Democrats, 202 5853880. Independents and others, 202 5853882. ,end us a tweet at cspanwj post your comments on facebook, or email us. We will get to your phone calls in a minute. Yesterday we learned that three house lawmakers are going to retire. S headline. Itico shaking the 2014 midterm election. Timess headline, three house retirements complicate outlooks for the midterm. Representatives frank wolf from ,irginia, tom latham from iowa jim matheson of utah. They surprise colleagues and voters with their decisions, which came as congress was wrapping up one of its least productive and most contentious years in recent memory. The retirements are not enough to signal a shift in the dynamics for the race and control of the house in 2014, still decidedly republican. It raised hopes among democrats navigating what has turned out to be an unpredictable path into the midterm election. We want your thoughts with this news of the twoyear budget deal passing in the senate. Final passage could happen today. And the retirements of these lawmakers. Your representative or senator reflecting reviews . Republicans, 202 5853881. Democrats, 202 5853880. Independents and others, 202 5853882. The Washington Post editorial on frank wolf from virginia deciding to retire. Revolutionthe reagan of 1980, mr. Wolf has been a steadfast advocate for conservative causes. He has opposed abortion, same marriage, adoption by gay couples, and gun control. He has retained a knack for setting his own political compass. One of a handful of House Republicans who refused to sign river norquist Grover Norquists pledge never to raise taxes. As we noted, those qualities have made mr. Wolf a standout among a sharply diminishing breed of legislators in Congress Whose independence and problem solving outweigh their partisanship. That is the real test of leadership and mr. Wolf has met it. Hat in the Washington Post about frank wolf deciding to retire. The Richmond Times dispatch has that on their front page. Wolf will not seek reelection in 2014. That from the Richmond Times dispatch. Your thoughts on whether or not congress reflects your views. Start dialing in. We will take comments on twitter, cspanwj. You can post comments on facebook. Com as well. Facebook. Com cspan. Post, the washington frank wolf to retire after 17 terms. The seat will be a prime battleground in 2014. On twitter yesterday, the campaign arms for the house and the senate weighed in. About jimweeted this matheson in utah. Uld rather retire than face angry voters and obamacare backlash in 2014, bad news for dccc. Dccc tweeted this. The mass exodus of republicans fleeing John Boehners house. Republicanst two announcing they would not seek reelection. This is from nbc on capitol hill, 8 gop house lawmakers have announced they will retire. Bachus, bauc bachmann, campbell, coble, onein, latham, and democrat, madison. Madison matheson. Matheson barely beat his opponent in 2012, the Saratoga Springs mayor. She is running again for that seat. That will turn out for republicans in the Fourth District of utah. Richard and texas, democratic caller. Who is your representative, and do your senators represent your views . Representative in the , farenthal. Navy veteran. The only place they could find a cut was on the backs of veterans. We were promised that if we stayed and did our job, the cost of living increase. They are cutting our cost of living increase by 1 . Take you want to see them care of the pension issues on the budget. Going to hurt military retention and it is going to hurt recruiting. Then all a promise and of the sudden, they stashed it away from us they snatch it away. There are other places they could cut besides on the back of veteran to have worked for this country. Host have you made this case to your senators . Or twoyear members of congress . Or to your members of congress . Caller i dont think one person can make a difference, but i think the veteran community will that if they pass provision and we will find out who is responsible. I cannot remember if it is ryan or a democrat lady. Whoever is responsible for that, the military community is going to make them pay. Host this is the headline in the Washington Times. I think you are referring to patty murray. Senators about to undo military retirement pay cut. In budget deal that is expected to get final passage today in the senate. This is the Washington Post, concerns about cuts to military pensions took center stage. 6 billion from reducing cost of living adjustments by 1 for military retirees younger than 62. This reduces lifetime retirement pay by about 6 . That prompted the inclusion of this cut. It prompted some senators, like senator kelly ayotte to argue against it. Meanwhile, john mccain, one of the few senators who served in the military, dismissed the outcry. He noted that highranking pentagon officials have acknowledged the need to rein in the cost of military benefits. What do you think . I just think that 20 years does not seem long to the average civilian. It 20 years in the navy lost two marriages, four children. You do suffer a little more in the civilian world. That is why they agree to give us such a generous retirement and to take it is unfair. Host scott, texas, republican caller. Who represents you in washington . Does he reflect your views . Caller absolutely. He is doing an excellent job. Thes going to be in primaries against corn and cornyn, i will be supporting him. The most hated man there is our other senator. I absolutely support him. Host are you referring to ted cruz . Caller yes. Host what do you think of senator john cornyn. Caller stockman is going to get my vote, cornyn has too much going on. Host why . On things is caving he should stand up for, he does not had a spine. It is too easy to go along with democrat ns in the lobby. Host he was one of the republicans that voted against moving forward on this twoyear budget deal, he did not vote for it. Only 12 gop senators voted to move forward. Catching some heat and he may come around and do a good job in the end. As of late, he has not been the conservative i would like to see. Host do you oppose the twoyear budget deal . Caller yes. Host let me read for our viewers the 12 senators that voted yesterday to end debate on the twoyear budget deal and move forward with debate to final passage. Heres a list of those republican senators. Lamar alexander, roy blunt, Saxby Chambliss, susan collins, isaacson,n, johnny portman. In, rob reported yesterday that not necessarily all of these senators will vote on final passage for the legislation. One of them being a Lamar Alexander who said he voted to move forward on debate but he will not vote for final passage when it comes to that. Ohio, democratic caller. Caller hi. Think they should have included it burns me up. They should have put it the unemployment in their. In there, insurance. Those senators have a good salary, they are well taken care of. They get millions from lobbyists. And everybody else they can get their hands on. Theet they vote to senator where i was born got 3 letting his land lie fallow. , he voted against food stamps. There are people who have to have it. Thats you do not think the fact that they did not do that caller they should have at least a debated it. Talked about it. I do not think they did that. They passed an extension for the farm bill. They will take up the fiveyear includes food stamps and january. Debbie stop now debbie the senator from michigan said they will come to a framework in january. Thlfway through the 113 congress, does your senator reflect your view in washington . We can read some tweets, tweet us cspanwj. Post your comments on facebook. Headline, 12art gop senators joined democrats to support the ryanmurray budget. Not all 12 expected to vote on final passage. Some democrats could be peeling away. Reporting the vote could happen as early as today. Tune into cspan2 for live coverage of that vote in the senate. Eugene, virginia, democratic caller. Where is looks growth where is locust grove, virginia . Caller my representative is eric cantor. He does not represent my views at all. Host why . Lower he has been laying and i have not heard much. I try to reach him earlier in the year. People toe six aides, help him. Their voice has mails filled, no one was answering phones. It went on for weeks and i gave up trying. Has been deceitful. The bills he has tried to put together earlier in the year, the one that had to do with to mothers some they could go home with children. That was a way of getting stealing over time from people. He was largely behind that even though he did not present it. Horrible. R is my senators are a different story, those guys are great. Host you will vote to reelect both of them . Caller yes. But anything i can do to get rid of eric cantor. People i talk to are up in arms also. That guy has got to go. Host we will keep taking your calls on whether or not your congressman or your senator, congresswoman, respect reflect your views in washington. What do you think about how they voted on the budget deal and other legislative priorities. Halfway through the first year of the 113th congress. Joining us on the phone is Joshua Zimmerman is josh covers the Federal Reserve for bloomberg. What happened yesterday with the Federal Reserve . Outt we are going to find later today at around 2 00 the fate of the feds stimulus program. They have been very aggressive for the past five years. A lot of economists who follow the fed think they are going to finally start pulling back. Confidencea vote of in the economy. They think the economy is Strong Enough to stand. Ben bernanke is going to give his final press conference this afternoon. It is going to be an interesting guy. Interesting day. Host the press conference at 2 30 this afternoon, we will pressoverage of the final conference from the Federal Reserve chairman. Josh, what would be the rationale for stopping the Bond Buying Program . Want they have said they to wait and see a substantial improvement in the labor market. That has been their goal all along that they have talked about. Well we finally saw with unemployment report for november was that the nations jobless rate has fallen to 7 . The lowest in five years, since early in the recession. Marker thatf a suggests to a lot of people that as slow as the progress has been, progress has been made. We are on the road back to a normal looking economy. These arethe fed very unusual programs, the fed never had to do these before. It is a signal that things are getting more normal. Tot if the fed decided not called, theirs Bond Buying Program, what would be the rationale . Guest that would be the signal they still do not have the economy where they want it yet. To 7 . Yment has fallen by a lot of other measures, the labor market is not doing as well. The percentage of working age people who have jobs, the Labor Force Participation rate, has been depressed. Be reason for that might that the economy has been so bad that a lot of people have given up on the job market altogether. They are not working or trying to find work. To the extent that that is happening, that is a very bad thing. That is one reason the fed would say we are not back to normal. No matter zumbrun, what the fed decides, will move the markets . Is safe to say. The market is very divided. We do a survey of economists before these meetings, about 1 3 think the fed is going to taper today. About 40 think they will wait until march. Wrong is group is going to have to make some big adjustments after this meeting. It is gearing to be is guaranteed to be a substantial group of people that is wrong. Host what do you expect president obamas pick, janet yellen, what do you expect she will say today . Guest unfortunately, bernanke is the only one we get to hear from. The part of the meeting they all open to theis not public. We do not even get transcripts for more than 5 years. We will not see what she said until 2019. We can guess that throughout the recovery of the past five years, she has been very some would say pessimistic. You can also say realistic about the struggles ahead for the economy. She has said it will be difficult for the economy to grow and the labor market will make slow progress. She has been right. She is probably going to continue making that case today. There is a lot of labor market image damage. She is thought to be in the camp that says now is not the right time to taper. Host where it is Janet Yellens nomination stand in the senate . Guest she has been approved by the Senate Banking committee and has to have a vote before the full senate. Thanks to a recent rule change, she only needs 51 votes to get past. She is all but certain to get that. Only one democrat has signal any opposition, they are 55 democrats. She will get at least 50 something votes, even into the 60s. It is not expected to be a close call. She will get confirmed. If she isexpect confirmed it sounds like she will be. Will she change . Course will she change genetically from bernanke . Been vicehas chairman since 20, she has been 2010, she since has been bernankes top deputy devise helped d these strategies. To stickbably going with that in her first months as she becomes fed chairman. Oft we will have coverage the News Conference today at 2 30 p. M. Eastern time on c span. Org. When thatwebsite for will air. 2 30 p. M. , we hear from ben bernanke at his last News Conference. Josh zumbrun, thank you. Guest thank you for having me. Host here is the headline from roll call, rand paul dowling to hold up rand paul vowing to hold up nomination over his audit the fed bill. He plans to run out the clock on yellens nomination. This tweet says Mitch Mcconnell also opposes yellens nomination and calls for rand pauls bill to audit fed. We will see how that shakes out on the senate floor. On the budget deal we told you about. Cleared the procedural hurdle, the leaders of the parties in the senate newstheir normal conferences with reporters. Here is the headline from usa today. The debtal fight is limit. Here is what Senate Majority leader harry reid had to say when he was asked about the debt ceiling fight in february followed up by what minority leader Mitch Mcconnell had to say. [video clip] i cannot imagine the republicans one another fight on debt ceiling. Debt ceilings two in the recent past and we should do another one. About thell i can say debt ceiling is i doubt if the house or for that matter the senate is willing to give the president a clean debt ceiling increase. Usry time the president asks to raise the debt ceiling is a good time to try to achieve something important to the country. Ofy significant pieces legislation have been attached to debt ceilings over the years. Grammrudman, the congressional review act, the clinton Republican Congress proposal, and the budget control act were attached to a debt ceiling increase. The debt ceiling legislation is a time that brings us all together and gets the attention. With this president , particularly, has been a challenge. It being donene claim. We will have to see what the house insists on adding to it as a condition for passing it. Of their two leaders respective parties after the procedural vote to clear the twoyear budget deal. Final passage expected today, live coverage on cspan2. The debt ceiling fight getting teed up. The hill tweets out this. Mitch mcconnells challenger has slammed macconnell for opposition. Matt bevin tweets this, if we do not defeat him, Mitch Mcconnell will lose to the democrats. Noting his numbers are as low as the president s. Leader facesnority a tough primary challenge and a tough challenge from the democrats when he is up for reelection in toy 14. Getting your take on whether or not the folks in washington reflect your views. David, ohio, republican caller. My concern with the american government, the way it is running this country. Stealing taxpayer dollars, wasting it on anything that is not necessary. Host turn that television down. Talk through the telephone on air. Steve, arizona, independent caller. Caller good morning. I would like to say Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Going to have are coming up today i hope that my senators would go ahead and vote against it. They are not going to. They are all upset about taking the money away from our veterans. Theyre going to turn around and go for it anyway. That is mccain and flake. I have been watching mccain for. Any years he is not doing arizona people any good at all. He reminds me of arlen specter. When he is ready to be reelected again, he might as well turn his republican in and go democrat. He is not going to get reelected, i guarantee that. Host steve in arizona. Tweeting in. The Fourth District does a better job of for presenting my views. Cruz does. Ted postus a tweet cspanwj, your comments on cspan. Com. Steve mentioned the two senators from arizona, senator flake and senator john mccain. They both voted yesterday to clear the procedural hurdle. Advancing the twoyear budget deal to a final vote. That did so. Not all of them are expected to vote on final passage. Saxby chambliss of georgia was on the floor yesterday. Heres what he had to say about why he voted to go forward with the twoyear budget deal. [video clip] while the overall spending number is higher than what i would have wanted, the house and Senate Budget Committee Chairmen were able to craft a deal that produces money through billion dollars that produces 23 billion in net deficit reduction. 23 billion is a mere pittance. All of us who are concerned about the deficit would like to see that number higher. More importantly, they have produced a budget that will set place some fiscally responsible spending policies and give us a way forward. Regardless of how each number of this chamber feels about the resulting policy, we should recognize the importance of this agreement and thank the chairmen for their work to end this chapter of clinical disagreement. Of political disagreement. Host that was georgias Saxby Chambliss. Here is the Atlanta Journal congress set to ok first budget in years. Mitch mcconnell of kentucky, up 4 voted no to advance legislation. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] challengesiate the that house and senate faced, i voted against this legislation because, in my view, congress should adhere to the fiscal restraints that both parties the budgetder control act. I was the principal republican negotiator of that agreement. I have been particularly invested in its success. I was very proud of it. As a result of the budget control act, government funding has declined for 2 years in a row. For the First Time Since the korean war. Mitch mcconnell talking about how he was the chief negotiator of the budget control act in 2011 and so he did not relieving sequestration, automatic spending cuts. That is why he voted no on plans on final passage. Budget dealay, highlights. 2014 overall federal spending at a little over 1 trillion. 2015 overall spending at 1. 014 trillion. Years. 28 billion over 10 includes deficit reduction. Does not include extension of unemployment benefits. Billion in2 sequester cuts with other savings. To final passage as early as today, getting your thoughts on whether or not the representatives in the house and the senators reflect your views in washington. Baton rouge, louisiana, independent caller. Caller good morning. Mary landrieu is one of my senators. The of course, voted for Affordable Care act. I am definitely against her for that. Now, she is backtracking and saying she did not know people were going to lose their current policies. That is a lie. She knew it, she is a democrat, she has to lie. My representative is a doctor, a physician. Bill cassidy. He does an outstanding job. He knows about the Affordable Health care act. Vote against Mary Landrieu anytime i am able and i will support Anyone Running against her. Host somerville, new jersey, democratic caller. Hi, everybody. I am a democrat. Thankfully, i am a democrat. Republicans make me sick. My congressman is a friend of my husbands. We have two Democratic Senators. We have the worlds worse governor, the fat idiot chris christie. Anybody jonr bon jovi would run and i would vote for him. Whoever. I do like our senators and congressmen. I like rush holt, too. You guys have a good day. For the phoneu call. Charles, georgia, republican caller. Caller good morning. Saxby chambliss has not been representing the state of georgia for the past several years. A specially starting with immigration issues. Senator graham of south carolina. Layingisakson has been low. Saxby chambliss sees a primary coming up and therefore he is retiring. By the way, the Atlanta Journal does not represent the majority of georgians across the state. The state representatives are a little bit better. Name. Reland is the guys he represents my views pretty well. Saxby chambliss and Johnny Isakson have become very modern, i guess is the word they would use. They have become a member of the elite group that thinks they know best for the americans. In their caucus, they seem to need tohat the people be talked with. I have attended several of the meetings that Saxby Chambliss has given. It is almost like he has a scripted thing that he reads. And then the questions are almost 5 of the total conversation. The rest of the time, he is telling what he is going to do. Host you would call your two senators moderate senators . Caller he is a moderate senator. If you think about the fact that in the senateot that long. He is nothing like russell we had. The people that really worked for the government. He is he got a position almost on a lot of committees fits thei guess he pattern. Not because of his seniority. Host you talk about moderate senators. That conversation is taking place as we learned yesterday that two moderate lawmakers, congressman matheson of utah and frank wolf out of virginia, a democrat and a republican respectively, are going to be retiring from their seats. They will not be running again. A lot in the papers about that. Not seeking reelection. These lawmakers, along with congressman tom latham of iowa, a republican conservative. Veterans of the house of representatives. All serving many terms in washington. We turn to you this morning and ask you if your representative or senator is reflecting your views here. We will keep taking your phone calls. Senator tom coburn, republican of oklahoma, yesterday held his annual wastebook News Conference. The headline in the washington wasted 30ernor billion. Take a look at this chart. Your tax dollars at work. Urine. To collect human ware. Llion for stem 65 million for Hurricane Sandy emergency relief spent on television ads. We will talk to senator tom coburn about the wastebook when he joins us on washington journal tomorrow morning at 7 45. The news, paul ryan in wall street journal they had this headline. Brian to seek ways and means chairman post. Its current chairman, dave camps tenure is up. Ryan wants to help the current chairman rewrite the tax code this year. Sn undertaking that present political hurdles. Charles excuse a, beverly, democratic caller. Caller good morning. I am very pleased with both our senators and our percent of. Our representative. Have you heard anything on the controversy have you heard anything on the concurrent receipt . For military retirees and for people Getting Compensation from the ca the va. Are they going to get both, is it going to be offset . Host under the budget deal . Headlines this morning say senators are vowing to times. The washington they say it was an error. Why do you ask . Caller i want them to keep it the way it is so they can get of. They can get both. My husband is retired military, he is 100 disabled. He is receiving compensation from the va. What we have heard is that they might stop one. You get one but not the other. Host ok. We will go to jamie, virginia, independent caller. Good morning. As far as i am concerned, i live in occupied territory and i am a tax slave. No one represents me. Host why . Low or no am pro taxes. I am antiwar but propeace for strength. No one who represents me takes those positions. Host ok. On the retirement of congressman matheson in utah, he posted this on his Facebook Page yesterday about his announcement. When i launched my First Campaign in 1999, i knew the art of my Public Service would have many the arc of my Public Service would have many chapters. I am announcing that i will not seek reelection to the house of representatives. Aesident obama put out statement saying jim matheson has represented the people of utah for more than 12 years. He has been a forceful advocate of our nations veterans and worked to strengthen our economy. Michele and i think congressman matheson and wish him the very best. That statement from the president about jim matheson and his decision not to run for reelection. Politico reporting this. Marks as departure blow for democrats who have little chance of defending the sea. Matheson cut a conservative profile, one of the most imperiled democratic incumbents. Red centralruby utah district that mitt romney one in 2012. One of the last members of the blue dog coalition, whose ranks have muzzled during obamas presidency. Frank wolf said he is not running as well in 2014. He put out a statement about that decision. Here. D, i will find that why dont i take a phone call. Looking for what frank wolf had to say. Doug, illinois, democratic caller. I would have to say that my representative and senator do reflect my views. My center is dick durbin my senator is dick durbin. Yourepresentative bill in the representative represents my views. He has maintained a low profile and has not introduced any. Egislation he is occupying the seat and not doing anything. Really andthat i disconcerted about the whole political atmosphere. True that democrats have grown more intolerant of the other side. It seems that more and more at they have gone to the extreme right. It is like they refuse to listen to anything of any common sense. They are antiscience, anti reason. Another comment about your posting of the budget deal as far as the Postal Service, i am retired from there. I do not agree with their representation of putting things in the Postal Service that is part of the budget. They are not paid by taxpayer dollars. I do not think people understand. Host frank wolfs statement on not seeking reelection. Jesus, i amer of called to be an advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves. I plan to focus on human rights and religious freedom. Indiana, independent caller. Caller hi. Well runors might as in North Carolina. I have not seen him since he ran for reelection here. We are getting a representative from his office in town here. It is going to be really limited on questions. People, the american they keep saying tighten our belt. Their belts, they have had to eat the ends of them. It is like a family if you do not have income coming in, you have to go out and find another way to bring income in. Along with cutting the budget. It has to be looked at both ways. The republican in indiana coates, he is not here. Host ok. Front page of the Washington Post, this headline. N of an essay followed. President Obama Meeting with several tech firms, including yahoo and ibm. Steering the conversation away from healthcare. Gov and talking about the nsa. Notng the public is trusting them as well as the men and they went to see something done. We will talk about the nsa Surveillance Program coming up next on the washington journal. Decisiont judges monday on the Data Collection. Later, thomas mann and Norman Ornstein. We will be right back. If you are a middle or high school student, cspan student wants to know the most important Issue Congress should address. Make a video for your chance to win the grand prize of 5,000. The deadline is january 20. More info at studentcam. Org. We bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you. Putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and congress is and conferences. Offering complete coverage of the u. S. House as a Public Service of private industry. Tvpan, created by the cable industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. You can watch us in hd. Washington journal continues. Back with James Andrew Lewis of the center for strategic and International Studies. Here to talk about the judges decision on monday, a District Court judge questioning the legality of nsas phone data records. What did he say . Guest he said it was a tremendous intrusion into privacy. It was unconstitutional that the collection of the metadata, greatbills, by nsa, was a risk to the Fourth Amendment and lot legal and not legal. Host what program by the nsa was he referring to . Guest they have a program essentially the phone bill of american citizens. Call, howt who you long the call lasted, where the call might have been. Possiblehem identify targets for counterterrorism or counterespionage. He objected to the fact that nsa, a foreign intelligence body, is collecting intelligence on american citizens. Host how . Guest it is your phone bill. You get a phone bill, nsa gets lots of copies of phone bills. Do they look at every bill . No. But if they find a number one of the most successful techniques has been to capture a cell phone in afghanistan or someplace and look at the numbers. Who has this guy been calling. If you find numbers in the u. S. , this database lets nsa go back and look. The other thing they can do, they can find patterns. This is an old technique going back to the 19th century. They used to do it with letters. Look for who is talking to who. Host this is the opinion section of usa today, nsa phone records sweep up grows harder to defend. Propose restraint and transparency but recommended metaData Collection continue. The nsa has yet to prove that it is necessary or effective. It must do both to justify such a massive interest in i intrusion. Guest i do think the Administration Needs to do a better job. Be mored to transparent. They would have helped if they had told people they were doing this from the start. People would have been more comfortable. The problem i have with that of israel the problem i have uses the editorial, it word convenience. The government is doing this to protect people. Host what evidence is that . Guest there have been some instances where the ability to put together information and use that to identify potential attack has been able to stop things and that the u. S. These aret 24, teams of people. About one dozen people from different agencies, nsa, cia, fbi, a few others. They put the evidence together. One of the pieces of evidence is collected from these phone systems. Host do the American People know about the successes . Guest know, that would be something you could be critical of. A problem with nsa, they are in intelligence agency. Until a few years ago, you could not say their name in public. There is a culture of secrecy. They do not like to tell you what they are doing. I asked a former director of nsa, why dont you just tell people . You could get congress to approve anything that would make america safer. He said we dont want to let our opponents know what were up to. It is a lonely for that. Him coming clean is the way to go. Host have you talked to general Keith Alexander who heads up the nsa . What does he say . Guest he thinks it is crucial for defending the u. S. He thinks if we had had this program before 9 11, 9 11 would not have happened. I think he is right. Host what gives him that confidence . Guest one of the problems we had before 9 11 was the difficulty of putting all the pieces together. There was evidence, cia, nsa, fbi had some. If we had looked at the whole picture, you would have seen the attacks coming. We were unable to track people down. We had a vague idea folks were in the u. S. There is not any other way to track people other than communications records. It has to be done under careful review and legal control. We do not really have an option for counterterrorism. Host the judge on monday decides Data Collection program violates privacy rights. What happens next . Guest pretty much nothing in terms of collection. Recognized that the risk to National Security was so great it would be to dangerous to stop the program. He said the government cant appeal this decision, whic he said the government can appeal this decision. Until that is completed, this will stay in place. Host Top Democrats reject court ruling. Pushing back tuesday against a judges decision, asking for higher courts to get involved. What sort of Legal Certainty are they looking for . Guest this is a debate we should have had a long time ago. We should have let people weigh in on the tradeoff between getting privacy and gaining security giving up privacy and getting security. I would prefer we did not have the debate in a court. It would be better to do it on the hill. You will see arguments over the pros and cons. That didnt congress have debate after september 11 attacks when it passed and continue to reauthorize the patriot act . With one of the problems this whole case is that the constitution does not forbid the collection of information. It forbids unreasonable searches. The people who decide whether or not the search is reasonable are the president and the congress. This search is ok. Under our laws, nsa is doing the right thing. People may not like it. Host what about the fisa court . Guest fisa court has gotten a bad rap. Ys, this is not a rubber stamp. More transparency would help. People say cases are rarely turned down by the fisa court. You have gone through so many lawyers by the time you get to fisa. Your own department lawyers, the justice lawyers, they will send the case back if it is not Strong Enough. They will ask for more information and insight. Host have you ever worked with the fisa courts . Guest indirectly, yes. Host can you explain . Guest i am in another country and i see an american and a funny place. A place where there are not a lot of people, a battlefield. You say i wonder what the american is up to gunrunning or drugs. You take a picture of him and you come back and say, hey, can somebody find out about this guy for me . That triggers 11 million protections. You have to go through multiple lawyers who say do you have reasonable grounds . You say, i just had a bad feeling. A that feeling does not cut it. You need a good strong case to go to pfizer. Goio to fisa. Talking to John Andrew Lewis of csis, formerly a Foreign Service officer. Talking about the judges decision monday saying that the phone record Data Collection over by the nsa violates party rights. Getting your thoughts, our first phone call. Ependentcisco, ind caller. Caller my name is sadat. In 2009, my phone was tapped. I was going through a family dispute. They bring this information to court. When i discovered my phone was tapped, they try to remove this evidence from my files. Nine ame time, the they denied me the right to have an attorney or a speedy trial. I was not present in court. You do not want the they denied m they do not want the jury to know the story. They said bring him back to San Francisco county jail. They bring me back to San Francisco county jail and injected my food with poison. I filed a federal lawsuit. The state of california claimed immunity under the 11th amendment under the constitution. They say that california, with their sovereignty to the constitution what law gives those gentlemen immunity after they violate our constitutional right and put us in custody for no reason . This is a clear corruption. This type of corruption will leave the whole country to civil war. Say, if you think my first and last name, sadat mousa, watch the video on you to. Host we will leave it there. Guest one of the things people all the law is that enforcement agencies in the u. S. Have the ability to go to a judge and ask for permission to wiretap. You can buy your own personal device to do it, although it is illegal under the safe streets act of 1968. Wiretapping is not just nsa. Police, whichcal it sounds like it was in your case or it if they follow the law, they could argue they have done everything right. Wiretapping has been a cornerstone of Law Enforcement since the invention of the telephone telephone. Host if they were doing their job as designed, why couldnt they stop the boston murders . A coordination problem. Us had been more positives in september 11. Interagency cooperation has gotten better, but there is still some gaps and that was one of them. Host what you make of the headlines of these Tech Company Ceos meeting with the president yesterday and pressing him on spying, saying the public does not trust us, and demanding they have more control over the backbone . People are trying to manipulate the press and Public Opinion by releasing things that damage the u. S. Government and damage u. S. Companies. There are people trying to take commercial advantage of this and companies are hurting. This is something the president needs to Pay Attention to. You need to rebuild trust. The companies were not participants in some nsa effort. They were not helping out in the way you might think from the press, but it is being spun to make them look bad, but the u. S. Needs to build trust in those companies, saying they were not willing participants. Of the over the backbone internet is probably wrong because it is controlled by the private sector. If the Companies Want the u. S. To say we are going to stop spying, that is not going to happen. Everybody collects intelligence. Welcome to the world. Host gary. Hanover, maryland, the public and caller. Guest i want to put forward the constitutionhe protects search and seizure. Not just search. An individual or a group of individuals is expressly called out with regional reasonable suspicion the judge says this is valid. To collect someone everyones metadata case at some point i will need this, i think it is grounds for concern. In this case, i think the judge was right. Guest i agree that that is the thing we have to talk about. Costhave a threshold sonable, particularly articulated suspicion. Collect tens of thousands of records, but they will only look at a few thousand. That is a good question. Should they be doing this . I can make a Public Safety case, and others could make a privacy case. Host from twitter, many do not like the patriot act, it needs to be amended, but until the efforts are constitutional, there are efforts by the original authors of the patriot including Patrick Leahy from vermont. What you think their bill would do to this judges decision . Guest the first thing i would say is the nsa program is legal and constitutional. There is a challenge in court. I am willing to take a bet at the end of the day the program will stand. Frustratedtration is because they fear they did everything right, with congressmen and everybody saying yes, this was ok. You can see why they are annoyed. That said, the patriot act, the Homeland Security act, the terrorismd prevention act, we passed a number of bills in the heat of the moment after 9 11 that deserve a second look. Parts of the patriot act, they were around for a long time. I first saw some of the drafts in the 1990s. You have to keep the ability to keep up with technology because the Technology Changes and you do not change laws, you suffer in enforcement. Host is that what happened with 9 11, we fell behind on technology . Guest it is not what happened with 9 11, but it was an impetus to bring our technology up to date. The solutions that has been developed since 9 11 includes the metaData Collection. We built a car that keeps us safe. It is time to have a debate. Maybe he needs to be fixed, but lets not pretend there is no risk if we just get better that. Get rid of it. Says james, you claim it we would have been safer, how can you be sure . Guest i still have a security clearance. It is irritating that the administration does not make case strong defense. There will be cases where they have stopped something in the relationship might not seem straightforward, but if you look at all of the pieces, this was part of it. Does that mean it is irreplaceable . No, but we have to think about these programs. Host did Edward Snowden do damage, and if so, how much . Guest he has done a lot of damage. So far, the damage to the ability to collect is relatively small. Of otherhe ability countries to build technologies that will keep nsa from collecting on them and i must say, it is not just nsa it is any number of european countries, middle Eastern Countries a lot of people do this. Now that everyone knows about this, the damage has been more political to the standing of the u. S. , and there has been some commercial damage. Host how much more damage could Edward Snowden do, how many more documents does he have . Guest apparently has millions more. I am getting bored with him. Collects on nsa everybody all the time. Got it. I wonder if the trajectory was not be like wikileaks where you have a lot of attention, and then tapers off. That is not to say we should not have a debate. We need to have a debate over the legality of these things. Makingdward snowden headlines as he wrote an open letter to brazils government seeking asylum. In the Washington Post, he says the spy culture is tweeted fromd this reuters, brazil will not grant asylum. Mildred. Morning. Ood i want to say thank you to your guest. The American People have to start thinking. If the government was collecting everybodys data, what are you seeing as so critical . We have to look at the composition of the American Public right now. We have so many foreigners that are now american, and they naturally talk to their relatives overseas and all. We do not know who is good, who is bad, who has had a change of heart since they came over to america. We are worried about the public data you know, the government collecting for Public Safety. I would rather be safe than bombed. Look at the boston situation and what happened there. I will say that we should be concerned about the privacy issues of private businesses that are collecting data on you, and selling it out. No kind ofhave privacy, if you think about it, but we, as americans, are not thinking with our heads. Saying that is so critical that you do not want anyone else to hear . Are you building a bomb . Then i want the government to tap your phone. Host mr. Lewis . Guest those are great points. I happen to agree with everything he said. I started using the internet about 20 years ago, and when i think about how much privacy i had then, it has been a downward slope. Have much less than we had in the past. Maybe that needs to change. I think that is the question before the American People. Privacy, have complete but you will be giving up something on the security side, and that is the debate we need to have. I think the majority of americans are ok with this program because it is nonintrusive and it does protect them. Csa, radical tweets the the nsa have hurt the u. S. s credibility. Another one, convince me that privacy of the u. S. Is more important than the privacy of the people that provide its substance. Blame edwardot snowden. He was probably a little naive. Brazilld have gone to first of all. Beachesre much nicer than in russia. One of the debates is should we other countries do. Everyone knows china is just as active in spying. Do you inflame things by letting it out that we are not the only ones . There is no question that there has been immense harm. The second question is the one we want to think about. There is not a human being sitting there reading your e mail. That is silly. It goes through a series of computer programs that use specialized algorithms to look for patterns that indicate you might be of interest, and that takes one billion emails and boils it down to 10,000. If that is just your normal stuff, nobody is going to read it. If it looks like it is connected to terrorism, if there is a reasonable suspicion, somebody might look at it. That is the debate we need to have. Host this is the headline in the New York Times. You said there is internal debate to tell the public what other countries are doing. The germany top the list . Guest i met with others and i said do you know what germany does, and they did not. Countries engage in to indications monitoring. While the germans have strict control and allowing them to take their concerns seriously, one of the inside jokes is nobody has ever met a german official that turned down to indications surveilled communication surveillance from the u. S. Host david. Republican caller. Caller i would like to make a comment and then ask a question. I do not care what other countries do. We have the Fourth Amendment. Passed, patriot act was tolde were told they were on somebody in the United States, somebody overseas, and all of a sudden that could change to spying on everyone in america. If they had changed the law, i would have paid attention, and we wouldve had that debate. These answer that question. Guest first, the this kindon supports of Law Enforcement. You could make the case this is constitutional. The second one is more difficult, and that is the issue we have to talk about. The patriot act has been interpreted as allowing this mass collection, and that is the administrations position, probably the position of the administration before them, and it is one that people do not agree with ted it is one of the fights you will see agree with. It is one of the fights you will see in court. Host gene in ohio on twitter the nsa do its business without big business contractors higher public workers, not contractors. I want big business out of my dog says why do we have nongovernment officials working in the nsa . Guest that is probably something that is regrettable. The Current Administration is trying to reduce the number of contractors. A surge tothere was build capability, and the easiest way to do that was to hire outside firms. It is a revolving door in washington. You have people that do 20 years in the service, then go out and work for a contractor and they do their same job. They are all loyal, all professional, but they had a surge of hiring after 9 11 that brought in people like Edward Snowden and theres probably regret about that. Host why do you still have top security clearance . Guest i got it a long time ago, 1983. I still do a little work. It is a good question. I do not see information the way Edward Snowden did. Position. A unique i can consult on things relating to network security, but i do not do it very often. I do it maybe once a quarter. There are a lot of people like me still in washington, who still have the clearances that help out when asked. I am not on a contract i guess i am on a contract, but it does not pay until i do something. Host you can retain your servants even if you are not in government . Your clearance even if you are not in government . Many outside of the government have clearance. It is the wrong question. Why is so much and for mission classified information classified . You have to be more revealing, and the immunity is having a hard time justifying that. Maybe half of what we keep secret should not be kept secret. Host how does your security institutebenefit the the center for strategic and International Studies . Guest it does not. Host this is something you do outside of your fellowship. Host guest absolutely. Know,everly wants to collecting debt is not the same thing as spying on americans, you must change these words. Guest people do not make the distinction often enough. Collecting and reading are different. One way to think about it is you might have one million programs, or 100,000 programs running on your computer, but you will only look at a few of them. Nsa might collect millions of records, they will only look at a few. Collection is not espionage in the way people think about it. Most of the records are never looked at by anyone. Host gene. Hillsboro, New Hampshire. Independent caller. Caller i want to make two comments. Clearance as top secret is really only like a it isol diploma certainly not the end of the classifications that you have. I work in both the private and the intel community, and i know that you have to be vetted by the specific office doors that you are walking into, or you cannot get in. That is my experience. The second thing concerns human nature. I know in working with the intel community, and the private community, for that matter, if you and your boss disagree on what you should do, and that includes doing things that are pfizer laws, such as laws or other laws, the boss is going to win, or else he is going to coerce you into changing your attitude about what you should deliver to him in the way of intelligence. That is essentially what i want to say. Thank you. Host ok, jean. All right. Right. That is exactly you can tell he knows what he is talking about because topsecret is a general category. That comesslash after that that lets you into different programs, and there might be another that lets you into specific activities. I do not have them. You are right. Without the tickets, you will not be seeing things. The problem with Edward Snowden is as a systems administrator, he had a lot of tickets, so he was able to see and collect a lot of them from material. This says it is a direct violation of the constitution. Al. See good morning. General Keith Alexander is that caller . Good morning. General Keith Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist locked foiled by the plots foiled by the nsas huge database was only one or, perhaps two, far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration. That was my clarification. I have a question. Had an invention that was worth billions of dollars that you were developing, would you it on any u. S. N orhnology companys Hardware Software for fear that it almost certainly will be stolen . Guest first of all, on the number of attacks stopped is only do you want to stop. Ones not one for correlations. Stopping 9 11 wouldve been worthwhile. On the commercial side is the u. S. Has says we do not do commercial espionage. The people that steal the blueprints, that will largely be the chinese. Using American Equipment will not be a problem. Linking up to a foreign network, you face that risk. It is a real concern. American technology is better than most the stuff you can get overseas and probably safer. Able do not like to say that, but one of the things we have going on, the high and intelligence agencies, if they are determined, they will get in, but the thing to make yourself safest might be using the google or microsoft prop products. They been doing this for a long time. Host the president put together a task force, five people, to review this program. I want to show the viewers who sits on the task what do you make of this list, and what have you heard about what they are going to recommend . Two of them are friends of mine, so that makes it hard to be critical, doesnt it . It is a strong team. I have heard there has been internal conflict over what to say and how much to recommend. I have seen they are going to have 40 recommendations. What that tells you is some of them will be good, and some of them will not be as good. We will just have to wait and see. The one that has bothered me the most is the idea of putting a panel of lawyers on the fisa court, and maybe this is just the way it was characterized a panel of lawyers to represent the people im sorry, i thought the government represented people. Adding more lawyers does not make it better. Is also the recommendation that you take away Cyber Command from whoever heads nsa, and nsa be a civilian. What you think of that . Guest it has been military since its founding, and there is no reason why that should not continue. The nsa makes an Important Role in supporting the military, but if it makes people uncomfortable, it is easily something you could do. Splitting Cyber Command within nsa is probably something you need to knew at the end of the day, but the dilemma is Cyber Command still depends on nsa capabilities to carry out its mission, and until they build their own, organic capabilities, you can not just pull nsa out. They are on the path. One year from now, and it might you do it in a way that does not leave Cyber Command limping. Host ralph. Democratic caller. Fears aree of our exactly what happened with Edward Snowden a High School Graduate would get information and College Graduates Technical Companies created. At same people that hired him were the same people that did background checks on truck drivers. He did a lot of damage with only a high school education. The nsa is keeping us safe, but i do not want them to violate the rights of american citizens. Edward snowden is portrayed as a hero with the tea party republicans, but to me, he is a traitor. Host mr. Lewis . Guest a couple of issues the clearance process, we are using a process that has been around for decades. Maybe he needs to be updated. Your Credit Card Company probably does a better job of a background check on you and the process,clearance probably because of privacy laws. We have to think about how to modernize that. Edward snowden some people think is a hero, some people think he is a traitor. There is no doubt he violated the law. He is not a hero to me. He did violate the law. It is alleged that he violated the law, and if he goes to court, i have a good idea they would convict him. James andrew the centerfellow for for international justice. You are for the government in which agencies . Guest the Commerce Department and the state department with dick clark. Host that was one of your friends in the list. The other . Swire. Peter this is a good panel. Host when you think they will make an announcement . Guest it has gone to the president. The issue is when you roll it out. We know if you do not like something, you roll it out christmas eve. We will see when it comes out. Host on september 11 news, it is reported that is in the wall street journal does quote this morning. Jay. Ohio. Independent caller. You feelingject to that 1983 was a long time ago. [laughter] my real question is when we go to the grocery store, we use our discount cards, our bank cards, credit cards, at that point we have given a tremendous amount of information to a private impany, but on the surface, am asking the question, what are you doing with that information, and now we are beginning to find out more methodologies that they are using and how some companies are selling it. Thebig question is, what u. S. Government, i am not opposed to the collection of the data. It makes a lot of sense. I question or my concern is what is going to happen you have a whole warehouse of information sitting there, and i know computer programmers i used else can gee, what we do with this information . It becomes a slippery slope, and that is the concern, how will this information eventually be used maybe to the advantage of one, and to the disadvantage of others, so on and so forth. Any comments on that . Guest that is a great point. , to give you an example, i used a credit card in another country, and to see that was me, they asked me what street did you live on when you are in graduate school in 1983 . I barely remember that, how do you remember that . The issue is it is a trade. People might be willing to give up information in order to get something back. Od where notions about privacy are changing. It affects the nsa debate, collection. When you look at companies that are doing what they call data mining, or big data, you can do Amazing Things by pulling together all of these disparate pieces. What companies can do for commercial purposes is actually what the greater than what the government can do for security purposes. That is hard to believe, but nsa does not have the same kind of access that a good Credit Card Company might have. Host the Washington Times has this headline a lawsuit about against the mass Surveillance Program. This is what they write. t the first time in court it isnt his first time in court. Lewis, thank you for talking to our viewers. If you want to follow our guest, you can do so on twitter, and we appreciate your time. Guest thank you. We willming up next, talk to thomas mann and Norman Ornstein about the 113th congress and its agenda for next year, but first an update from cspan radio. China says military relations with the United States face a rosy outlook. Apparent attempt to contain damage between from a recent competition between the countries navies in the south china sea. The sides discussed the incident through normal channels and carried out effective communications. In its First Official comment, details,try offered no except to say the chinese amphibious ship involved had been conducting a regular patrol. The u. S. Pacific fleet says the cruiser maneuvered to avoid a collision while operating in international waters. Turning to syria, a British Foreign official is accusing the government of president Bashar Alassad of effectively murdering a u. K. Dr. Held in syrias custody. Said there is no excuse for syrian authorities who have in effect murdered a British National who was in the country to help people injured during the silver war civil war. In surgeon was seized november of last year after he entered the country on a humanitarian mission. There is a new Associated Press poll showing president obamas latest Approval Ratings on Foreign Policy are better and his ratings for most domestic issues, but overall it is still only 49 . The polls suggest the majority of americans want the president to pull out troops from afghanistan faster than he is approve of the deal to curb it ran Irans Nuclear ambitions, but many expressed doubt it will lead to results. Those are the latest headlines on cspan radio. This was a deliberate move on the part of the government to simply and with a controversy. That was always the perspective of the new sheriff government of the government. Out to the one who stood say hello to the crowd. She should not have. She was responsible that is. He idea she should have been protected. There was no protection. They said there was policeman that would accompany her into the political rally. We saw videos, pictures, we witnesses, and everyone that we interviewed saw no box formation, no elite force Police Protection and that was the duty of the government. Former u. N. Assistant secretarygeneral Heraldo Munoz on the International Inquiry he led into the assassination of former pakistani Prime Minister benazir bhutto. Coming in january, in depth with mark levin. He will take your calls. Online, we want to know what your favorite books are through 2013. Go to booktv. Org and click on book club to enter the chat room. Washington journal continues. Host we want to welcome back to the table thomas mann, who is the coauthor of its even worse than it looks, along with his coauthor, Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at American Enterprise institute. Thomas mann is with the brookings institution. We are halfway through the hundred and 13th congress, and they have not passed a lot of legislation, but it looks like they will have a twoyear budget deal on the table. Thomas mann, what do you think . Guest we should give thanks that in almost the final act of this congress, they followed our advice first, do no more harm. It has been a quite destructive year in congress. At the end, they agreed to disagree on the big differences to not the parties threaten another showdown, and to reach an agreement that replaces the good part of the sequester over the next two years and pays for it over time. It makes more economic sense, and it certainly made a lot of clinical sense, which stand political sense, which stands in great contrast to what the whole year has been about. Guest i agree it is a good thing. It is a small deal, of course, and it leaves us with a lot of dilemmas, and we have to keep in mind they will not do one dozen Appropriations Bills based on this budget, and even though a twoificant share, roughly thirds of the sequester cuts, which in the second round would be destructive in areas of food safety, medical research, diplomacy, border security, there are still cuts that remain and it will be difficult to come up with. It is nice to end the year on an of note. Upbeat note. However, anyone who thinks this is breaking the ice, went in the boil, and back to bipartisan cooperation is living in a place where they have a lot of medical marijuana. Host thomas mann, do you agree . Guest yes, it is going to be a difficult year, but i want to point out another positive thing before we get too depressed, which is Speaker John Boehner has finally opened the battle within his own political party. Most of our dysfunctional politics in recent years has been a consequence of the Republican Party just becoming a radical party in both policy and process. The socalled establishment has muchch followed pretty followed the lead of the extremists and the tea party and become much like them. Finally, we are beginning to see signs in washington, and maybe in some primary elections of politicians that believe in compromise, albeit with clear differences among them, who can actually come together and get something done. Host are you sure about that, given what the minority leader in the senate said yesterday the republican of kentucky, who is up for reelection in 2014, he said not so fast on the debt ceiling. Here is the headline in usa today. Guest i would have noted that before that paul ryan, who led the way in creating this deal, crafting it with patty murray from washington, afterwards also said we are now starting to discuss what demands we will have for raising the debt ceiling, not lets let this happen. It appears one of them will be approval of the keystone pipeline, but i suspect we will see a laundry list. That is a depressing part that follows what thomas mann was saying. Vocalhn boehner was very twice about heritage groups and others, the pattern is if you take on these outside groups and some members of your own caucus inside, you follow that with a jester that is warm toward them, and that might be the debt ceiling. That mitchw mcconnell and john cornyn, the Republican Senate leaders, they face primaries. Is not if john cornyns as serious, and that ted cruz trounced the most serious contender in his state, he is nervous. Is not likely to be something we will see from the leadership. Two of you recently o magazineolitic destruction strong words. Guest they are strong words, but they are justified. The three together have done more harm to the economy than anything else i can think of or imagine. People talk about spending too much. The problem is the world and the Business Community looks on washington and congress and sees nothing but uncertainty and dysfunction. If the debt ceiling threat now what we likely see in the economy what light we see in the economy could be snatched away from us. The president has not reacted yet. He is waiting for the senate to pass the budget deal. I think we need strong, no negotiations over the debt ceiling statements from him. It would be insanity to put us back into that situation. Host before we get into our first phone call, Norman Ornstein, would you say to people that say gridlock is a good thing, that is the way founders wanted it . Guest our founders did not want us to flounder in the face of challenges home and abroad. They wanted to make it difficult, but not impossible that he wanted to set up a system where you would encourage debate and deliberation, and ultimately broad, leadership consensus. The problem we have that we identify as a central part of our book is we have parties, especially the Republican Party, but both, that are behaving as elementary parties. Arliamentary parties in our political system, it does not work. Gridlock of this sort, what we are not dealing with the part problems of a sluggish economy, high unemployment, substantial poverty and greed inequality, challenges abroad and great inequality, challenges abroad, infrastructure needs at home that is not the way it is supposed to work. The fact that we have so few bills, and so few of any consequence really underscores that. Host we are talking to the two coauthors of this book its even worse than it looks how the american constitutional system collided with the new politics of extremism. Thomas mann in normandy on Norman Ornstein are our guests. Mike. You are up first. Caller i have a quiz that will test the commitment of the scholars to the terrible unemployment problem. Year timestwo two where we had a dramatic increase in the number of jobs. In one case, an incoming president faced 11. 7 had aoyment rate, and fundamental change in policy, and within two years, the to 2. 4 . Ent rate sank in another case, about 10 million new jobs were created within about two or three years. That p scholars identify eriod and what lessons can be learned, and if you cannot, what does that say to your commitment about unemployment . [laughter] thet i do not know particular ones you are talking about, but i would be wary about about thegments particular policies adopted being responsible for the increase in number of jobs and the decline in unemployment. There is something called a business cycle, and we have recessions and recoveries. Came afterng these recessions, so one of them would probably be the reagan years. The first two years were tough on the economy, but after that, it began to grow, and we produced, actually, a lot of jobs. Host Norman Ornstein . Guest i think tom is spot on. Looking at cause and effect in the immediate aftermath of jobs changing, it is usually a tricky business. We get changes, far more because of Larger Forces in the economy. We need to do more things now. One of the great tragedies is we have not done and Infrastructure Program that would help us along. It is interesting paul london, an economist, had a piece recently in the Washington Post, about how this is really hurting bluecollar men, electricians, plumbers, construction workers, who have been sitting on the sidelines and have some skills. We could do a lot with government policy, but i do not look for cause and effect in short times. Host since we are going down history lane, let me show some statistics about this Congress Congressional Approval Ratings in 2013. You can see where gallup puts them from december. The New York Times also noting 54s congress has passed bills. We are halfway through. How does this compare . Guest there was not a lot of heavy lifting in this first session of the 113th congress. If you add to that, the list of issues that needed tending, and how many of those were dealt an even more devastating indicator of the lack of productivity of this congress. You are right. If some of the bills are just symbolic, and we do not want to make too much of that, but the reality is the serious steps that Congress Took this year were, for the most part, kind of harmful. It was the absence of action, doingg the shutdown something about the immediate problems that are most noteworthy about this congress, but the numbers, all in all, reflect a really bad year. Guest the numbers alone do not give you the picture. Quality matters as much as quantity. 30ave done this book for plus years now all the Vital Statistics on congress, and it is on the brookings website. You can look at the decline in the number of bills passed, if you look at bills in the 1940s, they50, and in 1960s were tiny ones, but if you look at quality ones, the Marshall Plan. If you can do a Marshall Plan nothing else, you are at historic congress. This budget deal comes the closest to the Marshall Plan, and it is like a take me compared to a take me comparedto a pigmy to a giant. John boehner said do not judge but bye past, by those repealed, and that is zero. Me after voting more than 40 times to repeal obamacare, the strategy we see anythingnot do much of and watch obamacare fail on its own. That is not a good strategy for grappling with these problems. On the jobs front, the fact that we have not done anything to extend Unemployment Insurance when we have people that cannot find jobs here, in the district, we open two walmarts recently. 25,000 people showed up for 200 jobs. It is not like people are sitting back saying 300 a week, i could live high on that and not have to look for a job. Host efforts are being made in d. C. To raise the minimum wage as walmart opens up its doors. , historically, congress has managed to get important things done during divided party government, when the parties differ between the congress, one or both houses, and the presidency, but that no longer works. The extreme partisan polarization, and the vehement oppositional stance of the Republican Party together have ensured that if the public produces in the election a divided party government, they are voting for gridlock and in action, and they ought to be aware of that. Did agallup also recently poll on honesty and ethics in different professions, and congress rated only above lobbyists in this poll. Below car salespeople, state officeholders, lawyers, and television reporters. Constitutions in provided for the minority but did not anticipate an abusive prerogatives or the minority rule why reid had a reform filibuster. Norman ornstein . Guest if you look at the history of the filibuster, it did not exist in the beginning. It can about by a neck senate. The rules changed in 1805. It was it came about by accident. The rules changed in 1805. It was used rarely. There was a handful of issues and the system created a nice balance. Haslast 10, 15 years changed, and it has been ramped up significantly in the last five. I can tell you that harry reid did not want to change the rules in the middle of the stream. He is a veteran, and they have worked it out before, but this time, when you saw an agreement at the beginning of the congress, a very modest change in the rules that both parties agreed to, but in return, the minority made it clear they would filibuster executive nominations and judicial nominations, only under what we call extraordinary circumstances individuals that were outside of the mainstream or had other problems, and then we saw that breached along the way. The last time we had this threat in 20052006, when the republicans took umbrage and democratic filibusters, and the filibusters at that point of judges were pretty much unprecedented, and we had 14 senators, seven from each party, get together to avert that had this time, seven democrats that. Its time, seven democrats were compromise, and effectively two republicans. We do not know what the consequences will be. At this point, it is mostly just delays, but it reflects what istter suggests it pushing the powers to the next to provoke a reaction. Host senator Mitch Mcconnell yesterday in his News Conference that Senate Majority leader harry reid is driving the senate into the ground. St talk about hyperbole if there was to be one man, and there is not this is a party effort it would be Mitch Mcconnell who turned a norm said, which, as was used under rare circumstances, they gradually became more a part of the system ,n the 1980s and the 1990s but Mitch Mcconnell candidate to a point of extreme opposition to Everything Everything had to pass a 60vote hurdle. That cannot the sustained. The filibuster works only if there is enormous restraint from most who would use it. Mitch mcconnell led the battle to show no restraint. Much reid finally was, as taking the action himself, pushed by his own members, including veteran Democratic Senators who never wanted to change the filibuster rule, to take this step. I think it was the correct one. Host william in pennsylvania. Independent color. Caller caller. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller thank you for cspan. Mr. Thomas mann, i would like to know why you call the tea party extremists. Give me some examples of how the tea party is extreme, and i would like to rebut. The tea party has been extreme in its policy prescriptions in its characterizations of voters on the other side of the aisle, in saying who is a real american, and who is not. One of the arguments that the tea party has been making is direct andd spending, thatin that is the only way reining in government that we can get the economy running, is simply knowledge oronomic evidence behind that. It is preposterous. It would save whenever we have a recession, government should sit back and let it play out on its own. The People Living at the time of the Franklin Roosevelt recession would not have thought much of that argument. It is partly cultural. It is the demonizing of others would defend views and a belief differentse views, and he believed that compromise is not the basic premises of american politics. Host before we go back to william, the two of you wrote in your book, its even worse than it looks, william . C yes. He mentioned caller yes. He mentioned Franklin Roosevelt. Franklin roosevelt did not get us out of the recession. We did not get out of that until after the Second World War, actually. When the United States was a power that made things instead of a Service Economy and we started exporting all of these jobs overseas, that is one people, when the middleclass attitude is all of. Host ok. Guest let me just if you and thek at the 1930s 1940,s what roosevelt did was stabilize the economy and cap recession from spiraling out of control. He took the advice of his treasury secretary and put the brakes on prematurely. It sent us back toward a recession, and william is right, then the Second World War pulled us out of it, but it is that set of politics policies. Said, to add to what tom i think it is a mistake to refer to the tea party as some group of people that march in lockstep. You have a movement. The extreme parts are the tactical once policy extremes the notion that you blow up government, not that you just won a leaner and meaner government, but that all government is destructive, using the threat of default, and a pretty good representative of the movement said, that would be good markets would love it if we default. Shutting down the government, the consequences of which were destructive, or eagerly supporting cos everyone else would view as mindless and destructive to food safety, border security, and defense it is those kinds of moves. It is too easy to characterize this as a tea party, as if it were an organized effort. Twitter says baby boomers are incapable of governing. It is the boom generation that has caused this mess without providing any solutions to our troubles. On. T , you are going to demonize a whole generation . A little too easy in explanation. Our problems are tough. Every other country around the world, most democracies are facing a tough time coming out of this extraordinary financial it is tough. The governing is tough. The problems are difficult. We are struggling here. We cannot lay met on a single individual or generation. [indiscernible] robert on twitter wants to know if you think there will be a Government Shutdown guest leaders tend not to be followers of their own masses. We have averted it with the budget deal, a complete shutdown. But when we started the program, i mentioned we still have a dozen appropriations else to do. Bemay well be there will serious cutbacks that the house and senate cannot agree on those and we may see partial shutdowns. Host on that note, the note on appropriations, the headline in the Washington Times. , houston, texas. Republican caller. Caller good morning. The twoould like to ask gentlemen, what impact are the Illegal Immigrants having on the economy, and what impact are they have as far as paying taxes . I live in a red state. I am proud to be in a republican. I live in a county that offers amnesty. We have over 6 million legal residence in the county. Probably half that number of illegals. Taxes when they buy products and food merchandise, things like that where they are not paying anything towards income tax taking jobs away from legal residents. A good question. The answer depends on what unit of government you are talking about. If you are talking about the whole country on the it turns out the Research Suggests that the illegal or undocumented netgrants have beena an a plus to the economy because of the Work Activity and the taxes, the various kinds that they have paid. Areas, some counties have special burdens. The educational systems and safety net systems that have made that more problematic. Theink in general conclusion of the experts working in the area is that if normalized,ecome legalized, that the present here a loan would prove to be quite positive for the economy. Allen, next. Rochester, michigan. Independent scholar. Up talki would like to to the last gentleman about manufacturing and the loss of jobs. I look at this congress and the twoparty system. None of them really bring manufacturing to the picture. All they talk about his service jobs. It will never clear the middle class we had in the late 1950s and 1960s, you know . I can see that you talk about the congress always fighting against each other, but neither reallys doing what will help the middle class in america. Any fracturingg back to the shores of the United States, i do not see any way we could continue on the path we are. Ideologylk about is and fighting, but to give up the Industrial Base to china, mexico and other countries is a sin as far as i am concerned. Few points to make. We have seen manufacturing resurgence as the economy has picked up. One major part of it was the bailout of the automobile industry, which has now stabilized and doing extraordinarily well. Time, the fact is, in a Global Economy with robotics, with the way in which technology is moving, with the ees of moving jobs to other places with lower wage basis, it will be very hard to do much more than we have been doing. , andn do a little bit more the fact is if you have centers where you have education, easy transportation on the skilled workers come the firms can have incentives to keep the manufacturing jobs here instead of moving places to have that have low were wages, but in the future, that is a major challenge. By the way tweets in i want to get your thoughts on the headlines out of the house yesterday, three lawmakers going to be retiring, longtime members of the house. Moderatese two retiring. The headlines, complicate the outlook. , and jimm from iowa matheson from utah and frank wolf from virginia. Matheson represents a red state and the district he barely held onto in 2012. It is a tough go for him. Frankly, given life in the minority in the house, not very rewarding. I think lay from and them is sick of the Republican Party in looking for something else. It is a combination of things. Seriousally a very legislature. He cares deeply about human rights issues. He has managed to ward off challengers and what is clearly a marginal district in northern virginia. I think he could have one. I think he is uncomfortable partyn with what his is about. He has artie served 17 terms. He has already served 17 tersm. Ms. Guest i think what we see is those members of congress who want to change things are very unhappy with what they see. It is toxic and dysfunctional. You have to, especially if you are in a competitive district. The idea that you spend all of your spare time raising money, called time, that you have a Vicious Campaign and for what . To come back and see nothing happened. I guess is these are not the last retirements we will see. The two republican seats, will be highly competitive. I would say there is a 90 chance that jim matheson secos republican. Republican. Ons i think it is possible we will see the first africanamerican woman in congress in 2014. Host she is running for that seat again. Has already announced. There she is on the screen. Could be the first African American female republican in congress. I wanted to show viewers about the competitive race in iowa. Obama one 51 won 51 in 2012. That gives you an idea of the competitiveness. Democratic collar up next. Caller up next. Caller hello, everybody. Best of the holiday season. This, themention issue on everyones lips in new haven and in the state of connecticut, and in nashville where i have family and friends is the price of milk. Milk in nashville is now going. Ast four dollars a gallon of the house,ker mr. John boehner, and the house that are currently on christmas recess. This is a scandal. It is a national scandal. These people should be at work. Figuring out the farmville. , mr. Weinerand it, never presented the mr. Boehner never presented the farm bill. They have so much work that has to be done. Recess. Ople go home on i do not know how many recesses they have had throughout the year. Probably, for me and my friends with and a yield community, the biggest scandal that could, on the horizon. The farm bill has been under consideration for more than three years now within with an ability to make it work. Kicked it forward a month into january. The law says we revert back to the 1949 farm bill. That is a major impetus for reaching a deal. This conference could reach a deal, and maybe a bill that will not pass the house. There will be democrats that believe the cuts in the food grosgrain, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are just too deep. Especially given we have artie cut 5 billion into serious problem of hunger in america. If you go to any food bank and ask the people who work there, they will tell you we have lots of people waiting in line for food who used to contribute to them. The republicans in the house have demanded 40 billion in cuts and will have a lot of conservatives who will not vote for any plan that has less than 40 billion in cuts. I wrote a column a couple of weeks ago in which i said the farm bill was the poster function poster child for dysfunction and i think that is still the case. Host what do you think the impact is of paul ryan eyeing up the ways and means post as chairman. He wants to go there next when dave camp, his tenure is up. Guest i think it is a good sign. Most republicans who have ambitions and really ability think about getting into the president ial sweepstakes. He has been encouraged to do so. I think his experience running as Vice President , and now the work on the was it budget compromise has led him to think his future is probably in congressional politics. He has have to hope that the capacity to engage in real negotiations and compromise, but he also has very strong views and ideologically defining that can make and not inclined to do that. I think it is a good sign that a serious member of congress with ambitions is eyeing that seat. Guest ryan is a major figure in his party in the house. If you look at the budget deal that was work out that caught broad support among republicans in the house, and you think, what if that same deal was negotiated with john boehner and harry reid, would it have gotten 200 republicans . I suspect not. It made a real difference. He has many options. He could run for president , and there are a lot of people pushing him to do that. He is a potential speaker of the house. There will be a lot of turmoil in the ranks. I think the current leadership may not be top contenders, or he could do something that he would much prefer, which is to focus on policy. The real question is what happens to tax reform . Dave camp and max baucus is retiring at the end of the congress have been working to briskly to work on the tax reform plan. The problem is if you do a tax reform plan that is revenue neutral, you will not get a lot of democratic support for it. The idea was to do a grand bargain with tax reform as a way and to get revenue in return. You have to be a little skeptical. Kathryn of next. Republican collar. Caller. Caller congress has passed a bunch of pills in the senate says no. Why doesnt she talked to the president , because all he does is get on the airplane and go everywhere else, except the job he is supposed to be doing. Also, people like these two men are the ones making our country to be fighting with each other instead of saying lets compromise, talk. What they are doing is making the people fighting all the time. Host thomas mann. Caller i wish what you said was true, that republicans are pushing the members of congress to compromise but what is really happening is just the opposite. Has been put forward are symbolic issues, certain to be vetoedt in the senate or by the president. There has not been a willingness to compromise. Democrats gained control of the house, when george bush was resident in 2006 election, nancy agenda of forward an items that she knew would garner the support of president bush. She wanted to legislate, not to simply engage in symbolic politics is. Symbolic politics. A good number of the lost past became law. Because they could attract get support in the senate and the been house, that has not the posture of todays Republican Party. I wish it were different. History oflong republican engagement in the policymaking process. What does that mean for 2014 and healthcare. Gov . Are no angels here. It is not as if we have one party that wants to Work Together and another does not. It is really a change in the past few years. Many of thenow is bills that passed the house that have gone nowhere are simply to repeal obamacare. 40 of those we have seen, which is not an attempt to compromise or find a way to improve the program. Right now, that is still plan a and plan b on the to keep the focus on obamacare and watch it fail. Fail, i do not know what becomes plan b or c. We had fire and york right of peace to say byron york say i do not know what will happen if it does not fail because republicans do not have an alternative. If they are criticizing the parts of the plan not working, democrats say lets fix those, are they going to say we will join with you to fix those or say no on the lets keep the screws on and let these people that will be a major element for next year. We are not likely to know. It will be a mixed excerpt. If we look at the history of health care that rolled out in massachusetts, Medicare Part d, look at what is happening with websitee. Gov that is starting to work a little bit better, by march or april we may find a lot of winners out there and find a lot of dislocation. That will be a punch point for both hearties, particularly republicans in congress that have to develop a plan c. Host the white house yesterday theuncing the oversight of technical aspects of the white house website. The former president of microsized Microsoft Office division. Jeff seintz. Ce just so the viewers are aware, he is the husband of suzanne the dolveney. Jim, republican collar. Republican caller. Caller i have a quick comment. Then a serious question. The sound like a lot but democratic parties been and attack on republicans. My question is this, is the National Data problem and the answer is yes, then what needs to be done about it . If the answer is no, then why . Snt it a problem is it is aanswer longterm problem. In the short term we need to get the economy moving. We need to get it growing, if you cut too much now, the experience in europe and the experience we have had is that you retard growth. A little bit like a process of pleading on a patient in need evil times. You keep doing it, the patient does not get better. You want to have more spending now, things that will stimulate then you have to cut over the long run. We know the drivers of growth in the National Debt are going to be Health Care Costs that flow from the fact that we are as a country growing older and living longer. There are some measures out their including some in the Affordable Care act and others that have been proposed that made a significant difference but can do more. To make is we will have changes in medicare and Social Security. What we also know is we will need to have more revenues. The fact is, because we are growing older in living longer, the size of the federal government or probably be 2223 of gdp up from the recent norm of 20 . At 15, 16, revenues or 17 , you add to the debt. , and youto get them up have to stabilize the growth of the programs, which will grow because of Health Care Costs and demographics. That is what we need to do and do it in a balanced way. Simpsonbowles suggested it although there are better ways of doing it then they themselves suggested. When you do not put revenue on the table, you will not have the ability to make changes that will require broad changes. I think norman spoke to the substance very well and i would like to address the first part of the point here, it sounds like a democratic spin. It may sound like it, but i want you to know norm and i have spent 40 years in this town earning a reputation for the ory and emphasis of partisan ideological spin. Our job has been to try to understand congress within the american constitutional system, to write about it or speak about it and to reform it. We have worked with democrats and republicans. We have always called it as we see it. In the recent times with the developments we saw, we felt obliged to speak out because there was a reality in politics, which is whenever the party were rightg shockingly to the and engaging and procedures and the verysk, that antithesis of what the framers certainly many have written to us. Now many are speaking out about what has been happening within their economy. Ralph in battle creek, michigan. Democratic caller. I wanted to talk about the war in the gop. I am at ground zero i guess you could say in the war for the gop. We have an incumbent republican, but in reality, he calls himself everything but a republican. He calls himself a constitutional conservative. Libertarians think of him as a libertarian. They love him and give him money. The tea party that right temp. Is he , the rhetoric is the Republican Party regularly. He criticizes the leadership. He criticizes the leadership in budget deal. It is like he does not even want to call himself a Republican Party member, but he is on the republican ticket. This is the third Congressional District in michigan. Now there is a primary. Hallenger, bryan ellis i think the Business Community does not like the constant chaos of Government Shutdown and extremists policies coming out of amish. Amish did support the Government Shutdown with ted overover the summer obamacare, so i think we will have a test case to see if the or teae republicans will radical, libertarian win in these districts. There are a lot of all and outside, and i think a good part of the anger john felt towards the outside group is they were not concerned with winning elections. They have to start to move in directions that will solve problems. Amish is the first of what i suspect will be many instances where you see a pushback on the Establishment Republicans against some of the more radical members. This is the first case. It was actually driven locally. May happen at a national level. We have seen the challenge from incumbents coming to the right. You will see challenges coming from the centerright. The outcome will be a particularly pivotal one in whether we begin to see a counterpart to corporate growth of hoping that takes on more radical members and begins to support problem solvers who get challenged by those who do not like the actions that are compromises. The next debate, raising the debt ceiling. Sandy lovevin has this tweet do you think harry reid has promised a vote on Unemployment Insurance harry reid has promised a vote on Unemployment Insurance. Does that become part of the debt ceiling debate and should it . That ist should, but not what republicans have in mind as a ransom. Democrats are really adamant about it. Many feel they gave up the best opportunity. Remember, when unemployment has remained this high at seven percent when we have had this extent of longterm unemployment, we have always had extensionsion an of the federal program. See congressd to not act on this. Getink we conceivably could the support to override a filibuster in the senate. It ifn boehner could pass you brought it to the floor, but it will be very tough getting him to do so. Guest there is a larger element to this. The budget deal used all of the socalled low hanging fruit of raising revenues without calling them taxes. There is only one thing left, and it has been used all couple times. We always fall back on it, revenue from spec from auctions. Entertains we will extending unemployment if you find a way to pay for it. What we have also seen in the budget deal is the criticism that has come over the 6 billion, a small portion of what they did overall run military pensions. The democrat from New Hampshire has been particularly adamant on this front. When her colleagues and i think we can compensate for that, how about closing corporate loopholes, there was no caveat to be found anywhere. They do not want to move in that direction that is taxes. Now, we have john mccain say even the top the lee terry brass say we have to find a way to rein in the larger pension costs. Even a larger brass say we have to find a way to bring in the larger pension costs. We are still going to run out of easy ways of finding compensatory ways of doing it. That is the dilemma. If we use the spectrum auction revenues for unemployment, there is not such left in the cabinet come other than turning to tax loopholes. Thank you very much for talking to us this morning. We appreciate it. With all of that on the table, we will turn to open phones when we come back after this news update from cspan radio. Us Home Construction has hit is its highest pace in 15 years. The Commerce Department says developers began constructions on an apartment in november at a seasonally adjusted rate of just over one million, the fastest pace since february of 2008. Just a few months after the recession began. Construction of singlefamily homes jumped 21 , the highest in more than five years. While the house of representatives is in recess for the holidays, several members announcing yesterday they will not run in the 2014 election. They include tom latham and frank wolf and jim matheson. Earlier today the New York Daily News reported that charlie wrangle quote will run for a 23rd term. Representing his harlem district. The source saying he has decided he is running. The report says he plans an announcement as early as tomorrow. In the senate, members will consider consider the 2014 budget. This after a vote that moved legislation forward. Quoteshington times patty murray as saying the budget compromise is needed to restore trust in congress. The senate convenes at 10 00 eastern time. Watch live coverage on cspan to or listen to it here on cspan radio. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. I am standing in front of the 1905 1905 tree. Today survives the first plane. It was constructed and flown in less than six years time to train the time they built their success of this particular airplane. This is also a plane built less than two years after the first flight in North Carolina december 17, 1903. Times, just four times on one very historic day. There were four very important flights. They very much for the proof of concept. The airplane behind me, the 1905 your three was capable of flyer 3 wast capable of flying up to 40 minutes by a hobart of 1905. This can fly in graceful circles, a figure eight. They can fly very much like a modern airplane flies. This is very much a modern airplane, capable of being controlled through three independent axes of flight. More from the aviation center, next weekend as both tv and American History tv look at the history and literary life of dayton, ohio. Saturday at noon on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Host we are back. You can weigh in on the budget deal, the twoyear budget deal expected to get a vote on the floor today. Could happen as early as today. Here is the tweet from the senate floor set to resume at 10 00. Will resume consideration of the motion to concur on house message. The hurdle to advance legislation with 12 gop senators voting yes to advancement. Wille not sure if all 12 vote for final passage. They can lose democratic oats as well when it comes to final passage. Tune into live coverage to see who votes which way. That is when the senate gets underway at 10 00 eastern time. On the budget deal, the Atlanta Journalconstitution has this for the headline congress set to ok first the atlantayears. Journalconstitution noting their art to georgia senators there are two georgia senators voting to advance legislation. Two of the 12 voting to advance legislation forward. There is the next fight down the road. Has that headline. Susan davis with this headline, fight, thet fiscal debt limit. Yesterday harry reid was asked about the debt limit fight and what could happen next. Mitch mcconnell in a separate News Conference was also asked about the debt ceiling fight. Here is what they had to say i cannot imagine they would want to know about the debt ceiling. We have passed to that feelings in the very recent past and we should do another one. I doubt if the house when the senate is willing to give the president a clean debt ceiling inquiry. Every time the president goes to raise the debt ceiling is a good time to a try to achieve something important for the country. Know, many significant pieces of legislation has been attached to that feelings over the years. Act, 1997ional review clinton republican contract proposal on and the budget control act. All attached to a debt ceiling inquiry. Ceiling legislation is the time that brings us all together and get the president s attention, which with this president when it comes to reducing spending is a bit of a challenge. I cannot imagine it being done claim. We will have to see if the house once to add to it as a condition of passing it. Host harry reid and mitch inonnell, up for reelection 2014, yesterday weighing in on the next fight of raising the debt ceiling, which could happen in february when the treasury runs out of money to pay its bills. On the twoyour budget deal, the Washington Times reports this there are a group of senators think it aired i daring cuts to retirement pay. Post reportsn on that inside the story they say according to house budget aides, it will reduce pay by almost six percent, by a man who enlisted at age 18 and retired age 38. 1. 26ng him with one million instead of 1. 24. This an issue that could be returned to in january. this morning. Democratic caller. What is on your mind. They did not explain to the tea party about the stimulus. It helped. 56. 1 million 56. 1 million. 100 thousand to new zealand. 118 million. Biden stimulus. Great written 3. 9 million. The anon 1. 2 billion. Great britan three point 9 million. Indonesia, 1. 5 alien. Billion. Can you explain to me how this was a good thing to do . I think if we passed another jobs bill. Republican collar. What is on your mind . Caller. Blican [captioning performed by national captioning institute] the 1890s there was no government stimulus at all. The economy grew but 56 . Anyone who wanted to work and work. Could not find any workers so they put the children to work. They did not do it because they were cruel but could not find anyone else they wanted to work. 1950s, no government stimulus. In fact, almost the opposite. The administration paid off 300 billion of the world warm i ii debt. It is a struggle for power. Cspan is pretty hard to be unbiased when you are in washington, d. C. , where the leading income is 100,000. Sure, the families work for government, lets expand government. E old on the same hold same old. Look at taiwan devastated by the war. Same with japan. A few exceptions. Host got your point. On the Affordable Care act, here is a tweet from sherry brown. A similar tweet sent out by several House Democrats act advocating the benefits of the Affordable Care act. The white house yesterday announced they have a new person to head up the technical aspects of healthcare. Gov. A former Microsoft Office division president. Of a democrat from washington state. Going to market in omaha, nebraska. Democratic caller. Good morning. I wanted to mention the reduction of one percent by irking military retirees. This affects me directly. I am a 26 plus year retired veteran, but frankly, i support it and further cuts to the retirement system. The simple fact is they should not and that. This is a very small contribution to those of us that have a very nice retirement, and certainly can work. The power of exponential equation is not something a lot of people understand. One percent does not make all whole lot of difference. It will double your Savings Rates over the course of seven years. Anyone who has ever seen dr. Albert bartletts recent tatian understands that one percent is not a lot of sacrifice. For the veterans like myself who can work, we ought to be out there doing our jobs. Have thiscompanies kind of retirement. I would raise old retirement to theears and make it to reserves where it does not kick in until 62 and so forth. I think it is misguided and unfortunate people are fighting against this very small sacrifice on part of the nation. Host democratic caller from florida. Congress does not use common sense. Their communication patterns are not good or effective, and no. Ne listens to anyone what they need to do is eliminate the transverse transfers to the tax code for all ofte welfare and use the savings to apply to the dead , prior to reducing any tax rate and increase the minimum wage. Host ok. Maybe use all the polls today, minimum wage. A news poll shows the support for higher than among wage, says here a clear majority of americans say the federal government should play a role in reducing the wealth gap. Increasing the minimum wage is a popular way to achieve the goal. Two thirds support doing so. Three quarters say the wage should be higher than the 7. 25 per hour. Washingtonew post abc news poll. We also let you know earlier today that this afternoon 2 30 eastern time, ben bernanke will give his last News Conference after the fed met here in washington for the past two days. Yesterday and then this morning. Talking about the next moves for the Federal Reserve on the whether or not they pull back on the Bond Buying Program or continue to do so. If you are interested, go to www. Cspan. Org. It can also find out when will air on our networks as well. Chairman whoe Vice President obama has picked to take over as chair for ben bernanke, janet yellen is up for confirmation in the senate this week. This ets out rand paul has said he will hold upyellens nomination, run the clock in order to assist insist for a vote on the honor the fed legislation. He got support from Mitch Mcconnell who is up for election in 2014. He said he will oppose yellen, and also support rand pauls legislation. Going to michael in utica, new york. Democratic caller. Caller good morning. I wanted to comment, as a democrat someone who is also on Social Security disability, the American People that i know and speak to on a day to day aces are quite upset with the way the federal government is spending the tax dollars. We, as americans, deserve a break as millionaires, are giving the poor people of this country. It is time for them to realize i do not know how they can sleep at night. How can they go to bed at night realizing they are cutting benefits for millions of unemployed people. Cutting food stamps from those standing in line. S is the retake the list this is the ridiculous for the america that we all know. There is probably a pot of gold rainbow. Gtons taking myhink you for call and i support cspan very highly. I am a democrat. I would like to remind the democratic and republican bothes that they were third parties in the past. If this dichotomy between the one percent that holds the wealth, 13 that hold the us comeand the rest of i am disabled. I was not going to stop working until i was 68. I am 68. The Social Security administration told me i would be bedridden if i did not stop step down from working. I had to step down. There was no choice. Bbed when i was told this by the Social Security administration. I am telling you, if this dichotomy continues, there will probably be a war, a class war in this nation. The peopleon brings like myself and former caller the are surely disabled to center of this, and there have been many studies on this, most of them from central europe, netherlands, things like this, then the crash in the state that is affected is a softer crash. Have disposed of the people that are written. Here disposed of the mentally ill by putting them on the street. Disposed of the mentally ill by putting them on the street. Host Valerie Jarrett has set up the political brick is that the president will pop will not fund raise while in office. You might see the front story in the New York Times this past week that the president im we go to bob in pennsylvania. Hi, bob. Not understand that you seem to be playing all of the host there. All of the host seemed to be playing games with the buttons. You take three or four democratic called an independent ill stew everyone republican. We are taking the calls as they come in. Caller maybe the republicans concede that slant. They are called names the whole time. Ornstein is the radical. There is a judicial were on. Every day i will leave it there because that obviously is an attack on a population of people. That is something we do not endorse here. I will move on. Let me go to bradley and pretend in pennsylvania. Republican caller. Caller i am a retired veteran. What are we supposed to do . The v. A. Has declared me on the list, but will take away the veteran benefits. How do they expect us to live . I do not understand how they could do that. Host youre talking about the budget deal that includes cuts yes, itary pay . Caller has a lot of people saying how great people in pennsylvania are living, but they are not. I know people in my town that are barely making ends meet. Host going to chris in indiana. Democratic caller. for about five minutes or so waiting for the house to come in at 10 00. Oh ahead. Go ahead. About theam calling Social Security thing. For eight years ive been trying to get medical benefits. Medical records. Them, and get full credibility that the Company Doctor not only derailed your medical health but made it so you you cannot get no help from nobody else. This also Security Administration tells me the civil matter. You cannot get nobody here in indiana to do so. I just do not understand. Cdo away from me. I cannot get nobody to hire me. I have not worked in eight years, and i have no money coming in. I live on 200 in food stamps per month. I am not understanding. I cannot get nobody to hold help me. Misspoke, the senate is coming in at 10 00 on cspan two. The vote on the threeyear budget deal expected today. The house out of washington this week. They will be returning in january for the second half of the 113th congress. Tune in for coverage of that vote on the twoyear budget deal. We have about ive minutes left here on cspan. Wall street journal reporting that paul ryan will post afterairman david camp of michigan is up. He would like to take over that post. That paul reporting ryan has told colleagues he will not run for the white house in 2016. Had is on the that is on thehill. Com. Charlene and arkansas. Independent caller. Go ahead. Am petrified. Can you please answer my question and tell me the truth . Will bill paul ryan is pushing through, will he take medicare and Social Security away from us . Host are you talking about the twoyear budget deal . Medicarenot talk about and Social Security in the legislation. Issues as part of a grand bargain, that they would not be able to reach that kind of a budget deal. If you are interested in what is in the legislation usa today they have what is included in the legislation. Terry in lafayette, indiana. Republican caller. Caller good morning. I want to speak to the drug war. Were was prohibition of alcohol, there were no motorcycle alcohol gangs. What should we do about the drug laws that are growing the gangs by leaps and bounds . Seven out of 10, every person in the political system is a drug offender. [inaudible] they repealed alcohol laws dave in virginia. Independent caller. Caller a quick comment. I think cms ought to do an audit rolls. Disability i know people that can chop wood, take care of their lawn and live off party, healthy life. They do not understand the disability payments will only last as long as other peoples money does not run out. Host thomas england burnie, maryland. Democratic caller. Was wondering why c span never covers the crime going on in the country, particularly knockout crimes, hate crimes. Blacks attacking white people in this country. Host what are you referring to . Ler what do you mean ill what am i referring to . The knockout crimes. The next phone call. Caller the retiree who said he does not mind doing the one percent. He said it is nothing. It is 20 of your retirement. That is something. I do not think he fully understands. He may be a high paid retired office officer. This is the first time in cut the retirees that serve 20 years plus. What will stop them from doing two percent next year, and then down to no kola. Social security retirement. They have gone down this road. The guy does not understand. He is progressive. Host are you in the military . Caller i am retired. Hopefully he can retire five years. Will lose 20 you will lose 20 over the 20 years she will be retired. If you are interested, that is a whole lot of money. If you are in general, you might say that. Maybe that guy was a general. Have a nice day. Host what do you say to people who when you retire at 43 and go anotherer occupation, career, why should you get the benefits . What peopleou know sacrifice, their families for 20 years or more . That is and their families for 20 or so more . They stay in the first three or four years to serve their country, patriotism. But retirement, the benefits is what keeps them in their and that is what keeps our armies or our military the best in the careernd is very our people, training the future soldiers. Host william, bay city, texas. Guest saying the policy was unconstitutional, that doesnt make sense to me. It seems like some cra