raise the debt ceiling you will have enough money to pay interest, because Interest Payments happened to be very sporadic. Money comes in and gets paid in larger and smaller chunks and the timing is not guaranteed at all, so it is incredibly risky because you do not know at which moment you would not be able to pay the interest on the debt. We would have default if we did not raise the debt ceiling. There is talk of prioritizing the money towards some things over other things, but those Interest Payments jump up and down, they cannot be smoothed at our own discretion. Very risky territory. I do not think we should be talking about this at all. It is not the way to use which we do need to do, like dealing with our tax code. Talking about default thing if we do not do it in the way that you like should not be on the table, but also what should not be on the table is burying our head in the sand and not talking about it at all. Less dangerous, less inflammatory moments where the discussion could happen this fall in conjunction with raising the debt ceiling. We should have these discussions immediately. We have been talking about this for years and we should take the ideas that came out of the simpsonbowles commission, the discussion between john boehner and barack obama, it is time to get to work and put together a plan for real improvements. Talk about politicians being able to have this conversation with their constituents. John writes ricci john writes well, it is hard to be a politician today. They have strong, opinionated points of view with a bully pulpit that no one else has. It starts with debt, he says wet the president , but each member has a forum. I have watched a lot of members who push back on their constituents when they come to onto some ofhold the Budget Police out there budget beliefs out there that many people have that are not reality, where the biggest problem is foreign aid or some thing else. I have watched the ones courageous enough to talk to their constituents and talk about the realities and show the reports that show how serious the problem is and how we need to make changes to the budget. I think the public welcomes it when someone talks to them like adults and tells them the truth. Most people somehow have this sense of the pandering of we can have more tax cuts, more spending increases, that might serve the short high or the sugar rush, but nothing is that sustainable. It is easier when you are not a politician, but i think the most courageous politicians have been pretty successful in using their forum to educate the public about what we face. Rows, good morning, from germantown, tennessee. Caller you are listening to this lady and i am amazed that the American People are not told fromomplete truth, even people like this birther speaking now. The major majority that passed this law at the time said the policy people will find out what is in it. Not with nancy pelosi. The republicans did not vote to put this in, they did not have the opportunity to be able to discuss it before it was asked. Harry reid has locked every way that any of this could be taken care of. As far as the debt ceiling and ,verything and the spending there is plenty of ways to take care of the waste and the spending that has been caused by the democratic sin. You are hanging the wrong people and you are not being honest and fair and telling the truth. Post go host Maya Macguineas, a chance to respond. Guest i do not have a political angle in all of this. The point about people not understanding the health care of it wasssed is true a complicated bill that we did not understand the effects of. My point is that we are in a situation where the tactics being used to call attention to things have become more troubling. They have increased the ante so we are talking about Government Shutdown or default rather than focusing on the real issues, like is this a workable health care bill. We are not having that discussion as a country. That is the discussion we should be having. How are we going to control Health Care Costs . Things that this bill has not done enough on in terms of progress and inroads. That the focused tactics at this point that we are still not having that discussion. The point i would make is not about right or wrong or passing blame, but we need to be able to have a discussion in this country because we borrow for so long, cut taxes, created entitlement programs, we made the eu choices and now is the time where we reconcile how much we spend and how much we pay and how much we borrow. To cloud this with scary moments of default, it keeps us from focusing on the real discussion we need to have. Ron has a commonsense budget process that i will read to you and get your thoughts. Host your take . Guest it is great. In many ways it is what the budget process is supposed to be, but it is stricter and has repercussions. That complicated. There is a process where we are supposed to pass the budget and we do not do that in this country and look at where it us. S it leads us to having these fights and all the wrong forums and then use, creating a lot of sort of chaotic moments for the country, jumping from one crisis to another. I would sign on to that process in a second. David, henderson, texas, independent line, you are on with Maya Macguineas. Caller thank you for having me. Host go ahead. First of all, ms. Mcginnis, we need more people like you in the government. It seems to me that no budget, no pay is just the first step. We should move on to term limits. Or congress honestly, i think maybe the budget itself should be taken out of the hands of congress together and placed in the more capable hands of ms. Mcginnis Maya Macguineas and her foundation. Chesterfield,rom republican line, good morning. Couple i want to make a of points here. I am in the healthinsurance first of all, ms. Mcginnis, we need more people likeindustry, i am a constitutionalist and i am a conservative. I deliver the rubber on the road when it comes to this and the deal is that these exchanges and subsidies will be done on the honor system. Meaning they will ask people to guess what they think they will make in 2014. This will be the biggest fraud ever, how can anyone ever guess with nothing to back it up . That was putill through that basically said you know, before we give out subsidies, we would like to at least have some kind of proof system going back to 2012 to find out whether you deserve subsidy or not. It went right down party lines, republicans voted yes on something that made sense, democrats voted no. That is 1. I want to make. The second point is that have you gone through the different agencies and bureaus that the federal government actually has in place . If you believe that this is a revenue problem and not a spending problem, you are not being truthful. The bottom line is that the federal government has an addiction to spending money. It is easy to spend someone elses money and at some point we need to have some kind of fiscal responsibility because we will be 17 trillion in debt. This to ourto leave children and grandchildren . Host your response . Guest two important points as to how this is going to work. Exchanges, it is right that there are a number of big challenges and certainly one of them is verifying your income when you figure out what kind of subsidy you qualify for. I tried to make this point here today, when you make as big a change, there will be tons of umps along the road and my guess is that this will be a major one. We should try to figure out as much as possible in advance of what is Going Forward. Parts of the bill had been delayed already. They may decide to delay other parts of the bill to get this to line up. I think that is one of the big challenges, figuring out how you qualify for subsidies, which will be a lot of new work. Think that makes sense. The second point is the spending problem. This is such a point of difference between the parties, do this with or without raising taxes. This is what i observed, if you look Going Forward where the problem comes from, it is a spending problem in terms of the growth of spending far exceeding what we have seen in the past. The same is true of revenues. Even though we cut taxes significantly, revenues are slated to grow past the Overall Historical averages. If you look at the changes in the budget, it is a spending problem. The other part of this is the aging population that is aging dramatically. As much moneygive or even as close to as much money to the senior population as we have in the past, and so far there have not been chain plans to change back the benefits, then we will have to pay more to retire those costs. The big parts of the budget are not the parts that people pull out. It is not the agencies and departments, which we do look through. Are their savings to be found there . You bet. But those are not the bigticket items compared to Social Security, medicare, defense, and medicaid. Health and retirement is the bulk of growth of the budget and we need to decide whether we want to scale those programs back enough to not raise taxes and there has been no political appetite to do that. When people talk about Social Security and medicare, they talk about not starting it for some amount of time. If that is how it is structured, you will need revenue to fill in the hole. This is a political compromise. Republicans do not want to raise revenue, republicans democrats do want to raise revenue here you will have to raise some. There are political bargains you will have to make in all parts of the budget. Particularly because these problems have become so large. That is just a reality, even the people will have different preferences. , from the Macguineas Committee for a responsible budget and the government. We guest appreciate you coming on this morning. Thank you. We appreciate you coming on this morning. Guest thank you. Host coming up, we will be speaking with jay hancock. Later on in the your money segment, we take a look at taxpayerfunded International Travel for members of congress. First a news update from cspan radio. Situation inon the syria, u. S. Officials are trying to deliver over one dollar billion in assistance to people in a war zone fare ambulances are being shot at and aid is halted by armed men at random checkpoints. Nearly 7 million syrians need help. Syria will be one of the issues addressed at the United Nations this week. President obama and the first lady arrive in new york city at noon today to attend the u n general assembly. Other issues on the table this week include the possible appearance of the sudanese president , despite an arrest warrant for alleged genocide. Spyingently revealed program and peace in the middle east, a meeting is possible between the newly elected newly elected president of iran and president obama. It would be their first of any kind of such meeting since before the 1979 revolution. Those are some of the headlines on cspan radio. [video clip] we wanted america to be better. We wanted america to live up to the declaration of independence. Make real the democracy. Take it off the people and make it real. With this arrested book, i felt free. Today more than ever before i feel free and liberated. Lewis, from last Years National book festival. He will take your calls and comments live for three hours. Also scheduled, biographer kitty kelley, feminist critic christina sommers, and radio talk show host mark within, and the book tv bookclub continues this month. Leave your comments on our Facebook Page and on twitter. Journal,gton continues. Are talking about the Affordable Health care act with today, ack correspondent with Kaiser Health news, to talk about how the law directly and indirectly affects fulltime, parttime, and temporary employees. We have already seen some Companies Making changes to their Employee Health plans, blaming it on the Affordable Health care act. Employees need to be watching for as the implementation of this law moves forward . Changes in their Company Sponsored plans. Open enrollment for the Public Health exchange is a key aspect of obamacare. Simultaneous to this, this, the traditional open enrollment season for employmentbased benefits for the next year also takes place in the fall. So, if you work for a company that has Health Insurance, you have probably received packets from your Human Resources department showing all the different parts. Ever you more than need to dig into the details and look for changes in terms of differences from what it was before. One example, deductibles are going up. Employees that might have been used to a 500 deductible before the insurance starts working . Those are going up in some cases. If you anticipate going to the theor next year, maybe option that you were signed up before is not the right option, so look at the details. We are splitting up the phone lines differently this morning. Those who are fulltime loyees, they can call 202 20 two5853 88 zero, parttime and temporary 3881,yees can call 202585 and employers can call 202585 3882. , talk about part time employees and what they should be looking out for. Parttime employees have always been on the bubble, on the edge of coverage and have typically not had robust offerings from employers. Having any kind of Health Coverage for parttime is more the exception than the rule. This they are more among the groups being affected by the Affordable Care act more so than fulltime employees. This requires coverage from employers of more than 30 hours per week. What is going on is employers are looking at their workforces and trying to figure out what the costs are going to be and in some cases are reportedly cutting back hours. Other employers are shifting around how they cover the part timers. What are some examples you have seen . Trader joes a few weeks ago, a boutique grocery chain, shifting their parttime what are called private health exchanges. They are providing a stipend to employees, but instead of to the companye the employees are going to go into private exchanges that we should point out, this is not obamacare. One misunderstanding out there about some of this shifting that , the publice doing exchanges eligible for tax subsidies that open on october 1 that are online marketplaces, these are the Obamacare Exchanges. What is going on with employer sponsored insurance is they are changing the structure of how employees shop for Health Insurance. Typically you would be in an open enrollment season as an employer and you might be offered a few different plans with different amounts coming out of your paycheck depending on what the plan was. It mightve been hmo, ppo, blue cross. You will see the same kinds of choices, but the platform is run byo be an exchange an outside Human Resources benefits company and it will kind of look like the Obamacare Exchanges that are supposed to open next week. Statistics on Companies Offering Health Benefits to their employees, small firms, 57 with 32 199 workers offering 57 offering it. Larger firms with over 200 employees, 99 offer Health Benefits. We already have questions coming in for you. An email from biloxi, mississippi, on the subject of parttime employees. Guest the changes that employers are shifting even more workers to parttime. In the job figures this year that come out at the beginning of every month, the Labor Department measures employment growth and a lot of those jobs that have been created are part time jobs. Critics of the health law are saying that it is hindering the creation of fulltime jobs and point to these parttime statistics that show a large amount of parttime jobs as the evidence of that. It is unclear as to whether this is cause and effect. There are certainly a lot of parttime jobs being created right now. How much of this is to blame for the changes of the Affordable Care act, and how much of this is businesses using it as an opportune time to make changes . Guest it is hard to piece that out. The United Parcel service, ups, big brown last month, they told employees that it was going to spouses of ups access based had on working spouses who had access to coverage at their other employers. They will not be eligible to be on the ups plan next year. This attracted a lot of attention, because they kind of went out of their way to blame the Affordable Care act. There was a lot of discussion about how much to blame it really was. Does have an effect on Large Employers, like ups. There are some taxes involved that they say are raising their costs. There is a limit on outof pocket spending for employees that goes into effect for Large Employers in 2015 that they say are raising their costs. It is what is called the cadillac tax on high benefit plans. Ups said that this was partly caused by the Affordable Care act but also said that it was caused by their continuing rising costs for medical care in general. This has been an issue for employers for 25 years now. A lot of people say that these are just the latest tactics to try to deal with was partly caused by the Affordable Care act but also said that it was costs law with thisg, to try to get under control and it is not hugely related to the Affordable Care act. Here is how it came out on the front page of the wednesday issue of the wall street journal, last week. This under control and host we want to hear what is happening with you at your company. We have lined the setup for fulltime, parttime, and temporary employees. Timothy is up first. You are on with jay hancock caller of Kaiser Health news. Kaiser health news. I work for a Large Employer and i think i have what is called the cadillac land. My question is, will i have to pay taxes on the amount of my plan for whatever it would be worth . Simple answer is no, the employer is liable for the tax on the cadillac plan. We should point out that it does in until 2018 and there is some debate as to what degree it will apply to generous employerbased plans. ,he thresholds are fairly high fairly much higher than the value of plans now. Predictions that people made about how affected the plans would the were predicated on Health Care Costs rising at the traditional historical rate. They have actually slowed down therereciable amount and is some doubt about how soon it will hit the cadillac tax threshold. In any event, the employee is not liable. This question come through twitter what was the news about walgreens last week . Guest they are shifting their active, fulltime employees to the private exchanges that we discussed earlier. Let me try to make a point here. How bigd not exaggerate of a change this is. Walgreens is still contributing enormous amounts of money to its employees Health Coverage. If it is know declining or how much it is declining, but there are still employers on certain Health Coverage is at walgreens, the drugstore chain. What is changing is how employees are choosing the coverage, which is going to a private online marketplace similar to the obamacare marketplace, but in many ways is also very different. The obamacare marketplace is financed by your money, you, the consumer, with very generous tax subsidies. The private marketplaces are financed to a very large degree by the employers that have always offered companybased Health Coverage. That is going to be going on. What is changing here is how you choose the coverage, not large changes in who pays for it. We are talking about changes for employees under the Affordable Care act. We want to hear your stories. How is this affecting you . Al is next from ohio. Good morning. Good morning, cspan. Good morning, jay. I have a quick statement. I wish that mr. Obama was upfront and told us that it would be attacks a tax on the American People instead of the mandate. Is, december 1 is when we have to sign up . The health care does not start until 2014. My employer says i have to get signed up, so there are three months there that i will not have health care. I am not sure what to do. Should i wait for three months and hope i do not get hurt . All right . Thank you. You a let me ask question, stay on a second. You have coverage with your employer now . Why is it ending . The first it will end. That is kind of weird. Caller home depot, you have heard of them. Guest what are they doing echo caller you do not doing . Caller you do not get Health Insurance or you quit. Guest parttimers . Caller yes. Guest cliff that is what is happening, you do have the option to go out and buy a shortterm policy. Of policyon what kind you have, you may be covered under the cobra provision, where extend your coverage that you have now. I would go find a registered Insurance Agent and talk to them about your options and see what your options are. Extendthat would be my recomme. Richard is on next for our line with all others. Hello, there. Really enjoying your program. I appreciate you. [heavy breathing] go ahead with your comment. I really appreciate your program. I am a Senior Citizen with a degree in statistics. Looking at the Obama Health Care being misused, not being properly coded, the majority of the American People are being wantthat 16 of those singlepayer. They are really not against health care change, which is being used by the republicans , businesses and news people who are being paid that believeations in Republican Health care, republican people. The Supreme Court has said that we are a government for the corporations. Guest you make a point that has kind ofen made that is a double standard, a disconnect in the polls. Numerous pollsters have shown that if you call it a obamacare and say that this is the Affordable Care act, are you for it or against it, the majority of americans are not for it, but if you break it down and you talk about the individual parts ok,he law, if you say argue in favor of Insurance Companies not being able to deny you if you have a preexisting condition . Argue in favor of putting a cap on the outofpocket costs that consumers have to pay . In favor of keeping Adult Children on their Insurance Plan for their parents . People are in favor of that. There is a bit of a debate out there over what the American People actually want, but it is clear that as they understand it, the Affordable Care act is not hugely popular. A good timeould be to note that Kaiser Health news has been helping us to break down this law for many weeks newsa nonprofit editorial business that is separate from the Kaiser Family foundation. They are not affiliated with kaiser permanente. Ofy cover the health laws hospitals, doctors, and insurance. Jay hancock, your specialty echo your specialty echo guest the news and business your specialty . We are doing some housekeeping, let me correct something i said earlier. We were talking about trader joes and the parttime workers. Said they were shifting to the private exchanges, i believe i was wrong about that. The trader joes folks are being sent into the public Obamacare Exchanges with, i believe, a 500 stipend from the company. In fact a lot of them will probably wind up being better off, because once they go into the public exchanges they will be eligible for fairly generous that they tax credits would not have if they stayed on another plan. Guest a question from ricky host a question from ricky from email said they were guest a great question, which people are only now starting to figure out. There were twl big aspects of obamacare that they had an option on. One was whether to expand the Medicaid Program for the poor, the other was whether or not to run their own online marketplace , these online exchanges we have been talking about. Again, a big aspect of the Affordable Care act will begin onlineek when you can go and shop for this subsidized coverage that we have been talking about, if you are under certain income levels. So, a little more than half of the state is changing week to week, a little more than half the states have decided to expand their Medicaid Program. So, this will ensure coverage for folks who make if you are an individual, a low about 15,000 per year. For the states who are planning to expand and participate, this is from the wall street journal, a map that shows which states are planning to participate and which are planning to not expand. The gold color here are the states planning to participate and the red are states planning not to expand. The gray in their are those who are uncertain. Go ahead. Guest they are still on the fence. Pennsylvania is moving to expanding medicaid. South dakota is talking about it, but they do not know where they are. The other aspect, the online exchanges, states were presented pennsylvania is moving to expandingwith three options, thd set up the exchange and run it entirely themselves, about 16 states and the District Of Columbia are doing that. They are generally liberal states with a high degree of interest in implementing the aca. Maryland,e connecticut, vermont, california. Of that asve a map well that we are showing our viewers. The yellow is doing the federally run exchange, those are the state run exchanges on this map. The green states are doing the joint and federal exchanges. There is a partnership. A lot of states are default into the department of health and Human Services in washington to run their exchanges, which what that means is the feds are going to run the backbone, sort of the infrastructure of the online marketplace and the consumers will see little, if any difference. Healthcare. Gov to access their insurance choices in their state rather than the url for the state exchange. But the idea is the same. You will go on in your state and if you lack insurance now as a Family Member lacks insurance, you will go on these exchanges , yournch in your income employment status, whether or not you want to keep your doctor , the computer will show you your options and what the cost to you would be after the subsidies. You plug in your income and the computer figures out the subsidies you are eligible for and you will be able to see then that cost of these plans. To then seebe able then that plans of these costs. Comes to usuestion our private exchanges comparable to private to a Obamacare Exchanges . I do not see them stifling the success of obamacare. I see private exchanges as operating in parallel. It really is too early to say what sort of features and benefits they will have. They are brandnew. It is kind of breathtaking how quickly this subject of private exchange has come out of nowhere. There are Large Employer groups and benefits groups that sort of track what employers are doing in Offering Health benefits. A year or twl ago they were not even asking questions about this and now Companies Like jan hewitt are setting up these exchanges, offering them to employers, and a good analogy that i like to use for the private exchanges is that the private exchange is to Traditional Health care as the 401 k plan is to traditional pension. In one case the employer is responsibly covering the coverage. We will be doing more of a decisionmaking process in the employee, in the terms of the costsharing as well. Host a comment from barbara no employer has ever hired fulltime employees that they do not need. Employers decide what coverage to offer with no input from the employees. We need to take the employer and Insurance Companies out of the matter. It is time for singlepayer Health Coverage for all. Guest there is that sentiment out there. Developed, rich like the United States have substantially different systems than we do. Switzerland, the netherlands, it is sort of similar to obamacare, but there are still important differences. The argument for singlepayer is look, lets expand singlepayer for everyone and we will get rid of a lot of administrative costs represented by the Insurance Companies. The fact is that singlepayer is not going to happen in this country any time soon. If obamacare succeeds, we may never see singlepayer. If the Affordable Care act is somehow repealed or does not succeed, singlepayer may again. Many say there is an interest Insurance Company should have a large degree of interest. Singlepayer is largely theoretical. Were talking to employees, fulltime, parttime, and temporary, about how this is affecting them. Fromll go to wanda california on our line set up for fulltime employees. You are on with jay hancock. Caller hi, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say i hope you do not cut me off, but i just wanted to say that republicans have spent billions of dollars since the passage of misinform the American People. And when you hear propaganda days a week, 24 hours a day, on what used to be considered the liberal media bias guest can you give us an example of the propaganda . Caller yes, i can. The fact that their art death panels, that is one. The fact that there are death panels, that is one. People who are working fulltime or working parttime, their coverage is going to go up. It is going to be higher. They will not be up to see their same doctors anymore. Guest you are talking about arguments, publicity, assertions made against the Affordable Care act. Caller yes, sir. Guest you like the law and you are unhappy about the attacks being made on it. Caller it is not just about being unhappy. It is about the fact that the American People have been propagandized and they do not know what to think or believe. And because you hear a lie over and over i do not care if it is obamacare or anything else, the budget, the deficit. When you hear this stuff over and over and over again, you began to believe it. The fact is you begin to vote against your own best interests. Guest there is certainly a lot of discussion around the Affordable Care act, and you are going to hear a lot more evident it this week and next because october 1 is the date that these online exchanges are supposed to open up. You are absolutely correct, there is there are assertions being made, not only by people who oppose the Affordable Care act, against the Affordable Care act, but there is some confusing information on the other side as well. We are trying to do our best at Kaiser Health news to cut through it. If i can do a little plug here, i would recommend our coverage just google Kaiser Health news. We are trying to cut through a and telle blabbering people what is really going on, but there is a lot of fog out there. You are right. Host lets go to oklahoma city, oklahoma on our line for part time and temporary employees. Caller my understanding is there is a mandatory list of required coverages that the Insurance Companies must offer, and if you have a religious objection, objection to any of forcedtems and you are onto the exchange or you choose to go on to the Affordable Health care exchanges, what are you supposed to do . For example, prescription medicine is not an option for some. Why do you need prescription medicine if you go to your backyard and get what you need . Want artificial Birth Control or sterilization, you are not going to do it anyway are these things have on your plan . And if you choose not to have them on your plan for religious reasons, what happens to you . Guest you sort of are talking about two different issues here. One is urban of services one is Preventative Services that are required to be on the plans. That at the very bottom, Insurance Companies should cover basic care to keep people healthy, and there is a list of preventative features that are supposed to be on the plans. I am not aware of religious objections to any of these. For example, having a colonoscopy or other preventative care. You do bring up Birth Control and abortion, that people might have objections to. In the case of abortion, under federal law, the exchanges are not allowed to use federal money to pay for abortions. Sequestered, and that is the law. You ask about natural path that medicine. Pathic i cannot tell you anything about that. You will have to look at the plans, see for the cover, and see how they square with your beliefs. Who ise showed a map of running exchanges from the wall street journal. Are state run. Federally run, the orange color. And the green states are the joint federal and state. A question on twitter what would be the inducement for a state run owned exchange . Control. Be in to have Health Policy play out the way the people of whatever particular state it is want it to run out. You higher your own contractors you hire your own contractors. You have your own board of directors running the exchange board. It is just a lot more handson dependingrather than on washington to come in and resume for you. It has been an argument in conservative states as well. Some conservatives say, well, why do we want washington coming in and running this for us . It will happen no matter what, so why dont we do it ourselves . The other side has predominately won the argument, which is to say we do not want to have anything to do with it. Do your best, washington, we will see what happens. There have been changes are a big Affordable Care act. Here is an article from reuters last week Cleveland Clinic announces job cuts to prepare for obamacare. Andaid it would cut jobs cut its budget to prepare for president Barack Obamas health reforms. The clinic is treated celebrities and World Leaders, and as musician lou reed goldmedal skater scott hamilton. A spokeswoman said that 330 million would be cut from its annual budget. That is a reuters story. We want to hear from our callers and those on twitter about what is happening to them. Lets go to mary from maryland on our line for all others this morning. Caller i disagree with what you just said about the singlepayer health care, that there will not be a big interest in it. Everything i have heard makes a great case for a singlepayer maybere for all, except it would not have the employers determining what your Health Insurance would be and he would be dealing one responsible for it. We would not have all of these arguments. I think obama care the Health Care Act is a great way. It was time for somebody to step adultthe plate and be the and change the broke, jacked up Health Care System in this country. It has been broken 30 years. I know. I have had cadillac insurance. Right now i have no insurance. But i do have health care, i am not stupid. The Republican Party has done a news,job, via fox cable telling lies about what is wrong with it, scaring people. This is a strong law that will lead us into singlepayer health care, because we need it. Ups making an announcement right now that theyre going to stop the family coverage, i believe. They were going to do that anyway. This is propaganda because somebody there is very right wing, up in the higher office. Guest they are not rightwing. Theyre just trying to control their Health Care Costs. They are not ending family coverage. They are ending coverage of working spouses who have coverage at there are other employer. You raise a good point. You are the second caller to talk about this connection, which has been the case in this ofntry for 50 to 70 years, having your Health Care Benefits tied to your employer. There is no reason if you are starting the system from scratch why you would do that. One of the things that people who look at the Affordable Care , one of the out possible changes that may happen is that your Health Care Benefits will increasingly be to your less tied employer. We are seeing some employers the health into exchanges and we are seeing employers set up their own private exchanges, which is sort of nudging control of the Health Care Benefits away from the employer. It is possible that we may see that tie between benefits and the employer sort of erode over the next 10 years. In the long run, that might not be a terrible thing. Obamacareem with pre was when he moved between employers or you lost your job, then who is your Health Care Benefit . That is no longer going to be the case. The employer will not be such a critical part of the equation. That is not singlepayer, but it is changing the dynamic that we have now for decades. A parttime employee from home depot call in earlier to talk about this situation. More information about what is happening at home depot, this from the wall street journal, an article from last week or home depot plans to end Health Care Coverage for about 20,000 health care employees, instead doing governmentsponsored insurance exchanges. Theordable care act changes will affect nearly 20,000 people, which is about 5 of the companys workforce. The company will continue to offer parttime workers dental, vision, clinical illness, disability coverage. Some information on this changes coming from home depot. Back to the phones. A call from washington on our line for fulltime employees. Is, my my question employer pays my health care. For me. I pay my Family Health care, which is about 900 a month. Am i correct in assuming that i cannot get my family on the exchange where i would gain benefits from the subsidies . My employer is basically deciding what kind of health care i will get. To raiseu are smart the question. Go onto theswer is exchange when it opens next week. You have six months to sign up, so there is no hurry. Plug in your information and see what comes up. Under the employer mandate, which is employers have to offer coverage or be fined, and employers are not required to cover spouses. They are required to cover children. I do not know how the structure butour plan will play out, you should talk to your employer about it. You should go on the exchange and look at it. ,ou should seek out navigators people who are trained to steer people through all these complexities him a or go to a Health Insurance agent and seek advice. That sounds like a complex situation that you will need to figure out. Host a call from illinois on our line for top for parttime and temporary employees. I am a parttime employee or because my has put everybody down to parttime. st i am under my husband Health Insurance. I am curious what that is going to cost us. Also, people are very afraid of the irs. The irs, we all heard it, even though a lot of the democrats want to dismiss what they did, with a did was very criminal. Guest what did they do . Caller when they went after all those tea party people. You know, i am not a tea party person, not a democrat or a republican, ok a lot of us are very fearful of the irs. We do not want to go on to some kind of, you know, things that they run. Guest first of all, they are not running the Affordable Care act. They are part of the process. The Affordable Care act, again, requires and of the jewels individuals to have Health Coverage and pay a penalty if they do not. The penalty is assessed on your income taxes, so the irs is part of it. The other thing i heard, the irs Enforcement Powers and enforcement intentions are very, very limited. And there are so many loopholes to get out of the individual mandate that it is unlikely to process. Ressive and there is more to the tea party story that a lot of people read about in the newspapers. What people do not read after the process was that it was not such a nefarious process as it was first made out to be, and it kind of dropped off. You asked about the cost under your husbands health plan. That is hard to say, but obamacare is not going to directly it is Employer Sponsored Health plan at his job, it will not be affected by what is happening next month. If you want to keep up with jay hancock in Kaiser Health news, you can check them s. Org oraiserhealthnew follow jay hancock on twitter. I appreciate you coming in to talk about the Affordable Care act. Next in our weekly your money of the, Phillip Swarts Washington Times joins us, looking at International Travel by members of congress. First, a news update from cspan radio. A cbs News White House correspondent tweeds this hour that there are no plans for president obama to meet with you rons president do in new york city tonight. But do not rule out a happenstance get together. President obama travels to new york city today for the United Nations general assembly. His address to the body is scheduled for tomorrow. And a bit on the situation kenya from the interior minister. In remarks earlier, he said two militants at the Westgate Mall have died from, in his words, our morning activities. The chief of Defense Force general says fighters from an array of nations participated in the mall attack him a which is claimed by al shabaab, a somali group allied with al qaeda. Judges at the International Criminal court has accused kenya s Deputy President from his crimes against humanity while for a week so he can return home to help deal with the mall hostage crisis. He was on trial and the hague for allegedly or distribute violence in the aftermath of kenyas 2000 seven president ial election. And Development Today in egypt. An Egyptian Court has banned the Muslim Brotherhood and they are ordering its assets confiscated. The military backed government is stepping up its act down on supporters of ousted islam is president mohamed morsi. The ruling opens the door for authorities to track down the Brotherhood Network of social services, but the ruling can be appealed. Those are of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Cspan online archives will redefine social studies education in america. These are treasures. The cspan Video Library is a great resource to her view and share content anytime. It is easy. Here is how. Go to cspan. Org and go to the Video Library. For the newest video, click on what you want to watch and press play. You can also search the Video Library for specific topic or keyword. Or you can find a person, just type in their name, hit search, go go to people. Go to their bio page and scroll down to their appearances. You can share what youre watching and make a clip. Use the set buttons, at a title and description, and then click share and send by email, facebook, twitter, or google plus. This cspan Video Library, searchable, easy, and free, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Washington journal continues. In this segment, we look at how your money is at work in the federal government. Today we are joined by phillip of the Washington Times. Were looking at taxpayerfunded and travel by members of congress. Front pagerts, the of the Washington Times september 19 lead story lawmakers traveling lawmakers have not tightened travel belts. Lets look at how much taxpayer money is going to fund some of these congressional trips. 3st there have been about million on average each year for the house. The senate is harder to track down. How does this compare to 2012, and where does the money come from that funds these congressional trips . Guest there really has not been very much change in the past couple years. This is not really an area that sequestration and budget cuts have hit very hard. In 2012, it was 3. 7 million. 2011, 3 . 1 million. That is from the house. The senate is estimated to be between 5 million to 7 million each year. The money is taxpayer funds that is appropriated for these travels as part of the budget of congress. Host where are members going . What countries do they travel to . Guest all over the place. Israel is a big one. A lot of u. S. International trading partners. Japan, korea, china. Our allies in europe. Written and france. But they go all over the world. Nd france. A the goal to all over the world. They are just setting everywhere. Costing 396,000. Who has to sign off on the taxpayerfunded trips for members and their staff . Isst the idea is that it something that helps lawmakers do their job, that they can get firsthand experience in these nations. They can advocate for american interests overseas. And, you know, why try and figure out what the situation in syria is why not just go to serious and see for yourself . It is supposed to help lawmakers better serve the people. All the trips have to be approved by Ethics Committees. The senate and house have separate Ethics Committees that have to preapproved these trips before anyone can go on them. Host lets talk about the reporting about these trips. I want to show our viewers a little bit of the congressional record on what the actual reporting is. Reportaff down here, a of expenditures for official foreign travel for delegation to switzerland. It asked for the u. S. Dollar diem,lent for per transportation, and other purposes. This is a trip from january 24 to january 26 of this year. Is there any more disclosure than that . Guest not really. The house is actually in front of the senate in this regard. The house discloses all of their committee travel on their website. Use. Gov,o to clerk. Ho they will have a database with information. The senate is not as as quick to post things online hear it if it is put into the congressional record like that. But that really is it. It is a category for transportation, category from some expenses they might have had, and then just a total. You really do not know what specifically they are spending money on. About 2. 6 million has been spent and 2013 so far, according to his reporting at the Washington Times. That does not include trips over the august recess. If you want to call and ask questions or comment on the subject, our phone lines are open. We we will be talking about it for the but for about the next 40 minutes or so. Democrats can call in to 202 5853880. Republicans, 2025853881. Ndependents, 2025853882 if you are outside the u. S. And want to talk about congressional travel overseas, it is 202585 3883. Teresa on twitter asks simply, is this travel necessary for members of congress to carry out their duties or is it mostly for leisure . Itst well, the idea is that is necessary for them to carry out their duties. Certainly there are trips that no one would question are important. Lots of senators and representatives go to iraq to see the country firsthand and to visit with u. S. Troops. But it really is sort of a large line between what can be a necessary trip and what can be a vacation. It is hard for the lawmakers themselves to decide that. It is really up to the taxpayers and their constituents to try and blur that line. A trip to iraq is definitely work. A trip to paris, is that worked or not . They will be meeting with World Leaders and discuss gay and discussing the economy, but they will also be touring. It is often a combination of the two. Was focusedubject on and 2012, member travel, talking about some of the members who traveled most often and who traveled the longest. David dwyer was highlighted, former congressman. No one spent more time traveling at taxpayer expenses, they note. He spent 58 days out of the u. S. During nine trips after announcing that he would not seek reelection. It also notes a democrat from california, his Summer Travel in 2012 am a five days on the French Riviera ominous sevenday trip to ireland, italy, spain, and portugal. Three days after returning home, he resigned from the house to work for a d. C. Law firm. Daysrs spent about 1600 out of the country in 94 864 visits in 2012. Were talking with Phillip Swarts who did the story for the Washington Times last week on congressional travel this year. Do any of these travel requests get this approved . Guest well, hard to know. If they are not approved, they do not exactly print those in the records the way they do for trips that were taken. It is difficult to say. I would imagine that there are some, but probably not many. Go first to market from cincinnati, ohio, on our republicans line. You are on with Phillip Swarts. Caller i just wanted to clarify sorry, i am a little nervous. The 3 million or so you gave for the house, is that per congressman or is that for the institution as a whole . It is for the institution as a whole. The house million for and maybe 5 million for the senate . Guest right, and an important thing to note it in i want to put perspective briefly. Basically, every 1 million spent at the federal level works out to about one penny per american household. So were really talking, i think, between five cents and . 10 a year that is being spent here for this area. To put it in perspective, i am wondering what it costs to keep air force one and the White House Traveling . I just focused on congress. The white house has its own separate travel budget. Question is this big of Government Spending right now. It does cost quite a bit of money to keep air force one flying. It costs money to keep these congressmen going overseas. In the constituency needs to decide if this is something they want their representatives to keep doing. It may not be a lot of money. Certainly 3 million in the grand scheme of the federal budget is not all that much, but we are in an era of sequestration, of budget cuts. We are facing the government shut down over the fiscal cliff. So it really is a question of people have been really trying to scrape together money anywhere they cant and anywhere they can and find reductions in the budget, so it can certainly seem to some people like the low hanging fruit. If we just cut down on these trips, it might be an easy way for the federal government to save money. Host in your piece from last week, you also talked about members of congress traveling on military flights overseas and that money is hard to track. Explain that. Guest the military is not required to disclose all of its operating costs for transporting these lawmakers overseas. Keep sort of a planes specifically equipped to transport lawmakers. And a lot of times these lawmakers will travel on military planes. A lot of times it is necessary. If theyre going to iraq, obviously you need to hitch a ride with the pentagon. But there are also commercial flights available. Steve in maryland on our democrats line. Good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. My question to your guest would who actually makes these travel arrangements for the senators and congressmen . Is it through a government travel agency or is it through public travel agencies . I will take your answer off the air. Guest it is going to be through Staff Members. All of the committees on capitol hill have their own staff, and all the senators and representatives have their own staff as well. They will be the ones to organize and take care of the planning specifics of the trips. Host in terms of Staff Members who go on these trips, is there any limit to the number of staffers a member of congress can bring along . Guest they will sometimes try to limit it to one or two so you do not have huge groups of hundreds of people going overseas, but it is really at the discretion of the committee. It is sort of how many people they feel they need to send over. Because the committees have their own staff, and a lot of times they will have a specialist on the finance committee accompanying the senators and representatives. Host given example of this congressional travel you looked article brings up senators brings up a trip to canada recently. Thet yes, she was touring oil sands. It was to talk about energy production. That was actually not a trip that was taxpayerfunded. Organizationivate that paid for her travel up there to sort of discuss Energy Policy between canada and the u. S. Host so privately funded travel is a whole other aspect of member travel. Talk about that. The idea that there are trips that can help lawmakers do their jobs, so these private organizations are forwed to pay for trips lawmakers to travel to foreign nations. So the idea is that they can go, they can get new experience, but a lot of times it becomes a way for these organizations to maybe sort of be the ear of lawmakers while they are traveling. A website has tracked these privately funded trips. It has noted the total number of trips in 2013 has equaled about 1700. That is trips approved by a member of congress. That could include office staffers who go on these sort of trips. The estimated total cost, approximately 5 million. 1037. Ican trips, about democratic trips, 642. The privately funded trips include israel, turkey, and azerbaijan. Were taking your comments and questions on this issue of member travel, both taxpayer funded and privately funded. Larry is up next from greensboro, georgia on our independent line. Inler my career was back the corporate world, and we traveled and would justify trips. I was just wondering, you know, with Hillary Clinton being our secretary of state for four years, she took many, many trips. I wonder if anybody tracked who went on the trip, how much it cost, what was the purpose of the trip . Was the trip worth it . I guess that is what i am trying to say. Or was it just travel for the sake of traveling . Thank you. Is a whole another area. Are all these Government Agencies cant it that can be where the money really stressed to add up. 3 million travel for the house, that is just for the house of representatives. Of course, there are many other agencies and government. And there is the white house. Then you have the entire executive branch. The department of state with secretary clinton and now secretary kerry. The treasury department. So they have travel budgets budget. To their overall those have to be approved by congress. Really, congress is sort of the only limit on just how much these agencies and some of the secretaries can travel. Host on twitter we americans have nothing to complain about whatsoever when it comes to congress and its activities because we tolerate it. One congresswoman who has raised some concerns about congressional spending when they are overseas and traveling is congresswoman jackie speer, democrat from california. There was a recent debate overseas she used the recent debate over food stamps to highlight how some of these members eat while traveling. Here is what she said on the floor of the house. [video clip] some of these same members travel to Foreign Countries under the guise of official business. They dine at lavish restaurants, caviar. Teaks and even they receive money to do this. That is right, they do not pay outofpocket for these meals. But me give you a few examples. 127. 41 a was given day for food on his trip to argentina. He probably had a fair amount of steak. 3588r member was given for food and lodging during a sixday trip to russia. He probably drank a fair amount of vodka and probably even had some caviar. Spearcongresswoman jackie , democrat from california. The she is not the only one raising concerns. Who else in congress has raised concerns about congressional travel spending . Has beengislation introduced to try and make it mandatory to report on the Defense Department when lawmakers go on these trips funded by the military. They are required they are not required to report expenses, but this amendment would require them to report just how much it costs. Host on military travel, you say there are a fleet of planes at Andrews Air Force base for these trips overseas. To say exactlyrd how many there might be. The military does not exactly report on the specifics, but they have the capability. They have the planes ready to transport lawmakers if need be. On twitter which politician has the most frequent flyer points . Thatowed you that graph tracked travel in 2012 with david dreier at the top. The republican from california was behind him. A democrat from california behind him. , democrat from pennsylvania 27. In your reporting so far this year, who are the frequent flyers and congress . Guest i was focused more on the cost than the number of specific trips taken. But it can be both good and bad, because one of the top trip makers when he was in congress was senator luger, senior senator from indiana. He travels almost more than anyone else. It is estimated to be about 0,000 worth of travel excuse me, 400,000. But he was viewed as one of the top experts on foreign policy. Certainly it seems like the in hisdid him good ability to work with foreign nations. Host your story notes that this year the most expensive trip so far taken with by the Foreign Affairs committee. Members hit 20 countries and tito month at a cost of about 400,000. The second largest expenditure for foreign travel, taxpayer funded foreign travel, was by the Armed Service Committee Members going to the middle east. That cost about 324,000. Steve is up next on our democrats line from iowa. Good morning. You are on with Phillip Swarts of the Washington Times. Taking myank you for call. I have owned a business myself and know how the irs wants records on necessary business expenses. We see also that overseas travel, security questions private travel agencies. The questions are, why doesnt the 10. 7 acrosstheboard cut that is in effect, called for by the Tea Party Congressman steve 3588ho just spent traveling to russia, you know, justification for that cost, and at the same time he is also cutting funding for food stamps for the constituents within northwest iowa, which he supposedly represents. So oversight on National Security on travel for these people, as well as justification of the expenses for that travel at a time when the leadership is saying the economy is tight and their need to be cutbacks. So it is kind of a question about security as well as accountability. It has always been a question. When it gets to an issue like this, we sort of expect congress to police themselves. Obviously voters watch Something Like this, but it is usually not at the forefront of peoples minds when when they go to the voting booths. Even though there have been budget cuts across the government, those mostly touched have noties, and there been a lot of mandatory spending cuts on congress itself. At thes really lawmakers own discretion how much money theyre spending on these trips and whether or not they want to trim back with a are doing. Host we mention one of the members of congress who has been keen into looking into these expenses for traveling is a republican from North Carolina. I want to bring the congressman in now on the phone. Thank you for joining us this morning. It. T delighted to do thank you for taking an interest in this issue. Host what got you interested in this issue . Guest it goes back a few years. I have been on the Armed Services committee for 20 years and have developed relationships office. Liaisons a few years ago i had a kernel lell me that i had a colone tell me that these overseas trips taking members of congress and sometimes their wives to these Foreign Countries for meetings, and were spending , and out of the dod budget it just seemed like to me that if theyre going to take these trips paid for by the military, it should be disclosed so the American People can know what members are spending to go overseas and the money comes from the department of defense. Host we have a couple questions from folks are ready in this segment. Essentially, do you think these overseas trips are for members of congress . Guest well, the way i look at it, for me personally, it depends on the trip and what type of trip it is. The way i look at this, my answer would be no at this particular time in our nations history. There are budget cuts and here we are spending this kind of money. They should explain it to voters and disclose the cost of the trip. Congressman, do you travel overseas . Where do you go and why . A shock toight be your viewers and listeners, but i have only been on one overseas trip in 20 years, and that was panama for two days. That was the last trip i made overseas, and that was in 1996, i think. I am not opposed to these trips. I would not be opposed to anyone taking them. When were spending the taxpayers money and taking the money from the department of defense. Status of thethe legislation focusing on this spending . Guest i am pleased to the Armed Services committee and the house, we marked up and put a bill on the floor of the house about three months ago. When the senate gets to finishing their bill and then we go to conference, it is my hope that the senate will agree with the house decision. Again, this does not even challenge the trip. It just says if you make the trip, make sure that all the expenses are shown to the theseer, including military costs of the military having to use their planes. Host we showed a clip earlier of a congresswoman talking about the per diem that members of congress get on these trips. Are you seeing that other members of congress are starting to share your concern or is it just a small group of members . I think most members of congress in both parties really believe as i believe, that the taxpayer has a right to know how we are spending their money. Particularly when were hearing about cuts in the military. Said so many times that the military is threatened because of these cuts. How can we take these trips overseas . If you think it is worthwhile, then share the cost of the trip. That is all it does. It is very simple. Host congressman walter jones from North Carolina, one less question from twitter. How could citizens conceivably control this . Should they ask Congress People to vote away their own perks . With in language that has passed the house, i would say to the gentleman to please call your senator and ask her or him to support the house position when it gets to conference sometime in the late fall. Host congressman, thanks so much for joining us this morning. We still have Phillip Swarts in the studio with us, talking about this issue. Ofllip swarts is the writer the story lawmakers have not tightened travel belts, a story from the september 19 front page of the Washington Times. We will go back to the phones. Dave is from arkansas on our independent line. Good morning. Curious as toust why it is we all constantly vote , then we paynaires them ridiculous amounts of for alland then we pay their expenditures, cars, gas, the trips, food, everything else. And they do nothing but a lot of talking. They sit and argue like a bunch of children fighting over candy at a candy store. How about lets quit voting in millionaires, get the working man in there with an understanding what a dollar is, and quit giving these millionaires there millions . Everything they do, we pay for. Issue that has been an that has been raised by several of these fiscal watchdogs here in washington. There is the suggestion that members of congress pay for some of their own travel overseas. Of the senate the senate especially will often buy first class tickets to get to these countries. So the transportation costs on the senate side can be very, very high. A trip between april and june from the committee on finance where members and their staff were racking up transportation expenses of 40,000. 23,000. 38,000. There has been a suggestion that maybe taxpayers can pay for a coach seat, and then if these lawmakers want to upgrade to first class, they can pay for it with their own money. Host talk about this issue of scrutiny of these trips. Showing our viewers the story from september 13 from the Washington Post. The house ethics to midi it the house ethics its review of lawmakers taiwan trip. Notes that forms were submitted, and the trip was sponsored from taiwan. He got prior approval from the Ethics Committee to go. What is the involvement of the x six of the Ethics Committee here . Guest this is from the Senate Ethics rules and it will be the same for the house as well. Inate may not participate trips planned, organized, arrange, or required, requested by a lobbyist or foreign agent. The idea is that foreign governments or agents of foreign governments are not supposed to be funding these trips. Travel, trips funded by someone else. You do not want foreign governments giving favors to these lawmakers to take them overseas. The problem is that it can be very, very easy for some of these governments to start their own charitable organizations that can fund these trips instead. A lot of times the line is blurred between whether or not it is a privately funded trip or a public function. One of the largest providers of these trips overseas for lawmakers is the American Israel Education Foundation come as part of aipac, the proisrael lobby in the u. S. It is not uncommon for lawmakers to meet with the president of israel. Even though it is supposed to be sort of private organizations funding these trips, a lot of times it is members of foreign governments that get a chance to talk with the lawmakers and get a chance to discuss policy and hopefully gain their favor. From ella for nick, republicans line. You are on with Phillip Swarts. Thank you, finally got through to you. I have been on hold for 15 minutes, so please give me more than five seconds. Host go ahead. Caller ok, the gentleman has mentioned this before, kind of, about the money that we pay all these government officials in addition to their salary. Arent those entitlements . When everybody wants to cut back money, it is the entitlements for the poor and the sick. We have got to cut back on entitlements. I think that should include all government officials, not just they all should be documented , like the representative just said. All of the money spent. Do you think members of congress should travel at all overseas . Would you be in favor of certain types of travel, just more scrutiny . Caller yes, if it is important for the country, not for them personally. I know theyll make up excuses like everybody else to have somebody else pay for their trip here but only if it is beneficial for our country. Is part of the problem. The people who get to decide whether or not the trip is beneficial for the country or beneficial for them themselves are the lawmakers. They get to make that call. But there is certainly an image problem that it is sort of this privileged position. Because certainly not many of us get paid by our jobs to travel overseas. So lawmakers, you know, they have dealt with that image problem among voters, but they are sort of getting free trips. Even if it is on official business, they are still getting to travel internationally. Host did any of this travel budget get cut by sequestration . Guest no, it has been fairly constant. Host how does this avoid sequestration cuts . It is underess is the general operating budget of the congress. A lot of times there is a lot of programs that the senators and doresentatives themselves not get cuts. Host we have a few minutes left with Phillip Swarts of the Washington Times. He wrote the front page story on this subject over the last few weeks. What else do you do . Investigativee journalist and cover wasteful spending. An especially egregious example of fiscal waste by the government. Host were talking with phillip throughgoing congressional travel. Our next call from West Virginia on our independent line. Would like things i to talk about. First, i am an independent. I think we need more independents elected. Recently in the news, there has been all kinds of things you go on the internet and look at Different Things like a congressman going to russia, getting drunk, and having an arm wrestling match with newton putin. I think that is a trip he should reimburse. And it should be limited. Work for a Government Agency you only can spend so much a day , no matter where you are at. They have a limit. And i am sorry, i do not believe that they deserve any more than femathe irs and fema sets the amount per day for per diem. That is what they get. If they cannot live on it, then get out, get another job. They are making plenty of money. It does not include all the perks. With all that, it is way over 200,000 per year. If they cannot live on it, get out. Guest that is why there is a lot of attention on this area. People are looking at, is this necessary . Is this amount of travel necessary . People commenting that trimming down on some of this travel would seem to be an easy way to sort of cut down on some of these expenses. Who sets perioned diem rates. Do you know who does that . Guest that would be determined by the Ethics Committee and the leaders of the house. Host on twitter how many trips per year by members of congress includes their Family Members . Guest that is an excellent point to bring up. I do not have a conclusive stat on that. But a lot of these trips the lawmakers to take Family Members. Spouses, children. Especially some of the privately funded organizations. That private organization will pay not only for a lawmaker but for a Family Member as well. That is when it almost sorts starts to cross the line. Because you are not only going yourself, but youre taking your wife or husband, and then it almost becomes a vacation. Host democrats line, you are on with Phillip Swarts. I think we lost you. We will go to john from North Carolina on our independents line. Caller my question is basically for the congress. When they take their breaks, their weekends, who pays for their trip home . My understanding is all they have to do is collect town hall meeting or some special function and it is paid for by the government. How much do we pay for that now . Guest the Travelers Companies funded by the u. S. Congress am a the travel is completely funded by the u. S. Congress and by taxpayers. They go to their home states and meet with an stooge once. That falls within the particular budget eads congressional office, its lawmaker themselves has to pay for for travel. If you look at the disclosure records, and a lot of times you will see a car trip to rhode island, car trip back to washington, d. C. , Something Like that. Thosee is an email who want to travel should file two documents. One, explain why the travel is needed and what will begin by the travel. Two, after the trip, explain what was learned and why the trip was needed. If they cannot justify a taxpayerfunded trip, that they should be barred from future trips. How do you think members of congress would take to having to explain what they learned and why on their trips . Guest well, i have got good news. They mostly file those things already. They are required before they go to file justification about why this trip is important, how it is going to help them serve their constituents, how it is going to help them do their job. That is the document they have to submit to the Ethics Committee to get approved. When they come back, they have developed disclosure forms about how much they spent, what they did, who they met with. So a lot of these documents are being filed. But sometimes they can be difficult to access for people who are not here in d. C. And even though they filed the documents, it has not really cut down on this type of travel. In alabama on our democrats line. Caller i would like to make two comments. First, talking about defunding obamacare, they should defund congress. And why is it that every time the president went down the steps, they had every dollar that was spent to a t, but with congress they cannot figure out what is spent or what is going on with money . That is my comment. Guest part of it is a logistical problem appeared you have 100 numbers of the senate. 435 members of the house. Then you have all their staff. It is a matter of keeping track of travel expenses for hundreds of people. The other problem is something that representative jones alluded to. Are some of these trips were they do not have to report the exact expenses . A report here from the Senate Intelligence committee. Senator hill nelson here because it is the intelligence committee, it is classified. We know he went somewhere, but the country is not listed. We know he traveled sometime between january and march of this year im a but we do not know the exact a peer it we know he spent 26,000 on travel, but we do not know where he went. Times it is a justification for National Security that these expenses are not reported. Host Phillip Swarts is a reporter, the headline of his reporter he writes for the Washington Times, the Golden Hammer column, the most egregious examples of money mismanagement. We appreciate you coming on the washington journal today. That isour show for today. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] Congress Returns this week to continue talks for a continuing resolution for cr. The senate will take up a bill approved by the house. To temporarily extend federal funding through