Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140119

The next focus will be barbara bush. Next 45tion for the minutes is the issue of presidency and Family Dynasty. Is it time for some new faces . The area code is 202. You can also join in on twitter or facebook or send us an email at journal cspan. Org. From usa today in the interview, the former first lady and wife fo the 41st president opens up why shey doesnt want her son jeb to run for the white house. Jeb bush is a twoterm florida governor. Decide this year whether he will run in 2016. This tweet was sent out earlier this week from jeb bush. Here is more from our interview with barbara bush and her discussion on dynasties and political legacies. You think theres room for another bush in the white house . Them i think this is a Great American country. I think this is a Great American country. If we cannot find two or three families to run for office that is silly. There are great and eligible people to run. I think the kennedys, clintons, bushes, there are more families than that. Not arrogant enough to say we alone are raising we are raising Public Services public servants. Barbara is bringing global , pierce ishe world working for big brothers and big sisters. There are a lot of ways to serve. Being president is not the only one. I would hope that someone else would run. No question in my mind that jeb is the best qualified person to run for president. But i hope he wont because i get all myll enemies, all his brothers, and there are other families. I refused to accept that this great country isnt raising other wonderful people. The first lady series, our conversation with barbara bush and her discussion bush. Her son jeb we have posted the discussion online at facebook. Com. We want to begin with our first look at the other sunday morning programs, what is going to be talked about and who will be appearing, all of which can be heard on cspan radio. Fancy calla was in the cspan radio studios. On todays the on todays talk shows the topics include National Security, credit card security Retail Stores, and the upcoming olympics. Of the hear rebroadcasts programs on cspan radio beginning at noon eastern time with nbcs meet the press. Guests include chairman dentist or chairman senator feinstein and mike rogers of michigan. It is abcs this week, with an interview with Vladimir Putin from sochi. At 2 p. M. It is Fox News Sunday with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a michael from vermont, hayden, the National Security agency director, and we will hear from david kennedy. Him cnn state of the union follows at 3 p. M. With another appearance by congressman mike ogers and angus king, senator from maine. Tom done the lawn, along with mike morel, the former cia that beatty director. Deputy director. The rebroadcasts begin at noon eastern with meet the press, 1 00, abcs this week. At 2 p. M. Here Fox News Sunday. Followed by cnn state of the union at 3 p. M. Finally leads finally, face the nation. You can download our free app for your smart phone or listen. Nline at cspan radio. Org host we go back to your calls and comments based on the issues of family dynasties and presidencies. The phone lines are 202 the l. A. Times with this headline on our twitter page, dd has this comment there is this from our Facebook Page chris is joining us from hoboken, new jersey. Your take on all of this . Caller i think it is fine if with the dynasties recent Citizens United ruling in 2010 i think the problem is there so much Political Capital built on the clintons and bushes being in the white house. If a younger candidate were to come up and they dont have the funds, you have the big names winning by default. Mark from seal beach, california on our democrats line. And little about this a littlehing, thing about this presidency thing, i believe the family dennis e thing is a good thing for presidency. I have a ukrainian Family Dynasty thing is a good thing for presidencies. Friend rainian you can join in on the conversation at cspan. Com facebook. We want to share with you more from the interview with former first lady barbara bush. [video clip] your husband and bill clinton have become good friends and my good friends. My husband, bill clinton and i have become great friends. Agree politically but we do not talk politics. I think you have to understand beforead someplace that you are critical of someone you should remember that they did not have the advantages that you had as a child, a loving mother and father. I think he thinks of george a little bit like the father he did not have. He is very loving to him. And i really appreciate that. When they went on that long bill insisted that he stay in the bed and was taking care of. I love bill clinton. Maybe not his politics. The entire interview will air tomorrow evening. Is joining us from kansas on our line for independents on the issue of the presidency in family dynasties. Is a time for new faces . I had a recent conversation with the governor of four lupe host we apologize for some of those calls. The quality of the program. Barbara bush does not want her son jeb to run for president. Jeb bush, the son and brother of former president s. Part of that interview, she says no question he is qualified. The two possible candidates the two possible candidates, jeb bush and Hillary Clinton. She added that the kennedys, the clintons and the bushes, there are more families than that. The entire interview will be asing at 10 30 eastern time part of our first lady series. Stanley from westborough massachusetts, independent line. Caller thank you guys for c span. With getting somebody else to run for presidency, the cost is just astronomical. With the bucs owning the government again. Host what is the solution . Caller i dont know. Cash is disappearing. I wish i had a list of the 200,000 people who turned in their citizenship last year. Host Richard Davis is also weighing in on all of this. It is number it is one of the blogs and postings we have found since the interview was first released. He says thom is joining us from daytona beach, florida. I think we dont need another bush in. , wes. Clinton was to win will have two president s in there for the price of one. I think it would be a good thing. We need all the help we can get here. We will be focusing on Hillary Clinton a week from monday as we conclude our series. Andill move to laura bush then the final installment on the show obama in february. Pols joining us from orlando, florida. Caller thanks for cspan. When governor bush was governor of florida was just an outstanding governor. A fark you would be better president than Hillary Clinton. God bless mrs. Bush for her candor. She is right. Than threeo be more families that can hold that office, that precious office of president of the United States. Your previous caller from florida is dead set against another bush in the white house but is all for another clinton, i would certainly hope for the thatr of the country hillary would side with mrs. Bush and say, im not going to run. That jeb bushght would make for a great president but i am a rand paul kind of guy. We needfresh plate fresh faces, we need to term limits. Stewart great job at cspan. Thank you very much. Host jerome is joining us next to you is joining us next. I think barbara bush is correct in saying there is more waste to be a Public Service than just politics. Congress sees offices passed down from one generation to the next because family names are known to be good vote getters. Thank you. From inside the Washington Post some of the challenges facing republicans to get that magic number of 270 electoral votes that is the assessment this morning in Washington Post. This is the headline from the Washington Post this morning, the front page story. Richard is our guest on newsmakers, which follows washington journal at 10 00 eastern time, 7 00 for those of you on the west coast. What it means for consumers [video clip] most have been worried about the mortgage market. Clearlygage market is the reason the economy blew up in two thousand eight and consumers were massively harmed. It is the single they guest Consumer Finance market topping 10 trillion. It has had trouble on many respects on the lending side and server side. You have just come out with some new mortgage rules. The Housing Market is finally starting to recover from the subprime crash. Why do you think these rules are going to help the market as opposed to hurt its . First of all the rules are only a back to basis of mortgage lending and mortgage servicing. Its the same thing at Credit Unions have been doing for a long time, making sure that before they lend money the person borrowing the money will be able to repay it so they are not being set up to fail. That is speaking that is basic thinking 101. Putting that back in the place, some of the cleaned up after the crisis because the markets crash and some of the bad ones cannot be made. We want to make sure the framework in place doesnt allow us to get into the same kind of problem again. The biggest thing that has constricted access to credit and the last date last decade was the financial crash of 2008. Tight as ame very result. We did take account of that. Drew our role to provide our rule to provide safeguards for mortgages. We included a special exemptions for Community Banks and Credit Unions to continue the kind of lending we think has been very responsible, has performed well, and has served a lot of our communities. Richard cordray is our guest on newsmakers. Lets get back to your calls and comments based on family dynasties in the presidency. There is this from belinda on our Facebook Page. Bob is joining us from chesapeake, virginia on the independent line. Good morning. The perfect candidate to be the next president is benjamin carson. Host from marilyns . Host from maryland . Caller thats right. He became the head neurosurgeon at john hopkins hospital and he is an expert on world and United States history. He has a book that i would like to see everyone read. Out we should also point he has been the subject of a q and a interview. If you go to our Video Library can watch it in its entirety. Lines are this headline from the new jersey starledger close quote starledger the story is also Available Online. Two senior members of Governor Chris Christies Administration warning the hoboken mayor that is according to city officials in emails. This took place yesterday on msnbc. Staffs of the christie fighting back, saying the allegations are false. Thattory goes on to say hoboken and other cities have been very transparent in the funds they have been getting. The entire story is Available Online. In waco, texas. Good morning. It is funny how you get all these people on here, these , republicans that still . They still want another bush. That still call in. They still want another bush. Really . Over, dent bush took when president bush took over the republicans said they were and not helpdon obama. They think of this world around them, they live in the 50s and 60s. They still think people come out of the boonies. Up and realizeke that they need to step on level ground. It is what they need to do. It is just hilarious to watch tv, thinkingon the theyre going to get a republican in the house. This followup point another story related to governor Chris Christie, mitt romney speak into the Washington Post and a story from the hill newspaper he said a member of his administration did something that he was unaware of and that he found was reprehensible. The former Massachusetts Governor said he emailed christie since the news broke. He also went on to say there are a number of leading republicans in 2016, including his running mate, congressman paul ryan from walker andscott former senator marco rubio. A new film will be appearing on netflix on mitt romney. We will show you the trailer of that coming up in just a few minutes. Of the Washington Post on the independent line, good morning. It costs so much money to run for president these days, all the power has been given to special interests and name recognition is a big part of that. They are known enemies to the corporations and special interests. They consequently get all the funding and have the best chance of becoming president. Next is pete joining us from district heights, maryland. I am quite sure that 42 of the 43 president s are related, it comes from the same bloodline. Jerry for michigan, good morning to you. Why in the heck does everybody arty figure out what would be or could be president but the thing is, why not get somebody who is a real person . Iving in this real world it doesnt necessarily have to be a rich person but somebody who knows what is going on. Who would that be . Caller it could be my neighbor for all i know. Host next call from maryland, good morning. Newt gingrich is a brilliant man, he would make a great president. Bush took a tour under false pretense paid he murdered a lot of iraq use and other people. We dont want his brother and office. It is just a terrible idea. Thank you for the call on thank you for listening to us on cspan radio. We welcome our listeners, if you are just tuning in, our focus is arbor bush and whether the presidency should include family dynasties or should there be new faces . Calais is joining us from florida. Clay is joining us from floria. From florida. Caller we certainly need new faces. They put all the drug cases and then blew it up. Call this is from cq roll. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Reporting and that it will begin a sixfigure Television Advertising campaign. Of it is a very competitive race. This is the seat left vacant with the death of bill young. He died back in october. Race is listed as a tossup in one of the few truly competitive races of for grabs in a special election. Obamacare. Tory, a look at what republicans are facing in the year ahead. And a response to the president s weekly address. We will hear more from the president when he delivers his state of the Union Address a week from tuesday. Heres the republicans response. [video clip] helpch bill would americans get the jobs they deserve. Unfortunately all these proposals are gathering dust in the senate. Obamas latest slogan is a year of action. But his Party Leaders in the senate are sitting on the bench. Toseemed to have surrendered a new normal of high unemployment instead of Standing Shoulder to shoulder with americans. Theyre focused on making it easier to live without jobs. Theyre focused on bigger government and less opportunity, more debt and fewer jobs. That may sound good in washington but back home that is not the American Dream folks are chasing. It is definitely not what an economic recovery looks like. Tois not something we have settle for. Republicans hoped the president is serious about making 2014 a year of action. They should start by giving each of these jobs bills and up or down vote in the senate. The American People have not back down and neither can we. Him call in your party to get these jobs bills floated on. Call on your party to get these jobs bills voted on. Lets do it americans always have done, pulling together for a more prosperous future. Recruit represented of stutzman representative stutzman. This morning, fred says host you can follow us on twitter. You can give us a phone call as well. News on immigration, one of the agenda items we will hear from the president during his weekly address the official schedule has yet to be a released yet to be released. The session will feature immigration policy changes. It will focus on the principles of immigration rewrite that Republican Leaders are working to compile. That is according to sources familiar with the events planning. Leadership is hoping to reach some semblance of a Common Ground in the conference with views on how to overhaul the immigration system. That story from cq roll call. Inside the Washington Post economist Charles Kenny says the gdp is not the metric that matters. Next is terry from salt lake city, utah. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was calling because i am a republican. I do not like the way things are going here. An entireke to Start Movement away from all of the. Eadership i would like to get away from the little leadership the in thehip we have Republican Party and is active on the internet. That is kind of my feeling on it. I think our leadership is corrupt in the Republican Party as well as the democratic party. That is my point. I think we need to go a whole other way. A preview with what he says the president needs to focus on, his essay from the New York Times that is the comments of tom friedman in the New York Times. Fromoklyn brooksville, florida, good morning. I have a good nominee for president , edward snowden. The last american hero. Host thats your comment he o your, t e caller thats your comment . Caller thats it. Host this News Analysis from peter baker, who writes in jerry is joining us from columbia city, indiana. Welcome to the program. Stutzman doing the weekly address earlier. I would like to read you something he said back in october. He stated we are not going to be disrespected. Something out of this and i dont know what that even is. We should run him for president. Host thank you for the call and common. Michelle obama, who turned 50 last week, celebrating yesterday in the white house. The apa writing the ap writing this operation is a private affair. Word has spread that the president has told guests to come prepared to dance. People will move in a buzz. And jayz willng perform as well. You can read that story online from the hp website. Terry is joining us from indiana. Welcome to the conversation. Caller good morning. A host how are you today echo caller how are you today . Caller i am doing well. I just want to express myself as a democrat. Bill clinton was the best president next to kennedy. 62 years old. I do remember. Host thank you for the call. Maureen dowd writing about away peeling away the plastic. She told buzzfeed theres also this from politico mitt romney surprised film goers when he came to the premiere of the film pay the he declined to share what he thought about the movie afterwards even with the film maker behind it. Here is a preview. [video clip] [no audio] are having a problem with that. We will show it when we loaded. We would go to florida, welcome to the program. Caller i love your program and love you guys. Bush used 9 11 as an excuse to go to old war go to war in iraq. Obama is the closest thing to being a real person we have had in the office. Seconds. N laden in two bush is a fool. We just need to wipe the slate clean. We are a strong country. We can let all the skill. Obama inherited a mess years ago. Was a mess that was unnecessary. This piece is Available Online at washingtonpost. Com lets go back to this excerpt itt, its am m twominute trailer. I dont think we have that ready. We are going to take a short break. You are watching washington journal. We will be back to talk about what is inside this omnibus spending bill, a 2 trillion budget package. Also the latest on iran as inspectors travel to iran to look at what nuclear capacities they have. We will be back in a moment. When you go behind the scenes as a photographer, you are there to see, not here, not to listen, and not repeat anything you hear. It is a mutual agreement. Meetings thato are sensitive. Obamathere when president had a rally and at the same time the hurricane had just come up the east coast. Phone talkingcure to a fema director and trying to organize it at the same time he was running a campaign. A really unique time to be there. There was this serious conversation about what was going on in the ground there and how he wanted things to take place. Of the wall,side , four moreanging years, four more years. Doug mills tonight at eight on cspans q and a. Washington journal continues. Hes a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, thank you for being with us. Lets talk about legislation. We have been hearing this line that it is the least Effective Congress and fewest number of bills signed in modern times. You had a different take on what congress did or did not do. Introduced but do not pass a lot of bills. 66 bills in the first session is a modern record low in terms of passing bills. Members of Congress Introduced 5500 84 bills. Members of congress are coming up with legislation, theyre just not getting it passed. Host how many did the house and senate pass . Caller host how does that compare to last years . Caller it is a record low in terms of bills passed. Out a few of the bills. It is a good year for baseball fans because congress did pass the bill that specifies the size of precious metal that would be used in commemorative coins, so that is important work. Also the bridge over the Mississippi River that connects st. Louis missouri and illinois is now a memorial bridge. Bills, a fair amount is the sort of trivial legislation. Host how was to gauge the productivity of congress . Caller there are a number of ways. What aggression offices actually introduce. 56 bills passed but only 5600 bills are introduced. Their goal is not only to pass legislation but to hold hearings, db issues, do constituent service. At where offices are ocating the resources legislation is one way we tend to focus on as the only thing Congress Done congress does. Members of congress have many different responsibilities and roles. I put on screen a couple of graphs to put this into perspective. Leading the list, transportation, public works, health, and, Government Operations. At the bottom of the list, education, finance, and immigration. That is what Congressional Research gives as subjects. Of some of those bills of those bills at the top, public land, some of that a ceremony. At the bills Congress Introduced another chart, as well. Congress is trying is armed forces, National Security, taxation, Government Operations and politics. What comes is not introducing rights,ion is civil minority issues, families, social welfare. Social sciences and history only gets one. It was to establish a new establish an african Burial Ground memorial. Host our conversation is with drutman. Man lee you can send us a tweet cspanw j. How else do you gauge the productivity of congress . You can look at our congressional offices, coming up with ideas for legislation. Him they are holding hearings. Certainly they are holding a lot of hearings. Are they serving their constituents . Certainly congress is the legislative ranch of the government. They are not passing legislation, generally things are not very productive. Individual members of congress, there iss idea 535 individual members of congress who come to washington because they have things they want to get done. Him they have ideas about legislation they would like to pass. They are working through these ideas. Theyre sometimes getting hearings on these bills. Congress is not passing legislation as an institution. A1t they will be in session in session 114 days this year. That is pretty low pre pretty low. So much of what comes to the floor is driven by the leaders. In aders and others not not a ton of stuff that has consensus that republicans want to pass beckham passed through the senate. Pass through the senate. Campaigning has come to dominate modern congress. When they are not in washington there in the districts to a meeting greets. Districts doing meet and greets. When you look at what they are inches and what the topics are, the bills happened to correlate with a lot of the interests that are spending the most money. One reason why Congress Introduced legislation is somebody who is a Campaign Contributor or a lobbying industry with it host from our twitter page with thatagree assessment . Guest it is hard to put so much on senator reid. He is working in a congress that is incredibly divided. That partisan gridlock is a reason why very little passes. Johnsonyou put lyndon as they had of the democrats in 2013 as the head of the democrats in 2013, i dont even know if lbj would be as productive as he was in the senate. I dont think its fair to blame harry reid. Dynamics areonal at fault. A viewer says that is the old jeffersonian philosophy. The question you would ask then thate there issues congress ought to be dealing with that they are not . If you believe government should not be doing anything. Federal the vast rulemaking procedure. Thousands of rules are being made, it is just that congress is not making them. Has at dodd frank, there been tremendous delegation in the agencies to write rules. Rules are being made. Congress is not writing them right now. But they are doing things. Our guest is a graduate from Brown University and earned his doctorate from uc berkeley. You can get more information online. What is the Mission Statement of your organization . Foundation semi promotes transparency in government. We believe technology has an Important Role to play. We want to be open and transparent. The we believe thatll make citizens more engaged and make government more accountable to the people. Of view from kiki, who tweets and regularly guest that is also a reason why it is hard to get things a good point. Ishave one party that incredibly obstructionist and what is the point of trying to bring legislation forward . It also prevents legislation from coming forward. There is a lot of opposition to a lot of bills coming forward. Eric is joining us from seattle, washington on the democrats line. What i would like you just speak on is this about the is basically the same budget that was brought out during bill clintons time. This is what causes all the problems to start from the beginning. A warmbush did not put spending he had a supplemental budget peter when president obama became president he put this online. Also dick cheney said deficit doesnt matter. Deficit doesnt matter as long as a republican is a president. The Grover Norquist plan says that we will not let a cratic president basically what we are going through, it is history. The economy goes good, the deficit begins to shrink. , would like to end with this ted cruz was born on socialized medic on socialized medicine paid them people need to question him about socializing. They always want to say socialized medicine. On his first point about there was aurplus, surplus during the clinton years, the economy was very good. During the bush years there was a lot of military spending, the economy was poor. Now things are swinging back from a deficit that seems to be on the decline. The economy gets better one thing that is interesting in the study we did is we looked at different areas of legislation and we found that the economics and budget issues were the most polarized issues based on cosponsorship. Eric points to a lot of political conflict over budget and finance issues. That is certainly real and important. Go to deb from plymouth, wisconsin on the democrats line. Good morning. Guest good morning. I have a couple of comments caller good morning. I have a couple of comments. Like a show focusing on the lives of i am glad you mentioned the Sunlight Foundation. I would like for your guest to talk about how the people are funded. My question is how many of the over 5000 bills that were themduced do you rate as far as objection tests as obstructionist bills . Host thank you for your call. The question is, 56 hundred bills, how much are pure obstructionism . Athink obstructionism is tactic. Some of these are trivial bills. I think if you go to congress and decide to go through the whole rigmarole to get into , you have ideas about what you would you like to see the government do. You have allies and constituents and Interest Groups and campaign funders who have ideas about what you should do. Fairmont of these are bills that are Genuine Ideas a fair amount of these are bills that are Genuine Ideas about what congress should do. Think a lot of them are pure obstructionism. Usedinly republicans have obstructionism as a tactic to stop bills from coming forward. Of a he is the coauthor study Available Online at this am i foundation website, entitled why congress may be more productive and less partisan than you may think. Another headline from the National Journal that story is Available Online. David is joining us from london, england. We are live on the Bbc Parliament channel. Good morning. It is a great topic. Ourselves having to defend our legislative branch of the United States, regardless of political leanings. We could talk about the perception issue, how the image of the legislative branch of america has been damaged by this congress. They have an obsession with repealing the Affordable Care act. The court issue that folks on the republican side of the aisle site is the individual mandate. That came out of the heritage foundation. It is a conservative idea. It seems all other business of. Overnment has been stopped a friend of mine is the member of the reddish parliament and he referred to it as a fetish that the republicans have with repealing the Affordable Care act. Many people ask me what is wrong with your congress. Im wondering if you could speak about that perception issue and how the reputation of our system of government, the three branches, have been damaged by the lack of productivity in this congress. At polling onlook approval of congress, it is not just this congress, it has been declining for a while. It has been in the 20s and that teens for a decade. Everyonen is that wants to blame congress including members of congress. Audibly around the 1980s, members of congress ran against the institution. They said government does not work but elect me to congress. There is a way in which people in government run against government. A lot of that has contributed. More and more, you have people who are going to washington and are using that as a platform to say washington does not work. That is a strange disconnect and that feeds on the cynicism of people. People say government does not work because people are going to washington who dont want government to work. As to the question of obamacare, it has become a matter of faith that this is the single most important issue in the Republican Party. Its interesting to hear from across the pond, their idea of a fetish. States, people would recognize that as well. Not a new issue with this congress that people dont think the legislative branch works. People have been writing about this for more than a decade now. Host we will focus more on this but if you want to touch on this how many earmakrs were in that 1. 1 trillion edge of that was passed last week . Guest when you have a bill that is 1500 pages long, there will be a lot of provisions inserted in that benefit. That is one of the larger problems without congress operates. Basically, the entire regular order has broken down and now you are passing these giant omnibus bills. When you have those size bills, it is easier for individuals and special interests to get friendly members to Stick Provisions in. Nobody will read the whole bill. It is only after the bill has passed that people start sifting through this, looking for suspicious things. Officially, the republicans killed theearmarks but there are ways in which provisions still get in that benefit very narrow interests. Interested,re there is a complete list of all the signed legislation from 23rd he and w athitehouse. Gov. We are focusing on what congress did and did not accomplish last year. Wisconsin, independent line, good morning. Caller i really enjoyed your show. I would love to hear comments from lee about gerrymandering. Oldcially comments like the and baracktom delay obama use that as far as their Technical Skills and understanding of the electorate vs that has a a City City Council form of government. Government if you get elected there, the whole community elect you. Gerrymandering has been around forever but it seems like it is to a heightened science right now. I just wonder what your thoughts are if it is poisoning the system. Other point is that only a handfuly of really competitive house races because of the way these districts are drawn. Guest gerrymandering has been many people have argued that gerrymandering has increased polarization by increasing the number of safe districts. The Political Science on that suggests that is not actually a cause. If that were the case, you expect polarization to be much worse in the house than in the senate. Its not actually the case. Are trying to spread your voters out so the best way to gerrymander is to get these districts that are 55 your party you dont want super safe seats because you want to spread your voters out. Gerrymandering should make competitive if it is done in a partisan way. That may actually hurt republicans down the road as the demographics shift. For now, it seems to have helped republicans in the current configuration. Of house seats. Host another note there are more than a dozen pages on the website with all the executive orders. Panama city, florida, independent line, good morning. Caller i always get the zip code messed up. Its ok. Every time i call, they say panama city. I think its great this congress is not productive. What is that word mean . Andou look at the stacks volumes of passed laws, nobody even reads these. They dont even rate a before they pass it. In the famous words of nancy pelosi, we have to pass it before we know what is in it. Its a joke. They are passing laws that are already on the books of somebody bothered to look at 1953 or 1964. I think its great they are not productive. I dont want them to be productive because the more they pass, the more they intrude in my life. I have to go back to a previous caller. You call yourself the Sunlight Foundation but you dont explain that back in the 1990s, when clinton had these surpluses, he did not have surpluses brits he never proposed a budget. Thats all the president can do is propose a budget. He never proposed a budget to balance the budget. The only reason why there was one year i know there are four years that you can look at but there was only actually one year that we have a surplus was because the other three years they thought they had a surplus, they used Social Security trust fund which was put online under lbj back in the 60s to hide the cost of the vietnam war. There was only one true year and that true year was only because of the dot. Com bust that bush inherited. That created the housing bubble. If you want to get into sunlight, you have to explain 1990s thened in the want to talk about surpluses. Thank you. Guest we could have a debate about that. Deficits andcribe surpluses to president s. President s dont have a particularly Important Role in deficit or surplus. A lot of it has to do with the economy. Out, it iser pointed congress who ultimately decides on the budget so it is not the president. He has a role in suggesting but it is ultimately congress. We tend to view government through the lens of whoever is the president. Congress is 435 people and many people do not know who their own member of congress is. Maybe we dont want government to be legislating as much. Quality versus quantity stuff thatproducing is pointless are counterproductive or meaningless, maybe you should not be producing anything. Again, there is a lot of differing views on what congress should be doing and what would be quality legislation. That is beyond the purview of the study that we did. It is more a philosophical question. It is a role of government question that i dont think changed. Minds will be host we are looking at the productivity or lack thereof of congress. It depends on how you to find out productivity. There is this comment john is joining us from the u. S. Virgin islands line for republicans, good morning. Putting onnk you for the show as always. I enjoy cspan and your coverage. If the infrastructure bill would believe it would not be a democrat or republican issue. It would be a jobs issue which is what america and i believe most voters did when they voted these folks to go to congress and work in our behalf. Would deal with unemployment the way it should be dealt with which is by employment. Thank you very much. Host thank you. Commentgo onto another from maryland, good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I want to preface this by saying i am 82 years old and it seems to me that, over the years, it is a lot of the same old same old and over the years, what i have voted for is the person and listened to the person, not the party. Cycle, we have become more and more polarized. Cycles, couple of frankly, i think over the years that i have seen is when the presidency is one party in the legislature is of another party and they seem to temper each other better that way. Voters, we need to get people who are reasonable and who are thoughtful of the whole country. Thats about all i really have to say. Host thank you for watching. We appreciate it and we will get a response. She expresses a it has a starkly been a preference a lot of americans have about divided government that you have a president of one party and congress of another party and they will find some compromise. Madisonian idea that you have differing viewpoints and out of those differing new points there is a scuffle and out of that come something resembling the public interest. One of the challenges of that is thehe current system, leadership of the parties are very far apart and very interested in scoring political , compromise on the political right is seen as a dirty word. It is hard to do that when compromise is not held has the highest good. Host is it different between the rank and file house and Senate Members vs the leadership . The leadership has a particular role in maintaining the majority of the party so they want to draw clear differences. The rank and file want to stay and are largely polarized and in some cases even more so than the leadership. A lot of the process is driven by the leadership in both parties, i think. They have a very strong inches in maintaining power. Host another look at the members courtesy of the Sunlight Foundation there is this from danny javier is joining us from new rochelle, new york, democrats line. Caller thank you for ticking my call. Taking my call. I am undocumented from mexico. Politics. Ot about i watched your channel every morning. I want to talk about the tea party. It has been giving a lot of damage to the congress. I would like to warn all the citizens of the United States about cuba and rubio. [inaudible] that is the problem, the cubans want to do what they wanted to to castro. They are not allowed to. They will just do nothing good for this country. Host you have been in this country how long . Been here for 30ve years but i have never gotten papers. This of tough to get them. Host are you worried about getting deported or are you pretty safe . Caller i dont care about that. I never did nothing wrong. Safe. Etty if they deport me to mexico, its ok. Thank you for taking my call. You for taking the time to phone in. Immigration issues are hot issues. There has been talk about an immigration bill for one year now. Bill an immigration im not sure what i can add to his question. It is certainly a hot and lively issue. It is Something Congress has struggled with. There are a lot of House Republicans who have a lot of pressure from the teait is somes struggled with. Party and conservative antiimmigration legislationt pass and they dont see any real incentive of going against those groups who are often active in the primaries. Host let me followup on this tweet we will look at a far larger number from u. S. Debtclock. Org. How much does all of this drive the debate in washington . Issues of debt and spending have really dominated the congress. There was a Government Shutdown over this issue. A lot of people are mindful of this. The Republican Party has made Government Spending an issue. In our study, we found that areomic and budget issues based on cosponsorship of bills and they are the most polarized issues. It has made it difficult for congress to make any progress on these issues. That is why there was a Government Shutdown. Host democrats line, go ahead. When i good morning, joined the military, we took an oath that we would protect this country. This is an insult to every person who was in the wars for it would have these politicians to represent the people. There, we did not go as republican or democrat. We put our lives on the line. Thats what they need to do to the republicans and democrats. They say they are looking out for the interests of the American People. Charles grassley said he received Social Security. He was also involved in the farm deal. We are paying for this. When he to think about this. We need to think about this. We are paying the same gas prices. Up and theis going richs money has increased. They need to have ethical rules. I am retired. The say anybody working for county, you cannot do business with the county. They need to do the same thing with those politicians. They need to find out how many family members are benefiting out of those bills that are being passed. Host thanks for the call. There is this idea that for all americans, republican and democrat, that is not what really matters. Barack obama said in his 2004 ,emocratic Convention Speech and i think it taps into a deep feeling that many people have, that we should put these partisan differences aside. In washington. People live in a bubble in washington and there is a my team versus your Team Competitive spirit here that thermines that sense of larger issue of being all american. Ethics, icerns about think a lot of what is hampering congress from getting legislation passed is more about these partisan differences than ethical issues. I will stop there. Host we are talking with a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation in washington, d. C. We are looking at congress and productivity in 2013 and what to expect this year. Here is another point guest sequester is host they say it is the best thing obama had done. Guest im not sure how to respond to this. One of the things we keep coming back to is the issue of the budget and thats an issue that really animates people. It fits with what we found in the study that it is the most will arise issue of all the issues in congress. Often the issues that are most ones thatare the political scientists have found. They say the more you know about an issue the more polarized you or the morer you know about government, the more polarized your views will be. Host on polarization, another viewer has this lets go to california, good morning. Caller good morning. When the Senate Majority minority leader, Mitch Mcconnell came out after obama got elected the first time and said his number one goal was to make him a one term president , that pretty much set the tone as far as nothing will get done. The Republican Party did not really care about the country. They just want obama to fail. If obama fails, the country fails and i think they really want that. All they care about is getting the presidency back. At any cost. Mitch mcconnells famous statement about wanting obama to be a one term president was one of those lines that gets repeated because it taps into this very competitive spirit. Understatement but its a battle for control. Particularly at the top levels of the parties. Wantsmcconnell republicans to be in charge and he wants obama to be a one term president. He will use the powers that he has in the senate to try to block the democratic agenda. Host we will go to maryland next, republican line. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Span know that i do watch and i love each and every one of you for bringing issues forward and i listen to a lot of this. I want the government to know that the American People are willing to help in any way but our federal government has gotten way too big. They have taken so much away from the American People. I am calling on the governors of each state to take control. By law, we, the people, are the fourth part of the government. We can take more control back and stop this bipartisan fighting in the federal government. The stuff they are implementing, we need to know, they need to come forward and the claim that the American People. Host thank you for the call. From one of our viewers guest this question of Effective Solutions to real hows it seems like would you measure that . How would you know what Effective Solutions are . How would you know what real problems are . Thats what people in this town spend countless hours debating. At the bills that congress is introducing, you can get a sense of what they think is problems are help number one, armed forces and National Security, taxation, lands, natural resources, politics and education are the the ones that have the most bills. One might think that families and social welfare are real issues of congress only introduced 31 bills related to families and 66 bills related to social welfare. Are the priorities of congress trying to deal with the actual problems that most people face . People have looked at that and they find an incredible low correlation between the issues that congress is doing with and the issues that are most for the American People. As for Effective Solutions, that is a harder question. There are a lot of people who spend a lot of time in washington trying to think about what Effective Solutions would be. They often represent Large Companies and industries. A lot of the average citizens dont really have a voice in coming up with those Effective Solutions in washington. Thats why you see a lot of legislation that is written with the help of lobbyists. Most lobbyists represent corporations so legislation is written for corporate interests in washington. Host here is another tweet our last call is from east chicago, indiana, good morning. Caller good morning. As far as the unemployment as far as 1. 3 Million People are not adding Unemployment Benefits i was trying to come up with a solution for the democrats and the republicans. Can maybe take a few week theyars out each get unemployment, maybe they can go back maybe that can go back into the budget. I dont know if finances the real problem. Host are you out of work at the moment . Caller yes, i am. Host thanks for the call. The unemployment bill has been an issue, a partisan issue but the senate will decide bipartisanintroduced bill. Cost of unemployment is small when it comes to the larger federal budget. It is one of these issues that has been seized on as a highly partisan issue because democrats and republicans have very different philosophies about how to deal with unemployment. Certain issues tend to be amplified by the partisan battle and this is one of those issues. Utman is a senior fellow at the Sunlight Fund the foundation. Guest thanks for having me here. Host we will take a short rack and when we come back, we will drill down into what is in this spending bill called the omnibus spending bill, one point 1 trillion per it Eric Washington will be joining us to talk us through the numbers print up next, lets turn our attention American History as refocus on chattanooga, tennessee all weekend long. We will feature the life and history of this community in tennessee including a look at the depression era Tennessee Valley authority, a project that , itsuilt in the 1930s impact on the region back then and today. Here is a portion. We are at the Chickamauga Dam on the Tennessee River. It is a tva project in 1940. 1940e dam was dedicated in by Franklin Roosevelt as a Large Network of dams that were built up and down the Tennessee River 1933 and the early 1940s. This was created with thetva, the Tennessee Valley authority. Present roosevelt told the nation that the project would set an this was created with thetva, the Tennessee Valley authority. Present roosevelt told the nation that the project would set an example of planning not just for this generation but for all the generations to come. The tennessee value valley that has was a concept been under consideration for some years before Franklin Roosevelt became president. Frank norris of nebraska, senator, was looking to help improve the quality of life in the Tennessee River valley, to bring Flood Control to generate some electrical power and improve the lives of the People Living in the Tennessee River valley. It is one of the poorest regions of the valley at the end of the 1920s. Remakingus attempt at the social and economic lives of the People Living in the river valley. Chattanooga had been struggling with flooding problems. This is a town that had become the center of the National Railroad network in the 1850s. 1940,this dam goes in in the city experienced massive flooding. Be sure to tune in on cspan three at 5 00 this afternoon. You can catch all of this and you can check out all of our coverage of chattanooga, tennessee on cspan three and c span two and online anytime at www. Cspan. Org local content. Eric washington of the hill newspaper host you are really looking at these numbers, the 1. 1 trillion dollar spending plan that was passed by the house and later the senate last week, signed by the president late friday. Walk us through this. What is surprising in these numbers . A 1500page bill, chock full of secrets that are still yielding themselves. The wall street journal had a nice piece this week highlighting the white potato rider to make sure that people can still purchase white with subsidies. It is full of policy but it sets the government is in place until september 30, guaranteeing therell be no more shutdown as we saw subsidies. It is full of policy but it sets the government is in place until september 30, guaranteeing therell be no more shutdown as we saw in october. T is 1. 1 trillion pr this is what democrats and republicans agreed to in the summer when paul ryan and patty murray struck a deal. Host biggest hit in terms of the budget . Guest there is a decrease in the Defense Budget but the Defense Budget is half of Discretionary Spending in this country. A lot of the spending in the government is on the mandatory side of the ledger and that includes security, Medicare Medicaid but this is the discretionary Agency Budgets of there is a decrease for defense of about 30 billion compared to what they had been seeking. Another big decrease of about 8 billion comes from the labor hs budget, the departments of labor and health and Human Services which administers obamacare and the department of education. That sees a decrease but that is a sizable oil compared to some of the smaller ones like the agriculture bill. This past quickly in the house and in the senate. When Speaker John Boehner took over, he promised that lawmakers would be able to review the bill and then sign off on it. Said weman jim mcgovern will continue to see surprises in the days ahead because it is such a massive bill. Guest thats right. It was released monday night and the houseboat was on wednesday. That was a quick turnaround. The house boat was on wednesday. Vote was on wednesday. All 12 of the individual bills were done on time and that has not been done since 1994. They are telling their members who were miffed about this that they would have more time to scrutinize and offer amendments. Those not on the Appropriations Committee did not have a lot of input into this bill because there was no time. It came under a close rule in the house and no amendments in the senate. Many americans are interested in saturday mail delivery. What did you learn . Guest that is a writer that has been on the spending bill for a while. It forbids the u. S. Postal service from ending saturday mail. That is something they have proposed to do. The Postal Service is lost money and a lot of it has is due to the fact that they have to pre fund their Employee Retirement health care benefits. They are looking to make reforms by closing Postal Centers and ending saturday mail and that is forbidden in this omnibus. It would make certain Funds Available through the discretionary budget contingent on sixday delivery. Host here is a headline from your piece the main thing to think about on the situation is that it is a victory of leadership over tea party insurgents. In october, we saw the Government Shutdown when speaker went along with the shutdown strategy. He basically said that we will shut down the government unless you defund obamacare. That failed in a spectacular fashion. Once that was resolved, the focus of the media went on to the problems with obamacare, the botched website rollout. This created a dynamic were gop leaders felt it was in their best interest to avoid further brought theich republican poll mummers down and get this over with quickly so they can get back on the attack on obamacare and its problems. Host we will go back to winners and losers. Downoburn is stepping that because of his battle with cancer. This isoburn has made passionate signature issue. He is someone who wants the ability to amend things on the senate floor. Every year, he comes up with a waste book. These are not really targeted programs. When appropriators seal the deal behind closed doors, people like coburn want to champion a more open process have to be considered losers in the process. Host another loser who was first on the list is the Tea Party Groups. A similar headline from the New York Times. Guest you still saw more than 60 republicans vote against the bill. It passed overwhelmingly in the house. But there is a core group of people, many of home are aligned with Tea Party Groups. Tea party groups and conservative groups came out strongly against the omnibus. They issued an alert saying they would punish members in their annual rankings if they voted for it. In the end, the bill passed overwhelmingly. There was some soup rising stalwart tea party allied who voted with leadership. They have to be considered losers in this fight. Host our phone lines are open you can also send us a tweet or send us an email. Vivian is joining us from tennessee, good morning on our line for democrats. Caller good morning to both of you. I have three to the things i want to say. The first thing is about the spending bill. Republicans and democrats are taking away from the people unemployment. The talk about not extending it and that is money that people have paid for. They have been taken from their jobs. They are not lazy people. If we take the stuff from the congress and cut their salaries wars, the, these money spent overseas helping the people over there, they send money to them. We need that money here. The next thing i want to talk about is the tea party. I am a 63yearold black woman. I am tired of hearing folks say tea party. Those are klansman using a new name and term. About lettingng the governors of the state run things for it if they let the governors of the states run things, i would not be able to vote today, to go and write on the bus. Or go to school. That is the reason we need the government to help us out. Thank you very much. One thing you brought up was the extension of Unemployment Insurance benefits. That is something democrats initially wanted to see in the omnibus spending bill and that was left out. Once the compromise started to together, especially House Democrats decided to back off from that and try another legislative vehicle. There are still talks ongoing about how to deal with extending Unemployment Insurance benefits which have run out for 1. 3 Million People because of the expiration at the end of the year. A compromise could be found that would also reverse part of the budget deal to cut military pensions. The thing is how to pay for it and whether to pay for it. Some democrats have said its the type of disaster aid that does not need to be paid for over one year. They may be backing down from that position. Harry reid said he would be open to a reasonable compromise. The past, it has included tax increases so we will see but there were tough votes in the senate this week that indicate a compromise is not readily available. Host congress is in recess this week for the Martin Luther king holiday in the president will deliver his state of the Union Address on tuesday at we will have live coverage. Wasson who hasik been looking through the numbers in the 1. 1 for embellish spending plan approved last week and signed by the president. He is a graduate of Amherst College and earned his masters from columbia and bill is joining us from freedom, pennsylvania, republican line. Caller good morning. Spending comes under stewardship. We were told by the good lord to be a good steward. , man rebelledning against god and this has continued. When they do legislate and spend, it should be for the common good. Get a reminder, when you through next time and for all of our listeners, turn the volume down on your set which would eliminate the delay and the echo. Thank you for the call. Howt this indicates passionate people are about the Government Spending issue. People view debt and deficit as an ethical issue. People look at the amount of unemployed and say the government should be doing more to him money into the economy. Passions are very high. On the spending issue. I think that call was an illustration of that. Host i want to share another headline from the hill newspaper. This follows the comment subject lou on thursday indicating that this follows the comments of jack lew on thursday. Its a mistake to wait until the 11th hour. Congress should do this as quickly as possible and with the least drama as possible. In terms of how Long Congress i have communicate with congress saying we thought the ability to manage through the debt limit being hit on february 7 would it is maybe to the end of february or early march. Its a very unpredictable time of the year. In terms of cash flow. Host those were his comments last week. This is the headline from the hill. Com. Of thethis is a slip tongue that harry reid had where he talked about a lack of urgency in dealing with the debt ceiling. Beingked about it something that can be within late may and his office quickly walked this back and said he was just responding to something he read in the media and nothing from treasury. This is a bit of a slip and its on but its an important issue. People should not think the fiscal fights of going away. The debt ceiling officially runs out on february 7. The Treasury Department can use a drug. Measures as it has in the past to extend that deadline and make it fuzzy. Thisjack lew says is that is not going to be months and months of extra ordinary measures. It will be something that Congress Needs to deal with. The key thing will be coming up after the Martin Luther king recess when House Republicans go on a retreat in maryland. One of the top issues will be how to deal with the debt ceiling and whether to seek entitlement cuts or perhaps something less farreaching like the approval of the keystone xl hotline from canada that has been a hot topic for a long time especially in many states in the midwest. That should come out in the last week of january. Host lets go back to the name of this the omnibus. What does that refer to . Guest it refers to the fact that all 12 of the annual spending bills are put together in one enormous package and that is not happened in years. There was one in 2011 that did not have all of the bills. This is everything. This includes the defense will which often passes on time. That is why they use the term on the bus. Host you have written about this but there is a headline journal. Com. L let me read a few portions in thethats right, georgia situation, senator chambliss is retiring and you have a bunch of house all planning to run for the seat. Kingston is the cardinal, the subCommittee Chairman, in charge of the bill that ultimately funds obamacare. He was in a tough position and wound up voting against the omnibus. When appropriators and leadership crafted this deal, they did it in a way to present it as a winwin. New funding, no increased funding for the irs, for example, to in the to implement the individual mandate. Its in force by a tax penalty. There is a cut of 1 billion to the obamacare Prevention Fund that republicans have called a slush fund. This is a fund that secretary sibelius could dip into in order up the account on obamacare. That is something that republicans pointed to as a victory on obamacare. On the democratic side, they can point out the program will go ahead which would not have been the case during the shutdown. Host here is another story to bring you from thehill. Com. Muriel is joining us from new haven, connecticut, democrats line. Caller good morning. I simply want to say this is apending bill itself positive measure. Was it 40 times . I lost count. This is a complete waste of the taxpayers money. Segment thate last government is not working or is working. Government is working for the Congress People because they are getting their salaries to do nothing. They take continual recesses. Time,ody needs vacation even the ordinary person out there like myself. We all need vacations. What has happened in the congress is a slap in the face to the American People that are struggling out here. Has climbed, milk to over four dollars per gallon in new haven. I dont know whether or not i have not kept up with it i have become so disgusted with what is happening, i just turn it off. Host thanks very much for the call. That thats another thing congress has to deal with as is the farmville. It has been delayed for two years. Lastsat the farm bill until the end of september, the department of agriculture needs to revert to 1949 law which would mean a huge spike in milk prices. Proposals of the farmville are talking about milk package proposals of the farm bill are talking about milk prices. We may see one at the end of january. The speaker could be pitted against democrats and the members who support the dairy issue. The delay farmville is something that people point to the delayed farm bill is something that people point to. This has raised hopes that rings can get done. Inbara mikulski of maryland the flush of victory said this could bode well. One thing people are looking for or are worried about is a compromise on immigration. We will see House Republicans releasing their principles on how to do with immigration. It will be a real test on the farm bill and immigration whether the spirit of the omnibus compromise leads to legislative achievements in the coming months. We will really be into the Midterm Election season. Host another question technically, there are no earmarks. Rks hasinition of earmake to be below a certain level. Theres a different definition of earmarks. There are certain pet projects in their in energy and water related to the army corps of engineers and Certain Energy projects. Government groups are still going through this to come up with their tally. It depends on the definition. If you have a really wide definition of earmakrs, congress would say you are defining is out of the whole process. This is a debate that still goes on. Technically, as far as tiny or secretive things that are slipped in there, they have certified that there are no earmarks. Host this is a question we posed you this past week. What is regular order . How do you define that and why has that term become part of the hill lexicon . Guest it would go under the 1970s budget act which would mean both houses of Congress First accept the president s Budget Proposal which is supposed to come out the first monday in february, review that, and the house and senate would pass their own budget, reconcile this. It would not go to the president , just set a spending level and the appropriators would go ahead and pass each individual spending bill. There is one for agriculture, commerce, justice, and science agencies. There is one for the departments of labor and health and Human Services and education and then run them through the floor, allowing for amendments and then having them signed individually. This is something that Speaker John Boehner, before he took over, had pledged to pursue and says its important especially in dealing with government waste. You can have an amendment on the floor that says this row graham is ridiculous and have a debate about it and try to get rid of it. Host a comment from one of our viewers who is discussing the economy lets go back to the point of the Unemployment Benefits and the food stamp program. The farm bill is still tbd . Guest thats right, there was a cut to food stamps that happened. It was the beginning of december that affected a lot of people and benefits across the board. It was due to the expiration of the obama stimulus program. Food stamp continue and they are part of the mandatory budget number the actual foodstamp spending is not set by this omnibus. It is set by the farm bill. There is a debate about whether and how to cut food stamps over 10 years. Originally, the house proposed 39 billion in cuts over 10 years. The senate had proposed 4 billion. We have learned that the compromise is about nine billion dollars in cuts. That is something democrats in the senate can go along with. The way they would be achieved is by tightening the ability of people who qualify for food stamps by the virtue of getting home heating assistance. Onet stands, people can get dollar of home heating assistance and automatically qualify for food stamps even if their income says otherwise. By changing that to 20 per month, you would thereby exclude some people and save 9 billion. People thought it would be the biggest problem and it turns out that dairy policy and whether to control production of dairy something Speaker Boehner has been passionate about it is the hold up and they are trying to square that circle behind the scenes. Host our guest is erik wasson, our focus the omnibus bill passed last week. Our guest writes for the hill newspaper. From maine, republican line, good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan. My question has to do with the i am concerned about this Identity Theft. Toterday, i took the time call three of the four congresspeople in the house of representatives in connecticut. They all voted against it. Then i called senator blumenthals office and i was told that he voted against it. Apparently, they dont understand that democrats, whatever latinos you are we are all americans and we all have credit cards. Everybody has a lot of them in the United States. They have no concern. So what if we get hacked into . But just when this target Department Store problem innocent people have been hacked into. And they say, its of no concern to us. The democrats are supposed to be, they love us and want to help the people who dont have a lot of money. Aybe you can explain it to me i would love to hear an answer. I wasnt quite following exactly what foti was referring to, but the issue of Identity Theft has come to the fore with this massive theft of Customer Data at target. It is something people are interested in trying to figure out what the legislative fix would be. Host bill from youngstown, ohio is on the democrats line. I had a question, if you could elaborate on it or it i was listening to the it. Theistening to the pay for the unemployment extension. When the initial figures came out, when i was reading online in terms of this budget, when it , wes to defense spending spent somewhere upwards of 1 trillion. Reading counting benefits for retired vetera ns. When trying to find out about is, why theyre having a difficult time finding this money to pay for these expenses. The base defense spending is 520 billion. This is a 1. 1 trillion defense make up almost half of that. When you include war funding, 92 billion for afghanistan and operations at the cia to deal with terrorism. It is a large part of the budget. One of the things you bring up is who wins. There are some very controversial Weapons Programs, the most expensive joint Strike Fighter jet ever , the abrams tank. These are big defense programs and there are a lot of Jobs Associated with them. Lobby have aeople lot of people in town looking out for their interests. Perhapsment benefits, the group does not have as powerful of a lobby. The 6 million cut to pension. That does not take lace until 2015, so congress is planning to have a year of debate on this issue and there are attempts to reverse that or find other savings. Democrats have come up with one idea to pay for Unemployment Insurance, to extend sequestration cuts to medicare in the out years in 24. Republicans had at one point talked to another cut to obamacare. These are opening offers that are out there and perhaps they can find a middle ground. Whenever you can find an offset, there will be a party that wants to protect that. Host it might be helpful to take a step back and explain to the audience how all of this came together. Late lastns began year between senator patty murray and congressman paul ryan. Their mission was to do what . Guest it was set out in the deal that ended the Government Shutdown, to come up with a way to replace part or all of sequestration, set a topline budget number for this year. That does not include war funding. 1. 012. It is something the paul ryan and patty murray were able to come together on. Reversed 65 billion in sequestration cuts that were put into effect by the failure of supercommittee to come up with a grand bargain. Both sides had motivation to come to a deal and they found 85 million in offsets to pay for the 55 lean dollar increase. Retirement benefits for future all federal workers curtailed and a host of other changes that were put in there. That was signed into law by the president in december, which triggered another round of negotiations between rogers and. Ikulski over break would all of us were enjoying the holidays, a staff were working feverishly everyday to come up with some agreement and these marathon talks resulted in the bill that was signed into law by the president on friday. Host you reported over the weekend that a number of leading senators want to restore the pension plan to the original pension amount. If that happens, where does the money come from . Guest theres a lot of different ideas about what to do that. There was a small change in the on the bus. The original cut applied to disabled veterans and survivors of those killed in action. They were exempted to the omnibus. The costofliving increases for other military retirees is curbed. This is something that was insisted on by paul ryan. I think a lot of deficit hawks think the benefits to the civilian and military are overly generous compared to the private sector. They are more generous in the private sector. Other republicans, defense hawks like john mccain are adamantly opposed to that and working feverishly to reverse it. Host chris is joining us from ohio on the republican line. I was calling about the unemployment extension. I was wondering why they have the test votes on them. What the whole point of that is, if it doesnt count for anything. To my knowledge, the actual vote has been put off a couple different times that congress is vacation andeks theyre trying to figure out where to come up with the money to offset some of that. Problem with the them cutting congresss vacation and their paid vacation to help fund part of the unemployment . Host are you out of work at the moment . For how long . Caller yes. A year. Host what have you been doing without Unemployment Benefits . Stopped theenefit 28th of december and i still had money coming in, but when they stopped, i cant get that no more. A lot of this depends on the political pressure that you and others who are affected by this can put on congress. The test vote was taken to see if members were feeling the heat and were willing to go along with it. As of yet, their judgment has been that perhaps theyre feeling more heat from deficit. Awks or Tea Party Groups a lot of these test votes are taken to encourage backroom negotiations, which are no doubt occurring on staff level during the recess. This has been done in the past as far as making congressional on or vacations continued action, and the no budget no pay , congressyear ultimately sign onto that and the senate it is they budget for the first time in four years. Produced a budget for the first time in four years. Host on our line for les isdents from neavada, on the phone. I sure dont know how they can call themselves deficit hawks. They wont do one thing to get rid of the loopholes that the big businesses and these Hedge Fund Managers, the superrich 15 ofe mr. Romney 20 million, and my buddy down the street it seems ridiculous. We balanced the budget in the george busht was would not raise taxes. Clinton raised taxes a little bit more and we balanced the budget. Convinced it was the moderate cuts and waste in the pentagon, and theres a whole lot of waste over there, and getting rid of all these ge pays no tax. How ridiculous is that . Voicing arguments of democrats have been making, but you need to that you need to close loopholes. The loophole allows Hedge Fund Managers to be taxed at 15 . The grand bargain, which has been talked about, should include ending tax expenditures as well as dealing with entitlements. Democrats point to the increase in deficits that happened under. Ush thats the argument hes making. Phone. Hris is on the caller your audience of news watchers should be aware that in West Virginia we been having a terrible crisis of late around Water Pollution due to the carelessness of our Chemical Industry and lack of inspections. We have a perfectly horrible example of the need for more oversight by the government. Havee also aware that we an industrial lobby and a bunch of politicians that are constantly demonizing the epa, which has been totally out to lunch during this water crisis. Have the republicans got the orl to bury any stinkers further hamsters to the epa hamstringers to the epa in this budget bill . Guest there are some interesting coal industry supported writers in this bill. Them relates to the army corps of engineers. There is something called fill material that relates to mountaintop removal, mining, and the author would prevent the that,orps from arising which some say would allow the army corps to keep dumping in streams like West Virginia. Theher it actually affects epa, the army corps would be forbidden from doing any work under this bill the president obama signed into law. Wasson, thanks so much. You can read his work online anytime at thehill. Com. In just a moment we will turn our attention to the latest in iran, as inspectors travel to that country. Will be joining us, and hes with the Washington Institute for near east policy. Met romney attending the premiere of a documentary that fornicles his years running the presidency. There is the story from inside the New York Times, in which family and Campaign Members indicated the country never really had a chance to get to know mitt romney. Heres a preview. [video clip] [inaudible] if you dont win, the country may think of you as a laughingstock. These are all people competing for the same job. How do we find out these things at the end of the day . He hates to disappoint. [laughter] a recent poll said 43 of americans are not even sure who you are. [inaudible] barack obama has changed our prospects. [indiscernible] is like trying to convince people that dan quayle is smart. The trailer from the netflix film is getting a lot of attention this week, front page story in the Washington Post and this morning the film gives a peek at the romney who never quite won over voters is in the New York Times. You can check out our coverage of the 2016 Campaign Online at www. Cspan. Org. Nancy callow in our radio studio. Todays sunday Television Talk shows, topics include National Security and the nsa, credit card security at Retail Stores and the upcoming olympics in russia. You can hear break broadcasting rebroadcasts beginning at noon eastern with meet the press, guests including Dianne Feinstein and mike rogers. 1 00 p. M. , this week and an interview with Vladimir Putin from sochi. Michael mccaul. Sunday, fox news guests include Patrick Leahy and michael hayden. Of the union follows at 3 00 p. M. With congressman rogers, angus king. 4 00 p. M. , face the nation with congressman mike rogers and. Enator mark udall as well. Ppearance the sony network tv talk shows are on cspan radio and brought to you as a Public Service by the networks and cspan. Rebroadcasts begin at noon eastern with meet the press. 2 00, Fox News Sunday followed at 3 00 with state of the union. Listen to the mall on cspan fm in the d c area, across the country on Xm Satellite Radio channel 120. Download our free app for your smartphone or listen online at cspanradio. Org. When you go behindthescenes as a photographer, you are there to see, not listen and repeat anything new here. It is an unusual agreement. We are let into meetings that are sensitive. I was there when president obama and the hurricane edges come up the east coast and was up in the north and he was femae phone talking to the director and trying to organize it at the same time he was running the campaign. Really unique time to be in in a reallyar him serious conversation about what was going on on the ground there and how he wanted things to take place, and organizing that. On the other side of the wall, people are banging four more years. Staff york times photographer doug mills tonight at 8 00. Washington journal continues. Host we want to welcome back a veteran of the george w. Bush administration and now managing director of the Washington Institute for near east policy. News fromin with some the associated press. Led byors now in iran, the International Atomic energy, and the u. S. Looking at what iran has in terms of nuclear capacity. How much access to the have and what is their mission . Guest this is not a 1990s iraqstyle Inspection Mission, show up wherever you want and get unannounced access to any place you want. Ofre is a very defined list facilities to which inspectors will have access in a very specified schedule as to when they will have access. Many of these are facilities they have had access to before. Their Mission Continues as it was before. They will have access to new facilities. These inspectors are verifying that iran is carrying out their obligations under this first step agreement. Initially what we will be looking for is, to what extent really throw open those doors to inspectors and how much do inspectors encounter resistance or delays from iran . Be the firstwill thing we looking at here rather than, is iran meeting its obligations . If you look at the agreement, they dont need to do that for a few months under this agreement. Host let me preface this by sharing with our audience this piece in time magazine, a new beginning in tehran. The shortterm nuclear deal lifts the fog of hostility. As she begins her piece by discussing what it is like to tehran, as sheo points out, the new president of iran is able to thread the needle. Its too optimistic to think this is the beginning of a rapprochement with iran. We have a lot of problems with irani and policies in the region, very few of which are being addressed in this agreement. Support for terrorist groups like hezbollah and thomas. Iran hamas. Engaged inively subverting the government in several countries in the middle east right now. The intention of u. S. Negotiators right now is to try to focus very narrowly on the Nuclear Aspect of this. We can talk about whether or not this is a successful approach. When it comes to the iranian perspective, im not sure that theyre looking for friendship with the u. S. They want to get out from under the burden of these sanctions. I dont think they see themselves as ending up as aligned with the u. S. At the end of this process. To other countries in the world as their natural allies such as china and russia. Host let me summarize how time focuses on this deal. The easy part in dealing with and six major powers have agreed to a sixmonth freeze of tehrans Nuclear Program. Guest thats in many ways an oversimplification. I dont think this interim stage is the easy part. Theres going to be two very hard things coming up. One is negotiating the final agreement. That will be very difficult and could take much more time than people anticipate right now. Implementing this first step agreement could also be quite difficult. Experience we have with this is essentially in 2003 when iran and the eu reached agreement over its Nuclear Program. That proved to fall apart after a few months over questions about this or that loophole. Seen in theady negotiations leading up to this implementation that the iranians 1 disagreed over p5 1 disagreed over what is a broken centrifuge. Issues such as inspector assess s, there are all sorts of minds that could blow up this whole process between now and then. Hardliners, i think its wrong to compare hardliners in iran with anyone in the u. S. Whatever the disagreements may be here, Everyone Wants to see this and peacefully. Im not sure that is true on the iranian side. The keycomes to iran, decisionmaker is the Supreme Leader of iran. Is not the same as it would be in a democracy. This comes down to the decision of a Supreme Leader, what does he want to do, what vision the does hecountry. See for his country. This from the l. A. Times to get Dianne Feinstein emerges as the spy agencys staunch defender. Last week on the issue of iran, senator feinstein had this to say. [video clip] i believe additional sanctions should only be considered once our diplomatic track has been given the opportunity to forge a final, comprehensive and binding agreement. This is what is most distressing. If we had not reached an agreement in the sixmonth period with the cooperation and leadership of the big powers of this world, that would be one thing. We have reached agreement. That action is just about to take place. We are going to john does it. We are likely to collapse it. By passing additional sanctions now, which a president of the United States will veto with the aim of overriding that detail. How does that make any kind of common sense . Logic and it ends what has been unprecedented diplomacy. Do we really want to take that on our shoulders . In my view, its a march to war. Host senator feinstein last week on the senate floor. She used the word unprecedented. Thats the word the president used as well and a Statement Released last week by the white house. He says, quote, unprecedented sanctions and tough diplomacy helped to bring iran to the negotiating table. The followup to all of that, senator Lindsey Graham spoke to reporters after his session. [video clip] im more disturbed now than ever after the briefing. What is being contemplated is not even in the ballpark of what i would consider. The highly enriched uranium, the u. N. Resolution says remove it from iran. Andan be left from iran diluted but its possible to reconvert it. 90 to create a weapon. The idea of the congress not acting really does offend me because the purpose of the sanctions is to deter them falling apart at a time we still need them. The number of countries sending delegations to iran is growing by the day. Beginning to fall apart. If congress voted to pass new sanctions that could only be imposed if this agreement fell apart, it would reinforce to the western world, stop doing business with iran. Michael singh, the politics behind all this, whats going on . Guest to the extent we have made progress on iran that led , ithe stage were at now was as a result of cooperation between congress and the president , perhaps unspoken cooperation. It was that combination of very tough sanctions as well as this diplomacy which has taken place as well as other factors that led to the place were at now. The disagreement that you hear is really about the end state, what sort of final agreement would be acceptable, where am,uld we leave irans progr to what extent can we get more from iran that we have gotten so far . Element that does not deal with the interim. But deals with the final status program, whichar says we will allow iran to have a uranium enrichment program. Congress believes that is a premature and unacceptable concession to the iranians. For the white house, you need congress is cooperation to lift i think you have no choice but to try to reach some meeting of the minds between congress. We are very far away from that, which is one big obstacle to reaching a final agreement. Many of our allies around the world feel as though this interim agreement was presented to thete accomplish world. I dont think we can do that with a final agreement. Between here and any final agreement there has to be better cooperate tatian cooperation between congress and the white house. P5 1. Caller critics have claimed that the Washington Institute for near east policy is an extension of the American Israeli Political Affairs Committee and it seems by looking at the members of the Advisory Boards and board of directors, that they are disproportionately proisraeli. Can your guest talk about this . The Washing Institute is Washington Institute is a nonpartisan think tank. We have a range of scholars who focus on the middle east. They study all aspects of the middle east. We have lots of former u. S. Officials, serving military officers. We have a diverse range of views on our staff, pretty much like any think tank in washington. Try to helpis to people understand what is happening in the middle east and to help policymakers formulate effective policies in the middle east that advance american interests. That is our sole mission and that is what we are dedicated to. Host where is president of hin a judge today ahmadinejad today . Before he left office he was already being marginalized by the Supreme Leader, the political establishment in iran. He was fighting a rear guard action against his political enemies that became quite bitter. Now the president rouhani has taken office, a lot of that has faded into the background. He is no longer a big story in iran. Ost lets go to blair caller id like to ask mr. Singh if he and members of the Washington Institute for near east policy ever watch press tv out of iran, and how do they , or the verycism veracity and authenticity of the 9 11 attack itself, most especially when coupled with our own u. S. Investigators conclusions about Building Seven . This is brought up repeatedly at press tv and im wondering how think tanks in washington handle the skepticisms. 9 11 truth or is folly. Earing is absolute it is nonsense. The story of 9 11 is well established and has been well established and it is nonsense to go into that. But you do here skepticism around the world about what is happening in iran and the middle east. What i think is best to do is start with the facts and go from there. John is next on the republican line. Id like to make a complaint about Yesterdays Program on the nsa. On for an hour and 15 minutes, had a onesided andsurveillance viewpoint interrupted a caller as he was making a comment against his own position. Sanctions aret already beginning to unravel . Ion,t u. S. Military opt what possibility is that still on the table because my hearing is that the military option, willy believes the u. S. Use military in this situation . The sanctions unraveling, this is a concern that a lot of American Allies and folks in congress have. You have seen this rush of business delegations to iran, anticipating that further sanctions will be relieved. Its hard to know what practical effect this will have in irna. Iran. The message from the u. S. Government has been, its not business as usual with iran. In six months, if there is no progress on this deal, perhaps all the sanctions will be back in place. Dangers, whenl you get locked into negotiation nd, isas no end date in mi that sanctions regimes tend to crumble. It is a concern here. The u. S. Government is going to need to keep a close eye on our countries, are entities, our companies being willing to fully comply with the sanctions. About the part is military option. President obama says the military option is on the table. That is met with a lot of skepticism around the world because president obamas campaign in 2008 around withdrawal from c entered around withdrawal from iraq and afghanistan. Means what he says, its important to reinforce the credibility of that message. Thing youre hearing is that anyone who opposes this deal supports war. That is a false choice thats being presented. You really dont see that president obama is preparing for war if this negotiation. Part. More sanctions is the most falls apart. More sanctions is the most likely outcome. It has been an awful shame that we have resorted to these false accusations of war mongering here in washington as part of this debate. Host the white house releasing a summary of the understanding between the u. S. And the p5 plus one nations and iran. Iran has agreed to halt production of 20 of enriched uranium, and iran will be able to continue enrichment up to 5 and these inspectors will make sure there is no new construction that would provide the nuclear capacity. How do you verify . Guest what they have agreed to do is stop producing 20 , medium and take theirm existing stockpile and convert it to other forms. Theyre converting it to other forms and it would probably take between one and two weeks to reconvert that to the 20 form. The 5 side they are allowed to continue enriching up to 5 with the same number of centrifuges operating now but they have agreed to cap the stockpile of 5 enriched uranium at the current level. When it comes to new enrichment facilities, thats not a job for the inspectors. Its hard for them to verify that iran is not secretly building a facility somewhere because they dont have that authority to make unannounced inspections. That will be a task for western intelligence agencies, to keep a close eye on what iran is doing to make sure theyre not covertly setting up a parallel program. Host pat is joining us on the republican line. Know whetherike to or not all these efforts to accommodate iran are going to signal the beginning of the end of the nonproliferation regime. How long is it going to survive if iran will be allowed to go to , andery tip of the cliff other countries want to protect themselves . It does allow iran to have the mystic enrichment capability. There are states which enrich uranium inside countries. Most of those states are Nuclear Weapons states. The only nonNuclear Weapons states that have domestic enrichment capabilities are argentina and brazil, which had Nuclear Weapons programs which they have shelved. Germany and the netherlands produced in enriched uranium for expert to other countries, and japan, which is regarded as a latent Nuclear Power. This would put iran in a small category. The fear is it would prompt other countries around the middle east to want to have the same technology. The United Arab Emirates signed a Nuclear Accord with the u. S. Were they agreed not to have this kind of technology. Cannot have this technology, even though we just agreed that iran can have it, that seems to be a difficult position to sustain. We dont want to see that list of countries that are enriching uranium to expand. The is an issue with which administration really has to contend in a more serious way in which they than which they. Ave in the past host Michael Singh was an assistant to powell and Condoleezza Rice and for the National Security council, former professor at harvard and now managing director of the Washington Institute for near east policy. Marcel is joining us from virginia. Caller i have a few comments to make. First is a question. Me if you read new yorkkerrys that theed article iranians program can only be seen as one heading towards a Nuclear Program because of the way it is established. He points out that no country would want to have the kind of program they have if they really wanted to use Nuclear Facilities because in purposes one year iran can produce as much uranium that is refined as is produced in europe for sale in five hours. Irans interest superiorityse its or its view that it has superiority in that part of the middle east through the use of this particular kind of program. Marcel is referring to an op ed written by William Perry and a Nuclear Expert based in california. It is a point widely accepted amongst iran and Nuclear Nuclear that irans program is clearly configured as a Weapons Program because the extent of irans infrastructure for increasing nuclear flow fuel is not big enough for a power program. They have a Ballistic Missile program which seems to be oriented towards producing long range Ballistic Missiles. This is now widely accepted, that irans program was a Nuclear Weapons program. Has abundant resources, fossil fuels, the thirdlargest or second largest gas reserves in the world and has abundant resources of oil. I dont think many people buy that this is a Nuclear Power program. Ofwas a poll ofo iran ofnians that showed that 55 iranians believe that irans purpose is to make Nuclear Weapons. Steve is joining us from north carolina. Caller thanks very much for c span. The rush to the oil riches and Economic Opportunities of iran is happening. The eu and russia are tired of conflict and sanctions in the middle east. Will the u. S. Join the world in Economic Opportunity and iran . Consider the pivot to the east in your answer. The u. S. Is interested in Economic Opportunity, free trade and so forth. One of the reasons that the u. S. And others are very concerned potential pursuit of Nuclear Weapons is because they worry about the stability of that gulf region in the middle east. Im glad the caller raise the pivot to asia in this context. The move towards asia is very much based in economic reality in terms of u. S. Trade and Economic Activity and is now increasingly centered in asia. Our asian partners, like taiwan as well as china they are increasingly getting their oil supplies, their Energy Supplies from this gulf region. The stability of this gulf region is very important to the Economic Activity in asia, and that is important to americas economic prosperity. East,we do in the middle our influence and success in the middle east impact our influence in asia and our economic well being and the wellbeing of our partners and their. A story available this morning on nytimes. Com, sanctions eased, iran gets feelers from old trading partners. Welcomed more delegations from europe than in all of 2013. A larger and growing number of withesses who look at iran its 70 Million People as a sizable middle class, the worlds last major isolated market. Explain the economics behind all of this. That this sort of story youre having a flood of , it iss delegations going to set up a lot of worries in washington and allied capitals around the world. Even though were only expressly giving limited sanctions relief, that crack in the sanctions regime will then be widened by people who are pursuing commercial opportunities as well as the iranians and their diplomatic partners around the world. The u. S. Has to be vigilant about detecting any attempts to bust sanctions. Iran is a large market. A lot of our success in pursuing the sanctions have been in convincing businesses that its bad for them to do business and iran because they will have a harmful effect on the reputation. As a declines its logical to expect that we will see these commercial feelers. The idea that sanctions are levers that are within our control and we can calibrate is not right. Thats why you have to be careful about sanctions and the message you are sending to the market and congress. Host italys foreign minister hasbeen to iran, jack straw tradeed to iran, delegations from ireland and weeksand france in coming what about the u. S. , and how much interest is there among American Companies to invest in iran . Guest im sure theres interest, but its different for u. S. Companies. U. S. National sanctions are much stricter than National Sanctions elsewhere around the world. U. S. Companies will be more hesitant than european companies. This is irresponsible behavior by our partners in europe. The unified message should not be that it is time for business as usual with iran. The u. S. Is going to have to respond to this sort of thing and say, we will be imposing sanctions on firms that go beyond the sanctions relief that has been imposed. That will be the only way to convince these firms and countries that this is not a good idea. Host we are focusing on the iran deal worked out with secretary kerry and our partners in europe. Our next caller is on the independent line. I assume that your guest is a republican and has a conservative point of view. I used to be a republican. Im originally of iranian descent. Easingriginally against sanctions. Past sanctions against cuba, north korea nothing has ever come about. A few months ago i was in iran and saw the hardship people are going through with the sanctions , the cost of basic necessities. The rulers are having no issues at all. U. S. Is in no position to take military action against iran. We have done it in iraq and afghanistan and both situations have been failures. For the call. U dont think there is a republican versus Democrat Point of view on iran. I dont think Foreign Policy should be politicized because i dont think there are republican and democrat foreign policies. One of the interesting thing about president obamas policy towards iran is a quite a bit of it was carried on from the bush administration, when it comes to this combination of sanctions pressure less diplomacy plus working through the p5 plus one, there are differences. So much of the story here is of continuity. That is something that americans should like to see from our Foreign Policy. It does not simply change every time there is a change in administration. There are a lot of issues that the caller raised. Its important for people to recognize that its not simply the case that sanctions are what brought iran to the table. The u. S. Changed our negotiating position. Our position had been that iran could not enrich uranium. We rejected in 2010 that turkey brazil offering because it did not comply with the Un Security Council requirements. You soften your negotiating position it makes a deal more likely. There has been a change in personnel on the iranian side. , a savvier would say negotiating team. Partions isnt important of this story and i think that sanctions will continue to be is an important part of the story and i think sanctions will continue to be an important part of the story. Did this surprise you, this latest deal . Guest no, once you saw that rouhani had won the president ial elections, this was predictable. This first step agreement is a first step, a relatively modest step. Its important not to exaggerate what has happened here. Theres a lot of hope that this will now lead to agreement that the u. S. Can live with that enhances our security, stability of the region. That is by no means a forward and conclusion. There is a lot of work especially to show our allies in the region that we are still very committed to the middle east, this is not about withdrawing from the middle east. Have a betterwe negotiating atmosphere under this new team is something that most expected. From u. S. Officials point of view, this gives us the best chance. How long will these inspectors be in iran . Guest presumably as long as negotiations are ongoing and hopefully afterwards if there is a final agreement. Inspections are part of this first step agreement, which lasts for six months and is renewable. My assumption is the Inspection Mission also lasts for six months and is renewable as negotiations continue. Host Michael Singh is with the Washington Institute for near east policy, veteran of the george w. Bush administration. Thank you for being with us. We will continue the conversation tomorrow on washington journal, heard on cspan radio every day. Our guests will include reid wilson. Is a consumerl andrter with usa today take will focus our attention on the Affordable Care act. Another socalled polar vortex heads towards the east coast. Tune in tomorrow evening for our first lady series as we focus on barbara bush. Mobile enjoy the rest of your weekend. We hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] today, newsmakers with richard cordray. Followed by president obamas speech about changing government surveillance and Data Collection programs. Then senators mike lee and alkermes on the hearing about the program. Later, Chris Christie delivering his state of the state address. , this week on newsmakers richard cordray, welcome back