Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20141209

Attacks. The 9 11 attacks. In light of those concerns, we want to hear what our viewers think this morning. Should the socalled torture reports be released today . Phone lines are open. Host you can also catch up with us on twitter, facebook or email us at journal cspan. Org. A very good Tuesday Morning to you. The socalled torture report making headlines in papers across the morning. Heres the front page of the ampa times this morning and the lead story of todays u. S. A. Today, torture report raises fears. We want to hear from our viewers this morning what, you think about the release of the socalled torture report this morning. Before we get to your call for my details on what can be expected, i want to turn to Michael Doyle with mcclatchy. He joins us on the phone. First what, can we expect from the report . What are the details that will be in it . Guest the report itself will not be made public. And its going to stay classified. Whats coming out is the executive summary. Its about 500 pages thats thought to include about 200 pages of a fair tiff with conclusions as to the efficacy of the enhanced Interrogation Program and it will include about 20 case studies of the exact treatment doled out to suspected terrorists. Host can you talk about the history of the executive summary . This is something thats a expected to be pretty highly redacted, correct . Guest well, yes. The Senate Select committee on intelligent democrats who thored and commissioned the expensive negotiations with the c. I. A. Through the white house to figure out what can be made public and what cannot be. This has gotten down to a granular level of detail. Its to the point of the administration seeking to remove even pseudonyms to c. I. A. Officer involved with the program. So its been a matter of many, many months. The original proposed redacted version from the administration back in august was criticized by Senate Democrats as being blocking out essential information. So theres been a considerable back and forth going back months and lasting up until recent days, even. Host and Dianne Feinstein was hoping to release this report back in the fall, correct . Guest thats correct. And the reason theres been this consistent delay in the release has been disagreement over what can be made reasonably public and what should remain secret. So this has been a very long and drawn out process to get to where we are today with the release of the report. Host and some reports over the weekend that secretary kerry contacted chairwoman feinstein to express some concerns. Do we know what was said in that conversation . Guest its a funny question because the original report from bloomberg said that secretary kerry called senator feinstein to ask her to consider delay or delay release of the report. The reality of the conversation sounds like it was more subtle than that. The secretary of state raised with the senator questions about Foreign Policy of the case noted, evidently, the importance of foreign alliances, made note of the u. S. Hostages. In reading between the lines, one can see that the secretary of state was raising concerns and suggesting by implication that a delay might be considered but it does not sound like he explicitly asked the senator to delay the report. He led her to that conclusion on her own. Host what are do we know about preparations at military securities at diplomatic posts today . Guest over the last 24 or 48 hours, the white house and pentagon had made clear theres a heightened sense of alert and it sounds like theyve been bracing for some reaction, particularly in mideast countries as the details come out. It will be interesting because the overall thrust of the report has been well reported. We know that the c. I. A. Engaged in brutal interrogation techniques. We know that they used overseas prisons from Eastern European countries. And so how the exact level of detail will incite riots or violence is a little unclear. But the administration is taking no chances and has put people on a higher state of alert. Host is there such thing as better times to release this report right now with everything thats going on in syria, in iraq right now . A here a better time given potential time frame of when it could be released . Guest no. There is no better time. There is always going to be the potential for violence. The question really comes down to should it be released or not . And when it is released, theres very possibly going to be some Foreign Policy consequences, some price to be paid. Its hard to imagine there being a better time for this to come out or a worse time. And the determination by the Senate Democrats is that it must come out for the public to weigh what happened in the past and help that guide future decision makings. Host Michael Doyle is a Legal Affairs correspondent with mcclatchy. We appreciate your time this morning. Guest my pleasure. Host were talking about the executive summary of this socalled torture report thats expected to be released today. The white house has talked about this yesterday. Josh earnest at yesterdays press conference at the white house. Heres a bit of what he had to say about the report. The president believe that the use of those tactics was unwarranted, that they were inconsistent with our sexrals did not make us safer. That is a different question, one that youre asking about. Let me finish this. Well, did they unearth useful National Intelligence information . And i think the president would say and this is clear from the president s decision to outlaw these techniques that even if they did, that it wasnt worth it. And it did not enhance the National Security of the United States of america. Host members of congress weighing in on this debate. And were asking our viewers to weigh in as well. One of those members of congress yesterday, democrat from california, hes also a member of the house select Intelligence Committee. E said and one other tweet from mike rogers said it will cause deaths abroad. Thats the story were talking about. We want to hear from you this morning. Well start with michael, calling in from fairview, tennessee. Michael, good morning. Caller its nick, by the way. Host oh, ok. Go ahead, nick. Caller yeah. Look, this is laughable. First of all, the Democratic Party is a party of slime. The Political Party is a party of stupid. How interesting its asked the selection that they released this stuff. We have a president that all of a sudden this has to be transparent and he uses the i. R. S. And the e. P. A. As his own private goons and they wont release anything on that. Fast and furious is still hiding all this stuff. This man is such a liar and the Democratic Party, theyre kind of uniform. They lie, too. Theyre a bunch of leaching lawless liberal leaders. They take this im trying to express it in simple terms, but theyre not concerned about transparency. This happened before with the Church Investigation and people were killed, good people, and also farmers. They dont want to deal with this president in office. They cant trust him. And its still not israel. Thats a fact. And the military is being really demoralized. Its a typical liberal leadership and these people saying well, the people need to know. First of all, given all the i. R. S. And all the other stuff that youre hiding, mr. President. Host we want to hear from our viewers from the socalled torture report. Heres the wall street journal and their story about it this morning. The report compiled by the Senate Intelligence committee was completed two years ago because the release has been delayed between the committee and the c. I. A. Over its substance in how officials has beened it once it was finished. Were getting your thought this morning. Lydia is in maryland. Good morning. Caller good morning. I think the report should be released. The American People have a right to know what was done in our name. Under the bush administration, its no secret that they practiced torture. They killed the iraqi general water boy. And not most American People know that but they committed war crimes and dick cheney and that administration should have been taken to the hay and tried for war crimes. And the caller from tennessee, i object the use to call the president name liar and all these other names because you didnt cut him off. I know everybody have a right to free speech but some people go over the line. Thank you. Host lydia from maryland bringing up former Vice President dick cheney. Hes quoted on the story. Defending theoice c. I. A. Defending that its harsh interrogation a decade ago. Were totally justified and dismissing allegations that the agency withheld information from the white house or inflated the value of its methods. Lets go to mike from our line of independents. Good morning. Caller yeah. I would like to comment on the put it in you another contest, it would never work like world war ii, world war one. Why did we go back to science, gathering. Its all about military powers. Its a different war, political war, civil war. And in that, thats how i look at it. The more we have c. I. A. Officers , defense official talk about what we need in iraq, its the lack of strategy and focus we need to put on this country or this situation. So i would rather try Something Else, different approaches, and against other world wars and see what happens. And i will tell you it will be far different outcome than this. Thank you. Host between members of congress on the impact of releasing the reports and what it would mean for u. S. Policy in the future versus the immediate safety concerns as we said, playing out on twitter as well. Eres one former c. I. A. Director Michael Hayden talked about what the impact would be if the c. I. A. , socalled torture report were made public. Heres a bit of what he had to say. This would be used by our enemies and attacking american facilities overseas and i am concerned about that as was the secretary of state and the director of National Intelligence and then finally, bob, there are countries out there who have cooperated with us in the war on terror at some Political Risk who are relying on american discretion. I cant imagine anyone out there Going Forward in the future who would be willing to do anything with us that given smacks of political danger. Host a few tweets on twitter. You can follow along with that conversation. E writes in we have to admit torture. Quit rationalizing it. Done. Nother tweet we want to get your thoughts. Give us a call. Pat is in South Carolina on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host good, pat. Caller listen. I do not think it should be released. I thought that our congress, senate, house, president , the whole world was supposed to be sworn in to protect the American People. And what happened after 9 11 . They did what they had to do to protect us, the American People. And i think its a shame that we have to rely on our c. I. A. And our defense departments to do what our congress and our president wont do. This will do nothing but hurt the American People in the long run. Thank you. Host and tom is calling from alexandria, virginia, on our line for independents. Good morning. Caller yes, good morning. Alled in to say that obama hello . Host yes, to were listening. Caller ok. I just call to say that resident obama really has been basically digging up the foundation of the United States as a nation, as a society. E is supposedly a lawyer, but he has been abridging and violating the Citizens Rights of the United States, but yet he is talking about the violation of the terrorists. As an immigrant, i am black and if it wasnt for him, but what i see is a disgrace. Im sorry to say. But everything is doing is no rational, not to protect this country. This is a nation that has the strongest moral value to go around the world and help people. In my case, im from ethiopia. When my own government is trying to kill me, the United States took me in. They my fellow citizens back home. They do this over and over on every nation on the face of the earth. Host where do you come down on the use of these enhanced interrogation tactics after the 9 11 attacks . Caller we have to be realistic. There is no nation in the world that cannot stand for a day without using some kind of information gathering, extraction and so forth. I am for it to protect the United States. They have to do everything. We go to war. The soldiers dying in afghanistan and iraq. I work for the veterans affairs. And i see these people coming mainly at 19 and 20 years of age. We are paying a higher price. So we have to do everything to protect this country. Host thats tom from alexandria, virginia. In terms of protecting this country and protecting facilities overseas, white house spokesman josh earnest talked about those efforts yesterday at that press briefing. Heres a little bit more on what he had to say on that. There has been concerns that have been expressed by members of the Intelligence Community and others about the risk that the release of the report may pose to u. S. Personalities around the globe. That is why the administration has been preparing for this day, the day that the report is eventually released. Can you share those concerns . Yes. Well, let me state it this way. The president wants to make sure that were doing what is necessary to protect our men and women who are serving this country whether in the military or in the diplomatic core and he believes we should take all the steps necessary to do just that. And thats why we didnt just start planning. We have to figure out whats necessary to safeguard these facilities but this is something weve been focusingen a for a number of months now. Forces an t question implicit point in your question is when would be a good time to release this report . Its difficult to imagine one, particularly because of the painful details that will be included. But the president believes that it is important for us to be as transparent as we possibly can be about what exactly transpired so we can be clear to the American Public and the people around the world that Something Like this should not happen again. Host and of course, the executive summary of that, over 6,000 page report is expected to come out today. Well look into it for you when it does come out. And well be talking about it more tomorrow. Were asking our viewer should the senate release that report in the first place . And this story making front page headlines. This is the front page of the Houston Chronicle this morning lets go to chris waiting in new york on our line for republicans. Chris, good morning. Caller good morning. Yeah. I think torture is a good idea. The reason its been around so long is because it works. And for them to come out and release this report is just kind f ridiculous that they want to protect our soldiers and the release of this report, it would be a sad state of affairs. And im all for torture because they dont care about us and it works. Thank you. Host chris, when youre talking about it works, what examples are you talking about to say that it works . Do you think it produces reliable intelligence and information . Caller definitely. Or people wont be using it till this day. Thats why its still around is because it works. People dont do it because it dont work. Host are you worried about what it says about america values . Caller yeah. That means that americans will do whatever it takes to protect their country, even if it relies on the see, i think we forgot we got attacked on 9 11 and they dont really were trying to pamper the enemies in a lot of cases. Im not really too worried about pampering them and theyre suspected us after having terrorist activity, im all for it. No doubt about it. Host thats chris in new york. Linda is up next in new albany, ohio, on our line for ints. Linda, good morning. Caller independents, linda, good morning. Caller good morning. I do not think this report should be publicly released. This is something that should be handled behind closed doors. It was 10 years ago. It shouldnt have happened. Maybe. I dont know. I know that it seems that our congress is totally absent of any understanding of how our enemy think. That to do this to me, if one american is tortured or died because of this, i hope that the people who are releasing this report are tried for treason. This is a betrayal of the nation. There are so many things that are covered up in washington. This is going to impact our diplomatic pies. And if i were in the c. I. A. , i wouldnt want to risk the peebts that come from doing anything. And our allies are not going to trust us any longer. This is the most foolish thing that this administration has done and this group of democrats that are in charge in washington are just tearing the country apart. Host the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee is expected to be on the senate floor today. You can watch that live expected around 11 00 eastern time. Senator Dianne Feinstein expected to talk that report today. Victoria emails us this morning at the washington journal to talk about torture and what it means for americas values. She writes jean is up next for democrats. Good morning, jena. Caller yes. I want to say to the last caller from virginia who says that the president host we can hear you. Turn your tv down and go ahead with your comment. Caller ok. I want to say to the last caller from virginia who has said that the president havent done anything that is good. What more does the president hould do than what hes doing . Secondly, when you touch people with water, it is totally out of the place. I think that is totally wrong. For this do somebody in that phone. I think there is other what is that they could do to put their problem thank you. Host and another programming note for you this morning, where this issue may come up today at the Senate Foreign relations committee. Secretary of state john kerry is expected to testify about combating isis and possible new authorization for use of military force. Of course, these questions about this report may come up at that hearing. That happening at 2 00 p. M. You can watch it live on cspan3. One of our earlier callers talked about the whether our foreign nations around the world, whether u. S. Allies will be affected by this report. The New York Times talks a little bit about that in their story this morning on the topic that the white house will have to deal with the diplomatic fallout from the reported countries that aided the United States getting your thoughts and demints morning for about the next 20 minutes or so. Caller only the Democratic Party would be stupid enough to let this report get out. They cant just tell the c. I. A. Dont do that anymore . And let it go . So do they have to betray many countries and so many people who are doing nothing but trying to protect the United States . You dont like torture . Ok. Tell the c. I. A. Dont do anymore torture. But dont expose the people who are trying to do the best for this nation and put them in danger. For heavens sakes host hunter what, would you say to a congressman like adam shift say that the interrogation report has to be released as part of a coming clean about what has been done in our name . Caller do you know when the secret of the enigma machine of the world war ii was released . It wasnt until the 1980s. That wasnt damaging to anybody but they kept it a secret until then. This is far more damaging than anything than the enigma machine. Host would you be ok that it be released in a couple of years . Caller its when everything is cooled off and its over. Let it be history. Youve already told the c. I. A. Not to do it anymore. Why do you have to damage the United States of america and its allies in this way . This is so stupid. I cant believe it. And then they try to say it was a secret. The Intelligence Committee which had democrats were fully informed about what was going on and do you ever hear the democrats say oh, we had democrats on this committee and they told the c. I. A. Its just fine . Do you ever hear that . Host hunter in fort lauderdale, florida. Let freedom rick on twitter. Concerns about the timing here of the report of this. Lets go to mark from our democrats line. Mark, good morning. I dont think marks with us anymore. We will go to shawn from key west, florida, on our line for independents. Shawn, good morning. Caller hello . Host hi, shawn. Youre on the washington journal. Caller yes, good morning. In the 1970s, i was a broadcast journal journalist on interrogation. They said torture never produced actionable intelligence. Their techniques were so sophisticated that they would never resort to torture. They didnt need to. They could get all the information they wanted by just having the person sit there. It was a very Sophisticated Group of people that were involved in the lecture. And were sitting here as americans, we need to know what our nation has done going back to what happened on 9 11. And were justifying the use of torture based on something that arguably never really happened the way they said it happened. So the idea that weve tortured people goes against everything that we stand for as American People. Thank you, sir. Have a pleasant day. Host some of the viewers expressing concerns about what this means for members of the c. I. A. And their efforts in the New York Times yesterday, that topic brought up. Former president george w. Bush worry that the release of the report may cast some of the c. I. A. Operatives in a harsh light. The story noting that his closest advisors decided they want to stand behind these guys. He made that clear in an interview broadcast on sunday. Thats former president george w. Bush speaking on some of the sunday shows on sunday. Time for a few of your calls. John is in North Carolina on our line for republicans. John, good morning. Caller good morning. Im going to honest with you. I reject the description of what went on as torture because those guys left gtmo with all their fingers, all their toes, all their teeth, all their limbs intact. And many of them are now are lethally killing americans as we speak. And some of these people that complain that calling president obama names, which he richly deserves is somehow beyond the pale, are very much like nazi who is supported hitler and thats all i got to say. Host lets go to david on our line for democrats. Caller hi. How are you, and thank you for taking my call. That last callers a typical republican and is a little deniable bubble. It was torture. We all know it was torture. I think that the report should be made public. I think it should be made public around the world so the world can see just what america has done. But america didnt do it. Lets face it. It was g. I. George w. , dick cheney, rumsfeld. What do we do with war criminals . We execute them. They need to be executed immediately. Host we will move on to joseph on our line for independents. Joseph, good morning. Caller good morning. I hope these people who believe that tortures a good idea, i hope they realize theyre disrespecting our soldiers because our infranity soldiers on the front lines as i was in vietnam, this will authorize any of our future enemies to torture ur soldiers. Think they think their grandchildren will never have to serve this country. Hey dont mind putting their underprivileged neighborhoods kids in danger of being tortured in the future because they think the draft will never come back. Well, i hope it does and that maybe they or their kids will go on the front lines and may be captured and be tortured and well see how they think about it then. In vietnam, we tortured them and they tortured us. Ut that was a guerrilla war. Anyhow, i just hope that everyone realizes that this place is our soldiers in great harms way. Host joseph in waterbury, connecticut. Well get back to a few more of your calls in just a second. And i want to point to some other headlines in the papers. Several stories about continued protests and marches in the wake of those decisions in ferguson, missouri, and more recently, in new york. Heres a story in the Washington Post. A large protest may be on the horizon in the district. Another story on this topic in the New York Times talking about what the what Race Relations could mean for president obama as a legacy. The headline from the New York Times. The unrest over race creates a challenge to obamas legacy. President obama conducted an interview with bet last night, a recorded interview that was aired last night in which he talked about americas racial divide. Heres a bit of what he had to say. This is something that is deeply rooted in our society. Its deeply rooted in our history. But the two things that are going to allow us to solve is is number one is the understanding that we have made progress. Its important to recognize as painful as these incidents are, we cant equate what is happening now to what was happening 50 years ago. The second thing that i insist to these young people is we have to be persistent because typically, progress is in steps. Its in increments. When youre dealing with something that is as deeply rooted as racism or bias in any society, youve got to have vigilance but you have to recognize that its going to take some time and you just have to be steady so that you dont give up when we dont get all the way there. Host that was president obama in an interview that aired last night. One other story on this topic, racial profiling ban is widened from the u. S. A. Today. Host back to your calls on this question that were asking today about the socalled torture report thats set to be released today. Lots of concern being expressed by some lawmakers on this. Were asking our viewers should the senate release that report on the use of torture after the 9 11 attacks. Michaels up next in hermosa beach, california, on our line for republicans. Michael, good morning. Caller hey, johnny, youre doing a great job by the way. Love to see you every morning. Host thank you. Go ahead. Caller you know what, weve lost our vision. Weve lost our perspective. Bear me out if you can, john. It will be a couple of seconds. How many people who are calling in and talking about torture know anything about it . How many of you people and this is to all of you who have seem to close your eyes willingly blind to the realities of whats torture and whats not. What happened to the detainees, first of all, there was none of this going on in gtmo. The white cross had a kiosk there red cross had a kiosk there monitoring everything. The difference is if you watch the photos now known as falling men, people who choose to jump to their certain death on the concrete canyons of manhattan as opposed to dying in a funeral that is torture. Not having ost poll dwries to apologize to the language. Caller i can take any one of them and torture them long enough and have them admit to anything. Admit to robbing the bank down the street, killing scombrsk thats just about how it goes. Host that seems in morristown. Two of the stories that can happening in the country yesterday of president Obama Meeting with british Prince William at the in the oval office at the white house noting that Prince William was in washington while the duchess of cambridge visited a preschool on the north side center for Child Development in new york on monday. It was the couples first full day of closely watched trip talking about conservation and education issues. This according to the washington times. The visit is taking the popular duke and cambridge of duchess to new york for an official visit for the First Time Since 2011. And one other story to note. A survey out about morale among federal Government Employees this in the Washington Post. Morale continues to drop. Workers are dismayed by what they see as weak leaders according to a survey thats being released that found that employees Job Satisfaction is at its lowest point since 11 years ago despite the continued positive feedback at some agencies and improving morale at some others, 56 of federal employees are happy with their jobs and would recommend their agencies as places to work in the federal government survey. Among the places the organization that is rated as the best large place in the government to work, nasa took that honor this year the most spirited employees work at the Defense Nuclear facility safety board, which has just 33. 8 of employees, giving positive responses in this years survey. A time for a few more calls. Brianna is in grambling, louisiana, on our line for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller i would like to say a couple of words. Im a black college student, and right now, its kind of hard to trust the government in the Current Situation thats going on. And i feel that yes, its necessary to release the documents. Its good to have some transparency. But i understand that the people involved in the torturing did it necessarily in order to protect myself, my family, and everybody in this country. So they wouldnt be belittled in my eyes. Host do you think that a balance has been struck here on that with a 500page summary of a 6,000page report thats expected to be heavy redacted after months of review . Caller im a little switchy on it. I can see both points of view. So i guess im saying im neutral. Host all right, brianna calling in from grambling, louisiana. Carol has been waiting in ohio for how line for democrats. Carol, good morning. Caller hello. I have one problem with some of the people thats calling in. They said that the republicans say that they didnt want torture to end. Well, i dont think we should ever started torturing. They should be ashamed of themselves as a Republican Party and having a republican president do this. I would be ashamed of it. If i was a republican and im ashamed of it as a democrat. Host are you in favor of the report being released todaysome and if so, do you plan to read it . Caller yes, i do. I plan on reading it. And i think it should be released. It should show what the some people will do while theyre in power. And this is the Republican Party as far as im concerned. They think anything goes. And thats not right. Thats not right at all. Host carol from ohio talking about the report on this enhance Interrogation Program that president obama ended soon after coming into office. The report on that expected to be released today. An executive summary of what is going to be a much larger 6 thoirkspage report. Thats already been completed. David is up next in closer dale, indiana, on our line for independents. David, good morning. Caller hey, good morning. How are you doing, sir . Host good, david. Caller im very ashamed that this torture occurred in the first place. You know, ive seen the c. I. A. Based on the reports of the news going around in germany, going around in other different parts of the world kidnapping people and taking to guantanamo bay. And f. B. I. Flying colombia and kidnapping the ribbles there and took them to colorado and you still havent gotten any arrangement or anything. Hes just being held there. Hurting ourople are safety. And i think that they need to be held accountable so other people quit getting a bad idea about americans. Host david in cloverdale, louisiana. A few more comments from our twitter page. Rick writes in host thats all the time we have in this first segment of the washington journal this morning. Up next, congressman david price, a senior democrat on appropriations will talk about effort to pass a federal spending plan on the current government funding measure. And Republican Congress doug collins will join us ahead of the hearing today. That he will be attending on the affordable air act featuring questioning of the Health Care Law. First, u. S. Ambassador to the ukraine outlined the ongoing conflict on monday at the Atlantic Council in washington, d. C. Heres a bit from that event. Breathtaking pace of change that the country has gone through. And the expectations that ukrainians have for the United States and for their European Partners demand very detailed and close attention to whats unfolding and certainly, the role that the Atlantic Council has provided in offering an authoritative window on the Political Developments in ukraine is greatly valued. I know everybody in the u. S. Government but by our ukrainian partners. And so thank you at that and i hope you will keep at it. In so many ways, the crisis that ukraine faces today is unprecedented in the history of the country. Certainly, the greatest challenge that ukraine has faced since achieving its independence. But its also a moment of great opportunity. And i want to take a minute before we get to the questions and answers to walk through a couple of the reasons that i remain hopeful about whats unfolding today in the ukraine. The unpredictability of this environment is extraordinary. Certainly as you look back over the past year, there are very few who predicted that the president would flee kiev at the end of february, few who predicted the russian strategy of hybrid warfare, the insertion of russian tanks, missiles, heavy equipment, and eventually at the end of the summer, the tragic shootdown of mh17 and the insertion of thousands of regular russian army troops who remain present to this day in smaller numbers but still wa decisive role in the command and control and support of the separatist forces. The resolution of this crisis has enormous consequences for the euroatlantic security system, for american interests in the region. But just as important and in some ways, even more important is what happens in the other 95 of ukraine, how the reform project is sustained. And how this newly elected reformist cabinet is able to deliver on the very High Expectations that the ukrainian people today have laid out. Host and you can see that entire program on our website at cspan. Org. Now were joined by congressman david price. Hes a democrat from North Carolina. He serves on the subcommittee of Homeland Security. He joins us before the clock ticks down on the current funding bill. Lets talk about the current g. O. P. Proposal to fund all of the government through 2015 except for Homeland Security, which would be on a much tighter leash. Where do you stand on that plan . Guest i think its a bad plan. It is aimed at making a political point about immigration and about the president s executive action on immigration. Its a strange way to poke the president in the eye though because what theyre doing, in effect, by breaking out the Homeland Security appropriations bill and putting it on automatic pilot, so to speak, is to in effect, cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the very functions that they want to protect. But this freeze in place, funding for Border Security for Immigration Enforcement. It will almost certainly delay the upgrades to make the white house more secure and through secret service. A big problem for the coast guard in having uncertainty what theyre going to be able to procure and build. Why on earth when youre posing thats champion of these functions and of Immigration Enforcement in particular, why in the world would you cut off your nose to your face . Its all about sending a political symbol that we are displeased with what the president has done and setting a confrontation for the first of march this year although its not clear what thats going to look like. But anyway, you have 11 regular Appropriations Bills stitched together and so for the balance of the year, you will have those appropriations in place. And thats a good thing. And this omission is just crazy. Host for viewers who are tuning into this, it might be helpful to explain what a c. R. Is and what an omnibus is. Guest its a combination of continuation resolution and appropriations. The achievement here is that the Appropriations Committee in both houses ha pursuant to this budget agreement, this ryan murray budget agreement have written in a cooperative fashion appropriations bill. With some of the domestic bills, the numbers are so low that its hard to write good bills. And so were really not doing ourselves any favors in the areas of Health Research and so on. But still, you do have Appropriations Bills that are better, i think, almost uniformly. And putting the government on automatic pilot. And thats what a continuum bill is. You enact a continuum resolution. It means you dont shut things down but you dont make nuances that you make in an appropriations bill. Host as weve seen in headline this morning, this g. O. P. Proposal to fund most to the government through september of 2015, except for d. H. S. Has hit a snag as the headline in the Washington Post this morning. If this bill does get to the floor, would you vote for it . Guest i would have to think about that because the omission of Homeland Security and thats a department that ive chaired as Ranking Member, thats the department that ive looked out for. Thats a very major flaw in that bill and puts a real obstacle out for my support. But the snag has nothing to do, i think, with any of this. I mean, the snag, apparently, has to do with representative wanting to have his way with the regulations. Isnt that typical here at the zero hour, this guy brings in this . Hes trying to squeeze more out of the process. I hope he doesnt succeed. If were going to move forward, we have to get this terrorism insurance done and put together with the omnibus bill. Host viewers want to go back and watch that full segment we did on that. What are your democratic colleagues telling you about this proposal if Speaker Boehner doesnt have all the votes that would need to pass it among republicans . Would democrats come over and support this measure . Guest well, they might. And the possibility that we might is partly whats driving this. Theres some hard liners on the republican side who are probably not going to vote for anything. So if hes going to pass this bill, hes going to have some democratic votes. And he knows the sure way to not have those votes is to leave a lot of these riders, these extreme riders on the bill that have been put on the bill by republicans during the appropriations process. Host these are policy provisions . Guest thats right. And i think the fact that his knowing that he needs those democratic votes has had to do with keeping those stuff off, like provisions trying to damage the Affordable Care act, once again, provisions trying to gut environmental regulations. The sort of things that the Appropriations Bills tend to attract. If you lead those sorts of things off, if the only major flaw is the omission of Homeland Security and it is major, but still. The question is how much could we clean this bill up . If it stays clean, it will pass. Host were talking with congressman david price, democrat of North Carolina. Hes a senior democrat on the Appropriations Committee here to answer your questions and comments. If you have them, republicans can call in as well as democrats and independents. Congressman david price, of course, 13term member. Just reelected to his 14th term and serving as i said, on the Appropriations Committee. On that committee, you had the Homeland Security subcommittee. Can you talk more about the Practical Implications of the keeping Homeland Security on sort of that shorter leash . What will what could viewers see as the impacts of that . Guest well, theres the political purpose thats going on here. Thats at work here, to try to express displeasure about the president s executive action on immigration which is a perfectly reasonable executive action, just exercising some discretion like every prosecutor does about hom we deport and whom we take enforcement action against. Host beyond the political maneuvering. Guest thats right. They want to show displeasure. Their idea is to take the Homeland Security department out of the appropriations bill, put it on a short leash. Freezing it in place until the end of february of next year. So the political implication is that you have some kind of showdown at the end of february of next year. I dont know what they think thats going to look like or who it helps. But anyway, there has to be something before the department shuts down. The implication in terms of department functioning is something we should worry about. This is a serious matter. This is freezing in place, funding for the very things republicans profess to care about. Freezing in place, Border Security. Freezing in place Immigration Enforcement. Making secret service scramble at best, making them scramble to put those additional protections in the white house in place that we need. The coast guard as a whole schedule of procurement and ship building that will be thrown into uncertainty. You know, and so well have to fix that in late february but amid conditions of probably political turmoil. Host but a shutdown of just d. H. S. Happens in mid february if that debate happens and a shutdown happens, what actually stops happening at d. H. S. . Central functions would continue, correct . Guest no, thats a good point because d. H. S. Is the Homeland Security department, after all, and thats a term of ours in government as our listeners probably know. The Border Security is not going to set home. But they wont be paid. With great uncertainty about what the future holds for their job and for their department. So, i think Something Like 85 of the personnel of Homeland Security are deemed essential personnel. Doesnt mean the border will go unprotected but it means the hardworking people will not be paid or their pay will be delayed. And the whole i mean, one of the main problems, i think, with government these days is uncertainty. And the unpredictability and just lurching from crisis to crisis. Why would you want to be that and especially with Homeland Security, those essential tuckses would we want to do that . Its a temper tantrum taking legislative form here on our republican colleagues. Poke the president in the eye. Host viewer calls with congressman david price. David is up first on our line for independents. Good morning, david. Caller hey, good morning. How are you gentlemen this morning . Host good, david. Go ahead. Caller i was calling about a comment that the representative made earlier about at the very last moment, we get a person like representative and it puts a snag in this at the very last minute. My question is we know from yeartoyear when the appropriation is due. Why is it that it is the very last minute before anything is ever taken up or done about it . We have a group of democrats right now who are going to be leaving office and he talks about the politics of the republicans. But what about the democrats who want to push something through while they are in this lame duck period before the holidays and for a full appropriation bill continuingr reid has resolutions for how many years . Host congressman . Caller well, the guest , well, the cralle as a whole has resolutions for a good number of years. And when the Appropriations Bills are not ready, the full process hasnt played out and we need to keep the government going for some period of time until we can pass bills. It isnt good practice. It speaks the kind of breakdown of the normal appropriations process which i think is a great loss for the congress. Thats essential power of the purse and a great loss for the country. So there has been this brinksmanship. It indicates that what used to be a fair from the partisan divisions that have beset us here in washington. We come at the last minute, whenever the fiscal year ends or whatever the continued resolution runs out, we have to scramble to get the bills and place. Year is ans this relative improvement on that. We have had a budget agreement the murrayear, agreement which put some numbers in place thomas that escaped sequestration, escaped these mindless, acrosstheboard cuts, reasonably normal Appropriations Bills. What the good news is. A stick together package of 11 out of those 12 else. House and the senate under reasonably cooperative circumstances. It is an effort to get back to Something Like this process. We should do that. We should go ahead and get these bills in place and take advantage of those that work. Is monkeywrench that just throwing into the works has nothing to do with this. I think the caller is right about this. To say, well lets go back and revisit dodd frank, no. That is a path to further deadlock. Caller there seems to be a lack of discussion about getting the whole federal leviathan on under control. The gdp constantly regulate or make it impossible to run a Small Business with obamacare and just the massive federal regulations. There was a congressman a few years ago who just said, every year, give somebody one penny less, dollar, to try to get this , how 18 trillion debt now is it no one in Congress Seems to care . Throwing more debt on our backs, is there actual more discussion in congress about this . We are nibbling around the edges of that problem. People who beat their chest the most about the problems youre talking about. A comprehensive budget agreement is required Going Forward. The reason that is not too hard to figure out is that we did it twice back in the 1990s. Budget agreement, bipartisan basis, president bush, democrats in congress, and heavy lifting alone produced the 1993 budget agreement. The results of all of that was political lot of they dealt with appropriated spending. Everything on the table, something for everybody to dislike. I will continue to think those were among the best votes i ever cast. What happened was a fouryear budgets,alanced surfaces, we paid off almost 400 billion of the national debt. Politicala lot of fallout for both sides. But we did the right thing. That of course is what went in the trash with the george w. Bush administration, to billion dollar tax cuts right off the bat. Get back to the socalled grand bargain. How do we get back to a serious budget agreement that puts our future in place . Republicans will not even talk about taxes and Neither Party is comfortable with the entitlement question. What the folks running the house now have done is go again and , which actually is some of the best investments we made, Health Research, building highways and transit systems. That builthe things our economic future. It is the wrong place to cut. Say is right, that we need to get a hold of this, put it in a larger perspective, not just cutting, but also making sure that government functions well and that we are making good investments. The only way to do that is to get a solid budget agreement in place Going Forward. While the challenge is greater than they were in the 1990s, the politics were much worse. For a long time, even before the terms in congress, fester of clinical silent science and psychology, he is answering your calls, taking your questions this morning. Up next in rockville, maryland, on our line for democrats. Good morning. Good morning. Congratulations, congressman. You have duke and carolina. That is great. My comment is that it seems , and just dealing with the continuing resolutions, this is bringing up budget a year. Ore than once in it seems it would be more prudent to set a budget for three years and have a lot of debate and a lot of discussion, get it established, and then the business environment, everybody would know what is there and what they would be dealing with for three years. All the federal agents as well. I work for one, and at times we look at congress and say, that is the measurement for us . We really do not feel that good about it. I work for health and human services. That has been a Beleaguered Agency because of budget uncertainty, moving from crisis to crisis. No function of government has , education as well, in recentwe have seen years. A oneyear process that works the way it is supposed to. There have been people who have suggested by annual budgeting every two years or three years. With some specific functions, we have moved to that. Public broadcasting for various reasons. There are areas where we have moved in that direction. I think what you have, honestly, if you tried to pass a threeyear budget it all at detail, what you have is an inevitable need for revisions, reprogramming. I am not sure you gain that much. There needs to be a response to changing conditions, and i believe it would be a pretty big stretch to write a detailed appropriations bill to cover a threeyear. A threeyear period. We need to think more about the budget process. We have a five year and a 10 year frame for budget planning. We need to make that work. I would settle for a good, solid, one year at a time appropriations process. We have not had that for years. John is waiting on our line for republicans. Caller good morning. Why we keepondering funding other countries that literally hate americans and do and constantlyre cutting american citizens hair. It seems a little backwards to me. Guest which countries are we funding . Caller any country that hates american citizens. Any country. The middle eastern countries. You name it. Guest we fund local health operations, foreign aid countries. I know we often get this question, i often get it. We fund our interest. That may be one of a humanitarian interests. Where georgerea, w. Bush stepped out and that has been good bipartisan support. Our military operations are undertaken in this countrys interests. That is not to say we should not debate these things, but in principle, we are a local power, the global power, and we have a inke in what is going on various parts of the world. We have to measure that stake and invest accordingly. Foreign aid, per se, is less than 1 of the budget. Military operations, considerably more than that. Be measuring stick should the u. S. National interests. What we stand for as a people. Host chris on our line for independents. Caller good morning. One of the things that, you know, i looked at is the federal government moves and has a budget where there is an increase in every time someone takes away from the increase, they call it a cut in. Personally, i have been in the private sector a long time. Approach doesthat not have the responsibility built into it. The other thing is, when you not justbudget, you do say, hey, spend it on whatever you feel like. Every single month in my department, i had to have my budget, what i was spending it on, what i was showing for it. That is something based on budgeting and whatnot, it constantly increases. We have to make our justification every year. If you can look at the world like we do in business, that could help you get things realigned. Let me try to address both of the points you raised. Way ofe budgeting is a projecting financial needs for a department, and agency, a program, to maintain services. That is at the baseline is, an andstment for inflation, whatever might be involved in trying to estimate what is required in future years. In other words, to buy exactly what you bought in 2014, what would you need in 2015 . You want to know the number because the absolute dollar number in 2014 will not suffice adjustment baseline is an adjustment to take into account inflation and other changes. Budgeting baseline acquires us or another agency to propose that. We want to know what it is, but we might appropriate a flatline budget, a baseline adjustment, or we might appropriate more than that. There is nothing automatic about the appropriations process. It is just a piece of information you need to have to do intelligent budgeting. Entitlement programs like medicare and Social Security, those get adjusted by virtue of who is eligible for the program and whatever the cost might be. That is why you get hard to control inflationary factor or upward pressure. But that is not a baseline budgeting problem. It is one way of estimating your budget needs. It is not a required appropriation. Directives, i am all for directives. I do not Want Congress to macro manage every federal department. You we oftenl withhold funding until we are satisfied that a certain problem has been remedied or a certain directive has been carried out. Its than the rest of the money once this has been taking care so the appropriations process is all about directives and spending is to be carried out. It is a legitimate legislative function to scrutinize very carefully the the performance of departments and Going Forward, your money and your level of funding will depend on straightening things out. Minutes left with congressman price of North Carolina. I want to ask you this question we asked our viewers about this morning, set to be the day that senate will release the socalled terror report, 6000 page report. Some concerns about diplomatic reaction to the report and whether it might put troops and diplomats overseas in danger. Where do you stand on whether that should be released right now . That is time to release report. It will apparently be released with the white house approving that release. That are considerations require us to prepare for possible repercussions overseas, and we know the report is going to embarrass this country. We will learn what we really already know, i think, in people, that what most would regard as torture was carried out and that this was a wrong turn our country took. It has been corrected. Transparency is a good thing in most areas, in most respects. Whatrtainly need to know has done in our name and we need to know what has to been done so it does not recur. This report needs to be released. There will be appropriate s, but i believe in this case, the balance of considerations one estimate, transparency and accountability on the one hand, and protecting of Security Operations and personnel on the other, i think the balance is very much tipped in favor of releasing this report. Host the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee that put that report together, expected to be on the floor today live at about 11 00 a. M. Twocan watch that on cspan. George is on our line for democrats. Paul, you are on. Good morning, cspan. My question for the democrats in general is why is it that the democrats always have to bail out the republicans when they ke bonehead decisions and they did nothing to help the democrats in the Affordable Care act. . Host which decisions . Caller the republicans did nothing to help the democrats. Hope, inll, i would that example, lets just take that, the Affordable Care act, we know every major piece of legislation requires some repair work. , draftingcorrections mistakes such as this one, that the court is considering right now, the drafting mistake in the Affordable Care act, it seems unclear whether all the states will be entitled to, no matter how much their exchanges are being run, that they will be entitled for subsidies for lowincome people to afford Health Insurance. The purpose was for all states to be involved in that no matter how exchanges were run, but one section of the bill where the drafting may that unclear. That ought to be fixed in a heartbeat. It should have been fixed the first minute it was spotted very spotted. Host why wasnt it . Guest that is what the caller is getting at. Why on earth would this become a question, let alone something this important has to do with . No matter how you feel about the Affordable Care act, i would not put it in terms of democrats helping republicans or vice versa. I would put it in terms of making sure whatever the law is, it is workable and that there is a cooperative process for making sure the law says what it is , and problemsy that really affect the American People and the effectiveness of our government could be addressed in a bipartisan way. To be what we are struggling to achieve. That is why i am sure the caller is onto it. Why should partisan pettiness stand in the way of often just minor adjustments in the way our laws were drafted . Roberto was up early with us in san diego, california, on our line for republicans. Are you there . Pat, who isgo on to waiting in new york on our line for independents. Good morning. Pat is not there either. We will come back to the phone calls in just a second. I want to talk a little bit about what is expected on your side in the next 48 hours on the possible passage guest the expectation, unless some story has broken in the last hour while we were talking, the expectation is to be filed today and be voted into the house on thursday. In terms of the possibility of giving much time for the members to fix the ,roblems, to come to a decision is return cr possible . It is possible, not desirable. With the insistence on revisiting the whole range of dodd frank problems as he perceives them, things like that, unfortunately, things can throw much you monkey wrenches into the system. It can go awry here. Strong desireis a in the part of leadership of both houses to get this put to bed. We can save a lot of battles for another day. My expectation and my hope would be this would get done this week. A question from viewers, what is the entitlement question . Guest well, i think basically that assurance is there are many of us who are determined to the main features of medicare and Social Security programs. When i talked earlier in the Budget Discussion about the comprehensive budget agreement of the 1990s, that got the fiscal problem wrestled to the us run surpluses for four years, when i mentioned everything was on the table, i did say taxes, entitlement spending, and appropriated spending. I said the first two had largely been left off the table. There is a lot of devil in the which kinds of adjustments they think are appropriate there. There were adjustments made in the 80s. They actually saved the program and saved it from bankruptcy. That is why people in the upper income levels pay some income taxes on their Social Security benefits and other adjustments made critique of programs solvent. We ran on the edges of these yourams and i will tell another example on medicare, the Medicare Advantage programs, the privatized medicare programs. Some of the surpluses, some of the subsidies put on those privatized programs by our friends over the years, they are backed by the Affordable Care act, so the privatized medicare are on medicare. That is entitlement savings and does nothing to change the entitlement or make it less effective. Are places where savings can be achieved. All i am saying is those things need to be looked at, along with other items to get a comprehensive deal moving forward. Price,ongressman dave democrat from North Carolina, we appreciate your time this morning. Come back again and join us. Withxt, we will be talking congressman doug collins. We will be right back. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] we apologize. We are having technical issues on our audio line. Are working to get that fixed soon. To get that fixed soon. Education, cleveland. Invitation. Aid, feeling disinclined the senate world has recently seen several highprofile challenges to freedom of speech. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to get the commencement address at rutgers following student protests over the bush administrations war in iraq, and the use of waterboarding two informationbtain from detainees. The invitation to speak had whate a distraction for she put it, a joyous celebration. For 30 years as a professor and provost and chief academic officer at stanford university, said i am honored to have served my country. She is prominent nationally in Higher Education reform, and declaredely frequently. You name it, she has been on it. Fox, npr, and others. She has been twice reform on the National Advisory declared frequently. You name it, she has been on it. Fox, npr, and others. She has been twice reform on the National Advisory committee, which advises the u. S. Secretary of education on federal accreditation. She earned her undergraduate great from Harvard College and her law degree from harvard law school, where she was resident of the harvard journal on education. And she practiced law on communication. I am pleased to resent the now president of the American Council of trustees and alumni. Like any organization to give a freespeech with a gong. I was really impressed and amazed to see really a beacon of ideasange exchanges of so long. Given your principles, i do not really think i need to make a statement at all. Poet lucan in one of romes public latrines, the poet lucan romans scrambled to put on their togas and get out of the p otty leslie and former find them smiling and charge them with treason. Hilarious, except the executions and forced suicides were not. Nowadays, inappropriate laughter may not be a problem in public latrines, but any number of current observations can bring black listings, disinvitations and other punishments on our college campuses. Sensitivities are on high alert when the topics that are potentially offensive and increasingly offlimits are growing. You heard the term disinvitation season. Choosing a cantus speakers should be about hearing a distinguished person, usually someone who has taken a controversial stand. But on the politically correct campus, many students and faculty now are less interested in hearing a challenging perspective than they are in having what the Washington Post has called freedom from unpalatable speech. As you just heard, Condoleezza Rice had to bow out of eking at and she practiceddents reason is left free to combat it. Again, in 1859, john stuart outlined the matter. The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is robbing the human race, posterity, as well as the existing generation those of deceptive opinions as well as those who hold it. They are deprived of the opportunity for exchanging the air for truth. The clear perception and the livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error. In 1915, the American Association of University Professors issued its seminal declaration of principles, to find Academic Freedom as a twoway street, students freedom to learn and faculty freedom to teach. The professors business, they wrote, was not to provide students with conclusions but to train it to think for themselves , and to provide the maxis to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently. For many years, there was a fairly uniform agreement among academics that nothing was more central to the life of the mind than a Robust Exchange of ideas. Over the last 50 years, the concept of Academic Freedom has been under attack and from within. In its place has been an academic regime that is has regularly put sensitivities and sensitivities and since abilities first. The ideas of jefferson are regularly considered antiquated today and an obstacle to progress of thinking. In other words, there is no need to search for truth because the institution has already determined what the truth is. Political correctness has provided the impetus to punish students and faculty members for expressing certain offensive thoughts, often touching race, gender, sexual orientation, and other hot button contemporary topics. Today, a student or faculty member found to have deviated from the reigning orthodoxy, far from being praised, can find himself they ridiculed or sent to sensitivity training or worse. The pc mentality is alive and well. Were we see is the weakening of the core colicky on core curriculum, the emergence of speech goats and trigger warnings. The tragic consequences are not only to weaken liberal arts education, but to shortchange students of the future and to undermine our competitiveness. So lets start with college curriculum. At one time, faculty administrators had the courage to define what is important for students to be able to do. Students could make some choices , but they started with a largely prescribed liberal arts curriculum leading to a major that would equip them to partake in the common conversation of welleducated people. Not today. A major like english today is not so much a body of important writers, genres and important work, but a hodgepodge of classes. Shakespeare and milton are not necessary anymore. Advocacy and sensitivity training regularly supplant rigorous intellectual training. Lets look at a few courses, all of which individually are fine courses, but the question is should this the a students only exposure. We will look at union college. Students can substitute such courses as narrative of haunting in u. S. Ethnic literature for Foreign Language studies. At wellesley, rainbow cowboys and girls, gender, race, class and sexuality and westerns were passed for the language and literature requirement. At uc boulder, the u. S. Context requirement may be satisfied by core films and american culture. And my favorite at l myra we will leave this now and back now to washington journal. Washington journal continues. In an hour, congressman collins is expected to be at a hearing on the Affordable Care act, which will of course include Health Law Advisor Jonathan Gruber. Minutes or so, the georgian Republican Congressman is with us on the washington journal. What will your questions be for progressive for the professor . Guest when you look at what comes across as arrogance, what goes back to come in the past five or six years of law, people just feel like they were taken advantage of, and that they were lied to. Confirmed what most people out there in america would say, something is not right about this. What comes across is the arrogance of saying that people are stupid and the voters are stupid. For those of us trying to have a governance, is to say there are people trying to actually do things right, to have openness , millions ofncy dollars on the back of taxpayers. Not a good thing. Hes an economist known for his policy chops. How much of a role do you think he played in clinical maneuvering to pass the Affordable Care act . Influential in being the architect of obama care. One of the interesting questions i heard floating around a little bit is i wondered if you would say how well they would know him. At one point, they were saying they knew him and they work hard on and he worked hard on this. Ow they are denying him it would be interesting for him to say, ok, they are saying they do not know you. How well do you know him . Not the first time the Oversight Government Reform Committee has looked into the Affordable Care act. What will be different today besides gruber . Guest dealing with the issue of the numbers. They really work well together in a sense of, here you have the gentleman in massachusetts but also the obamacare plan as well, talking about accuracy, and then at the same time, being inflated with dental plans and not health plans. What you will be looking at is a lack of transparency surrounding a political agenda. And this hearing happening 9 30 today. Can you explain who else will be here . The democrat on the panel get to bring a witness as well, correct . Be theyes, those would projected oversight at this point, and that will be the focus of hearing. Guest do you think they will be there to defend gruber or distance themselves . Host it will be interesting to see. At one point, you need a Ranking Member who has been very forthright, where he has felt like he has been deceived or he felt like there was an issue where the government is not functioning properly. I think he has already been on statement saying he would talk about all the good things in obamacare and what is happening and going on. They are just going to try to play defense on some very damning statements made, affecting Public Opinion even more so and it is hard to believe that could happen. Host for folks who are may be unfamiliar with some of those statements, maybe we should play a few of them now. Is economist Jonathan Gruber talking about the Affordable Care act and how it was passed. You cannot do it politically. All transparent spending. Ais bill was written in tortured way to make sure cbo did not score the mandate were taxes. If they did, the bill dies. It is written to do that. Terms of subsidies, you get a law which said Healthy People will pay in as sick people get money. It would not have passed. Just like you have peoples lack of transparency is a huge advantage. Call it the stupidity of American Voters or whatever, but that was really all to getting it to past. It is the second best argument. I wish it was right and was transparent, but i would rather have this law than not. Host commerce and doug collins will be at the house in 45 minutes. If you have questions for congressman college, we have phones that republicans can call , democrats, independents. Will start first, congressman, with thomas calling in from daytona beach, florida, on our line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. Yes, it is amazing how twofaced some people can be. When you set up their and you are going to act like the Affordable Care act has just binge reamed up by the democrats, guest what. Guess what. It is a republican plan. The first state to put it into existence is massachusetts. The governor, which actually ran he president , mitt romney, is the one with his big idea. Protect the Insurance Companies. People like myself who are really democrat, we want singlepayer or a public option. You can for yourself and think this is over, but it is not over. I am not sure where to jump in on this. T goes back to the whole issue i think mitt romney stated it was a good option for the state. When you apply a nationally, a lot of issues came in there. An issue i have and many of my constituents, people across the country are saying it is not a matter of where the idea came from. It was just bad for the country, bad for business, and bad for the actual ones that wanted to help. Back to the problems so far, when you have a Health Care Law designed to help people, and instead we have more people uninsured, premiums that bring people in on one premium but they cannot pay the copays, it is just a problem developed when you do a lot, and i love the quote, i would rather have this law than not, so i will do any you can to make it happen. That is the problem with the law. If you also listen to other statements made talking about rationing health care and things like that come it goes to the heart of what many have been saying about Health Care Law altogether. Think gruber will stick by these statements . , tot he has two choices stick by the statements and tell the American People they are stupid. I think the last few elections say that americans do understand the government. And what a lot of them would expect them to do is come in and apologize. My statement especially about the American People, death the statements about the rest of the law being pushed through in written in a tortured way were truthful statements. From that perspective, he has to own those. The issue is how much information he is willing to. Ive and how much was involved host congressional action if he offers that policy or answered a question . What is the next step . Guest it weighs into the continued discussions of how we are going about this and also in dealing with the American People, how we will go about dealing with the healthcare law in the new congress, dealing with the issues, medical. Advice tax, bringing this thing that has been so onerous sum, business and people, it gives a further push for democrats uneasy about this but went along with it, now having their worst nightmares revisited, saying this is the things were worried about, and it is actually true in this bill. Host jodie is waiting on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for cspan. Representative collins, the only two things good about this obamacare is the limits and the fact that it is preexisting. The rest of it, how many our tax dollars have been wasted . Please try, when we take over the house and the senate, please repeal it. Please stop the mexicans coming in. I really wish we could have legal immigration. I am originally from arizona. I know it looks like and why in the world, Something Else real quick, why are they letting the cia report out, knowing it may get People Killed . Guest i think a lot of things are going on. There are issues i think everyone can agree upon. Things, i am the father of a child with disabilities. I understand preexisting conditions and the heart position. Forced into actions could have been done a whole different way. I think she is right about that. Those are the things we will repeal, doing patient centered care instead of the Government Center care. The other issue we will go along with, immigration and those kinds of things, is we are for legal immigration. Comment that it is amazing to me that many folks coming from third world countries or other places where theyre feeling oppressed because of a lack of rule of law, they are now coming to a country in which we are basically waving the rule of law and expanding a program which should not have been expanded. You are leaving a nonrule of law to come to a place where we are waving the rule of law to satisfy a political agenda. That is very concerning. They simply do not understand why the process works like this. George waiting in michigan on our line for independents. Good morning. I think this whole argument about obamacare is a rope a dope strategy to waste time and test their money. I think we need universal health care, and i would suggest we find it the same way we fund the united its military. People pay taxes, we have the full protection of the United States defense department, from enemies foreign and domestic, why cant i just a little more taxes and have doctors and hospitals, the same way i have and tanks and all kinds of weapons of killing . The United States is the best at killing in the world. We have the greatest military. Worldss can have the greatest health care if we put the same energy into making people healthy and prevent that wend Heal Injuries do into going around the world and killing people. I think were going to have a philosophical difference here and that is ok. That is what this show is about. George feels like he is not paying enough taxes, where he could build any amount sent over to the treasury and it would be happy to go into the treasury. The issue in this administration, the only thing being cut, and it is interesting he should bring up the military, is the cuts that have been made to the military in a time of transition and the time that is very unstable. Some of the proposed estimates have come from defense. It is interesting Everyone Wants universal health care and they want to pay their taxes for that. But they do not want the rationing and other things that come with that. The issue of what we would do in the budget we currently have, 18 trillion in debt. It was the choice we have to make. It is just a bad choice. Talking with congressman doug collins, elected to his second term in congress. He is here for the next 25 or 40 minutes or so. I want to get back to the question a viewer brought up earlier to get your thoughts on the socalled torture report coming from the Senate Intelligence committee today. Your thoughts on whether that should be released today . I do not think it should. For me, it is the timing of it. Chairmanooking at a wanting to release this report. There is always a concern, even when it is heavily redacted, even when it is keeping it as sterile as you can have it, there are still times that you will have parts of the world, techniques and places in time, that put us and our folks in danger. That is a process for the committee and congress and the administration to deal with. To simply put out what seems to be a very political reason now, two weeks or a week away before we end the congress and go into a Republican Congress. It seems to me that this is something from a political agenda, to take away from the other issues, from obamacare an invitation and everything else, but focus and distract people. Host a congressman made a comment that America Needs to know what they had what has been done in their name . Do you agree . Do you support it sometime in the future . Guest there are ways to do that and understanding the process that has gone through, and again, the congressional oversight has been there and it is something that is addressed simply putting a report out that says, basic to the world, your is what we feel like i will assume ive only heard bits and pieces of it, is our failures in the world, which i and, the oneg, thing this will do is ensure we have across the world during the holiday season, because terrorists and others will use this as an excuse, to do great harm. Even the administration recognizes this and says they are ready for it. Are the weights and balances here . That is the discussion that has not been had. For it to come up like this, to make, it seems like it is put out there as a distraction. It is to this is in dividing the country on the healthcare law and other spending issues we had to do with before Congress Gets here. Jeff is waiting on our line for democrats. Good morning. Caller yes. I would like to ask the congressman, in the state of georgia, there are almost 300,000 people without any health care except for emergency room because they did not take the expansion of medicaid. Number two, georgia has the highest number of hospital probably in the United States. My question to him is what is the plan . I have not seen one for health care. Our plan for immigration . Because nobody has said seal the borders. But when that happens, what else happens . That is what is wrong. The American People want to know. The Affordable Care act is here. It, thenaway all of went to the people get . I will take your answer offline. I thank you. One of the issues, and we have got to get back to an understanding. You talk about georgias medicaid, and a spring court upheld the right for states to refuse that. When you actually look at the cost expansion after the first years of what that would mean youre talking a significant, major portion of the budget and georgia that would have to be dedicated to an expansion, georgia has been going through like every other state in the past few years with now just getting back to levels of spending for regular government service. Were just getting back to the spending levels without tax creases and everything so businesses can generate. The same caller will be saying, why isnt georgia spending more in education . These kinds of things. It is a matter of priorities. The problem with obamacare is expecting the government to bed bill pushing him a state. Their closing on the on obamacare. Is a mistake and we talk about immigration issues as well. ,he House Judiciary Committee that we are dressing border workery, addressing bill, visas, these kinds of passed withpast republican support and things we believe in. The problem was, there was not room to move forward because the administration actually fell into law, it fell right into a we are saying for those of us who want to actually fix immigration. Byn he fell right into it doing his actions a few weeks ago, which puts no trust on this in misdirection to follow through for anything. Twitter, noon on one, many people, callers to the show, still believe the obama care law is a very good thing, that it is set up perfectly in the sense that it helped all who were supposed to be held. You have to look at the very reason the healthcare law is not working for the American People and not working for the folks who need it. It is because of these very issues of lack of transparency and lack of being honest with what the numbers are and how you are fudging numbers to get to your totals. Jonathan grubers comments simply go to that fax of here is how we got into this mess. Others have put forward plans that are Just Health Care and adjust the needs for previous conditions and imprisonment rates. Those are out there. The problem is, we have got to get to the point where we get to the house and senate and understand that this is becoming a failure. Host on our line for republicans, good morning, jenny. How many Financial Advisers do you have working on the healthcare law . Youre talking about the congressman specifically or all members of congress . Do they have Financial Advisors assisting them on how to send money on the healthcare law . I never hear that. That is why i wanted to know. Guest im not really sure exactly what she is looking for their. We have advisors and tax committees and others have advisors that show the projections from a Congressional Budget Office to others who look at the cost in the spending. Maybe that is what she is talking about. Cbo e impartial guest right. The ways and means, the oversig. We have those that look into those as well. Is from island heights, new jersey, on our line for independents. Caller i have been told that congress is guilty of Commission Rather than omission. Why should gruber apologize to the congress, who is characterized by doing nothing . The transition that congress has taken from imposing taxes like the gentleman earlier yes, we would tolerate a few extra dollars when you think of it spread out over 150 million taxpayers in the United States. We would tolerate a little increasing taxes to support the Affordable Care act and other things, but congress has taken the position to not because they know it is political death to recommend taxes. So what they are doing is authorizing these various fees. Es to authorize what you have got as a result, for example, you have got the destruction of the generic drug is this in the United States as a result of the authorization of the fda to require annual fees of each company if you make one generic drug or 1000, to pay on the order of 200,000. We have got it. I want to let the congressman comment on the increasing use of fees by drug agencies. Not have to apologize to congress, gruber needs to apologize to the American People. That is an affront to anyone. This goes to a regulatory issue that we have in this country. We dont have a lot of time this morning to get into it, but the regulatory front, which i have , dealing with the expansion that is basically nonelected workers in these agencies who are passing laws, doing passing time between osha and others, who have the discrimination to independently penalize. Many who support Affordable Health care are saying i willing that i am willing to pay more taxes because i want this. But he is not willing to pay more taxes for things that he does not like. This is the whole discussion we are having, where we are as far as taxes, what were spending on. I think we have a prioritization issue. What we will see in the next congress and what we are pushing for is looking into the spending, doing the bills, bringing a budget. The incoming chairman from georgia will be working on a budget that we can agree with the house and the senate on. And then paul ryan is looking at our tax code. When we begin to look at those things, then there will have to be an addressing of the main mandatory spending drivers medicare, medicaid, Social Security those things that are driving the budget. Lookinggot to begin holistic we at our budget and spending problem, but were never going to be able to come to prioritization spending. For congress to come and say here is what we believe in. Those are level of who are liberals who are supporting a singlepayer system , many are paying many are supporting a Business Model that can be paid for in a proper way to a we will have those discussions. Be afraid of the open dialog, but we have to acknowledge that the budget is so out of balance that we are 18 billion in debt 18 trillion in debt. In a few years we will not have these conversations because the debt ratios are going to be so out of whack that the tax increases would not solve it. They will not solve it now. Host sam is on outline for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. Mr. Collins, isnt it true that the way and economist looks at taxes and the way the west of us the rest of us look at taxes, for you and me, paying taxes means paying to the government. To a economist like gruber, it means paying money that we might not orally that we might not ordinarily spend in the economy. So this is a sideshow based on a semantic difference, it seems to me for it and until both the democrats and the republicans start addressing the problems of the American Public instead of looking to the next election or your ideological backers, institution is going to continue to see your poll numbers drop further than they have, art say . Further than they have, arent they . We need to do what we are elected to do, to legislate and take of the real issues. It depends on the economist and their views. Host grubers comments were a matter of semantics . Guest no, i think his comments were dead on. He said it mandate would not go through if viewed as attacks. They had to write that it was not a tax, and when they get to the Supreme Court, they argue that it is a tax. You cannot have it both ways or, of course they can, which is why they passed it. Looking at the longterm problems in the bigger results and taking something that has been missing from this that what the gruber comments have done even more so is both republicans and democrats, republicans who like obamacare and think the benefits are good when you look at what he said, lets take a step back. What he is saying is that governance is about tricking the American People, not letting them understand their government. What has happened over the past five or six years, whether it be the tea party movement, conservatives like myself who have been elected to congress, or even my friends across town who are liberal, we have to take the process to the American People and say we are going to be open and work toward getting these things done. But we also have got to be to a point where we have got to earn that trust back. We have to do so by showing that we are willing to work on the things that matter and get our country back, physically stable thomas so that we can make priorities. That in ourwill see leadership and the Senate Leadership when we retreat together in january so we can lay out an agenda that is together so that we are not fighting between the two branches and we are saying here are the things that we are talking about. We want to talk about our Border Security and legal immigration. We want to talk about the Energy Policy in america. Theant to talk about medical device tax per at things that we can find agreement on that are not bipartisan compromises but that are good conservative ideas, and then make the president s shoes. For six years this president truly has not and i say this in a way make hard decisions. Harry reid was in control of the senate and any time he needed it to stop, harry reid would shut the process down. Passed60 democrats who the obamacare legislation, 30 of them are no longer in office. 19 chose to willingly walk away. It was an interesting concept Going Forward. Lets go to arizona, jim waiting on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call, congressman collins. I am terribly concerned and worried why no one is held accountable for the lying that goes on in washington across the board, both from our administration and from some of the senators and some of the congressmen. Why is it that no one is held accountable, other than doing it at the ballot box . No prosecution at all for lying to the American People continually. If i lied at work the way these representatives and elected officials lie, i would be terminated, short of terminating i would be terminated. Short of terminating them at the ballot box, what can actually be done . Guest the interesting issue, and i will just deal from a representative standpoint, when advantages,ological the issue of the misperception in the lying here grubers his actual use of when i am working on this Health Care Law, we knew we had to do certain things to deceive. We knew we could not call it a tax. If we told them that Healthy People would be paying the burden for those who were not healthy, we told in this transfer was going on, we could not get it passed. We have to look at what this brings out, why the imperative to make changes into our health basis ofe at this being a frank and honest discussion with the American People. I do town hall meetings. I do a lot of meetings across the district. It goes back to money every time. How do you hold people accountable, the administration . Thecongress has appropriations process. That should be where you hold if you do not like something the administration is doing, you withhold the money. You work it out until you get an agreement between the two. When i go home and i explain to people what are spending actually looks like and the fact that most everything, when they think of the federal government and they can think of from the fbi to the legislative branch to the Judicial Branch everything they can think of in the federal government for the most part, we print or borrow that money. When they realize that the money that we see is basically operational, is going is being paid not to taxes but through borrowing and printing, they begin to understand there are choices that have to be made. Most of them have never seen that process laid out. Is divided the 16 up between defense which is not mandatory. Those are the kinds of things that hit when jim is talking about. We have to be honest with people, and say here is what it is, here is why it is so bad, and here is why it cannot change overnight. Host what do you think will happen in the next 48 hours with the gop plan to fund most of the federal government through september of next year, but keeping the department of Homeland Security on a shorter leash . At least the interpretation that we have, i have not seen the text of that bill yet. I think that process is what will move forward. I think we are on a plan to get through host do you think you will vote for it . I think the process of taking the twostep pieces is something we can look at because the immigration issue right now, this needs to be addressed and this president has expanded a program that we in the house have said you cannot even continue. But he is expanding it. It gives us a chance to narrow the field, lets discuss this issue of immigration forthrightly, and say we have a problem in our country we need to deal with, but not with all the other distractions in the process. We will see how it goes in the next two days. I see no baby a i see no deviation from that. Host an article from the hill newspaper guest it goes to what i said a few minutes ago. ,e cannot continue the process and my hope is that the american talk about doing that regular order, but you have the priorities of the American People and the priorities that we ran on functioning in a budget. In president at that point time has to make a choice per he signs it or he vetoes it. Wet is an important feature have been missing for six years. He makes speeches and makes executive orders, but now he has to veto or pass something. Host we have a couple of minutes left before, Richmond Collins has to get to that hearing with Jonathan Gruber. Lets go to steve on our line for independents. Caller good morning. My concern is, look, Congress Gets paid well, five times well more than the median income, 50 of your colleagues are millionaires. Many who had a net worth of zero in 1997 are now multimillionaires. And they have always been in politics in washington dc in washington, d. C. Maybe they had good investments. Discouraging for the output. You get health care, free, basically. So why do us, the taxpayers, the american citizen the economy, remember that thing, the economy, stupid . Paid,ould congress get have all the benefits, travel, youthat stuff, and yet cannot get along and Work Together. You can blame each other all you want, but there does not appear n who any good statesme can show leadership and move the country forward, Just Like Congress has moved forward, in 1990. Your colleagues were making 97,000. Now they are almost making double. Host we will give you a chance to respond, congressman. Guest i agree that we have Work Together as a government. I came appear because i believe this is a place that symbolizes to the world a shining light, a place that people want to come to. I am not part of the number he throws out, 50 billionaires. I am not going to talk about net worth, but i came appear and i do not get free i came up here and i do not get free health care. There is a perception that congressman do not pay Social Security. I pay Social Security out of my check every month. I live in my office. I do things that i believe can move the country forward. Steve hit on a very important fact, trust. It is just saying we are going to work, we are going to hold it together, and we have to make sure the the American People believe they are part of the equation in washington. That is what Jonathan Grubers comments went directly against. Heading to the hearing, having a happening at 9 30 on cspan3. We appreciate your time on washington journal. Up next, we will be talking to our democratic viewers only about the debate that has started among some Democratic Party leaders about whether the passage of the Affordable Care act was a political mistake. We will open our phones to the democratic callers. But first, a news update from cspan radio. It is 9 16 a. M. Eastern time. Britains Prince William and his wife, kate, are scheduled to visit the National September 11 Memorial Museum 30 todays visit to the site, where 67 british citizens were among those who died, the most of any foreign country, comes on the last day of the duke and duchess of cambridges trip. Their visit to new york city and washington, d c, was the first time that either of them have visited those cities. Iraqs Prime Minister says his forces are moving against the Islamic State troops and have the militants on the descents. But he tells chuck hagel, who arrived today, that his army needs more airpower and heavy weaponry. That assessment contrasts to the assessment of u. S. Officials, saying that competent leadership is needed, not military hardware. Secretary of state kerry testified about the situation in isis and iraq as well as the use of military force. The Senate Foreign relations happens here today live at 3 00. The first Public Accounting of the cias interrogation secret overseas facilities after the 9 11 attacks is due out this morning. That has pounded a higher state of alert by u. S. Interests abroad. The Senate Intelligence committee is expected to release a 480page summary. The ones who have read the 6000 page report says it includes disturbing you details. Mark noller tweets this morning that the white house strongly supports the release of the declassified version of the practices reviews some regard as torture. Former Vice President cheney says the u. S. Obtained fromuable intelligence those interrogation techniques. We will hear more about the report when this when the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee speaks on the senate floor. You can watch senator Dianne Feinstein live at 11 00 a. M. Eastern time on cspan 2s live senate coverage. The headlines of on cspan radio. This week on q a, political aju and johnnu r bresnan had. He had planned for four years this campaign. This started in 2010. Mcconnellsat handpicked guy, and at that point mcconnell realized, i have to recalibrate everything i know about republican primary politics in my home state, and he started to make changes and higher key staff. He started to build this sophisticated infrastructure, knowing that this would be the most difficult race in his campaign. They knew they were going to spend a lot of money on technology. They watched the Obama Campaign in 2008. In 2012 they watched harry reids reelection. He was going to have technology. To2013, he said he was going build the most thorough Senate Campaign ever. In american history. And he probably got there. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern q a. Ific on cspans starting december 22 at 7 00 p. M. , we will air a decade of compelling conversations. We turn to a growing topic of debate in the Democratic Party. Was the passage of the Affordable Care act a political mistake democrats . It is a question we are asking just democratic caller in this last segment of todays show. You can see the phone lines in the eastern and central United States. 488000 for eastern and central. If youre in the mountain or 2027488001. This debate was kicked off last month by senator Charles Schumer , when he went before the National Press club to argue that democrats picked the wrong issues to focus on when they decided to focus on the afford will care act. Here is a bit of what he had to say from that appearance. Dark go after pat after passing the stimulus, democrat should have continued to propose middleclass oriented programs and build on the partial success of the stimulus. But unfortunately, democrats blew the opportunity the American People gave them. We took their mandate and put all of our focus on long Problem Health care reform. The fight of uninsured americans and the hardships caused by unfair Insurance Company practices certainly needed to be addressed, but it was not the change we were hired to make. Americans were crying out for the end to the recession, for better wages and more jobs, not changes in health care. The Editorial Board of the wall street journal fanning the flames of this debate. The headline, obamacares casualty list. Of course, the for the care act is going to be the topic of that hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that is happening at 9 30. You can watch it on cspan3. For a preview of that hearing before we get to your calls on the topic, i want to turn to Elise Viebeck of the hill newspaper. What are republicans expected to ask mr. Gruber this morning jacket we heard a little bit from congress my colleagues congressman collins. Guest a lot of republicans are hoping that gruber will made will make a comment that is similarly controversial. They are hoping for more fodder from him that will support their argument that obamacare was passed in a way that was not fully open. I think that grubers contracts with the federal government and with the states will also come under some scrutiny. I know that darrell issa, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, in one of his last hearings as chairman today, will look at those contracts and asked gruber about the quality of his analysis and what he is contributing to policy debates, given his attitude about voters, which he has apologized for, we should say. Hillthe headline in the is circus set for gruber at capitol. Is the any legislation that could come from this . Guest it is unclear so far. Lawmakers are trying to wrap up their Current Business before the holidays, but this is an opportunity for republicans to put obamacare back in headlines prior to taking full control of both chambers next january. So i think that republicans will be very interested in the partisan fireworks that could come from this. Because only help them we know they will be taking aim at various provisions of the Health Care Law when they come back and win the gop has control of the senate. We also know that senator Mitch Mcconnell is likely planning on a repeal vote first thing, so just to keep the issue in the minds of the public in the media in Cable News Service republicans at this point. Host are there any new numbers that we can talk about, Affordable Care act signups in 2015 . Guest yes, we should also note medicarecenters for and medicaid services, maryland marilynn tavener, will also be on the staff. It will be interesting to see how the Oversight Committee handles those witnesses. There was a debate last week because the administration does not want tavenner to be sending messages to gruber. Going to sit together. She will be asked about the current state and roman under the Affordable Care act. She will also be asked about the inflation of some prior enrollment numbers, which hhs has apologized for. Interesting hearing from her perspective because there are a lot of issues with the backend of healthcare. Gov. There will also be issues for consumers who are already enrolled in the exchanges that will see their subsidies change and could oh money to the irs outofpocket. So certainly a lot of substantive issues to go over with ms. Tavener. We want to show our viewers another headline from the hill. Liberals punch back at democratic criticism of obamacare. Can you tell us what you have seen on capitol hill to democrats criticizing the a the Affordable Care a bad political strategy . Guest the comments that you played from mr. Schumer are revealing. No one expected him to come out of strongly as he did at the event at the National Press club, and that has elicited some criticism to his left, saying that the passage of the Affordable Care act was vital to the public, and that even though it remains unpopular and a political liability particularly for central for centrist democrats, it is something that needed to go on. Widerf the rifts will get next year when republicans flow changes to the law that could garner support from people in the democratic side but more to the center. Host Elise Viebeck, thanks for joining us the first for joining us this morning on the washington journal. We want to talk about the debate she was talking about with just our democratic viewers for the next half hour or so. Was the passage of the Affordable Care act political strategy for democrats . Lets start with wendy, calling in from concord, North Carolina, on our line for democrats. Good morning, wendy. Caller i would say the Affordable Care act is good. It is not perfect. I think democrats did not do a very good job of the standing up for what is good about the law, and republicans are on the other hand very good at being critical. They are good at fiveword soundbites and disinformation like rationing and death panels. I was disappointed in Democratic Candidates for not being stronger to talk about the many good things in the law when people hear those things. They say we like that, we like that. But the republicans are sort of battering democrats. , emotionalt bullying abuse. That is my comment. Host that is wendy in North Carolina. We go to victoria from oregon. You are on the washington journal. Caller good morning. I have been a registered nurse or almost 50 years, still active. I have spoken to people who have participated in the Affordable Care act, and oregon now has 95 plans, and people are generally very happy with it. Grubers comments were very unfortunate. I think he could have said that this was a very complex law for the American People to understand. Unfortunately, when i provide Health Care Information for patients and my organization has me compile leaflets or brochures , i have to put it into a sixth grade reading level. There are actually computer programs that will take your words, such as advancing something, and put it into a word that is pushing forward. Because a lot of people are not very educated in this country. I think that is all i have to say. The torilla in oregon. To talk about the politics of this, a few more comments from members of congress. This from outgoing senator tom harkin, democrat from iowa, as reported by the hill newspaper over the weekend. We had the power to do it in a way that would have simplified health care, made it more efficient and made it less costly and we did not do it. So i look back and say we should not we should have done it the correct way or not at all. What we did is muddied through it and we got a system that is complex, convoluted, needs probably some corrections. Democrats have paid the political price for the passage of the four noble care act at the ballot box just in the 2014 election and the election before. We want to hear from our democratic viewers in this last halfhour of todays show to get what you think on the debate that is happening now. Robert is in chicago, illinois. Good morning. Guest good morning caller good morning. My name is out there. Host albert, go ahead. Schumer, he is coming up for reelection, so it is his turn to start running away from his accomplishments and running away from the president. That means i would like to say this thing about gruber. He was only one of about a dozen or so people brought in to work on the law. Has anybody question the other members to see if they share his opinion . Other than that, this is just what i meant to do. Host do you think he should not be described as an Affordable Care act architect, as he has been often referred to in headlines . Caller he is only one of 13 architects that worked on it. Lets go to sorry, i thought you were done. We will go to fill, waiting in sent waiting in centerville, massachusetts. Caller can you hear me . Host yep. Caller democrats should have tried to trade on health care. Hello . Yes, just turn down your tv and go ahead with your comments. I think we lost him. In terms of columnists who have been fanning the flames of this debate that has happened in recent weeks, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote recently for the Washington Post the headline of his piece, that the fight is among democrats. Cans are firing in every direction as the Democratic Party, dazed and disoriented, digs itself out of six years of the shambles of barack obama. It is about fundamental strategy and ideology. The opening salvo was senator Chuck Schumers National Press club speech, and antiobama manifesto delivered three weeks after election day opening openly announcing openly , itsncing obamaism policies and priorities. Elected with a mandate to restore the economy and address the anxieties of a stagnating and squeezed middleclass, obama instead attacks, restructured, it reorganized and destabilized. That is Charles Krauthammer from his article last week. Senator schumers comments reading in part, to aim a huge change of the mandate to such a small part of the electorate made no political sense. When democrats focused on health care, the average middleclass person thought that democrats are not paying enough attention to me. We want to get your thoughts, democratic viewers in this segment. Chris is in loveland, ohio. Good morning. Caller good morning. My opinion is that can you hear me echo host go ahead. Caller ok. I think that it would have been for the better for the party, when the Supreme Court had said that it was attacked that it was a tax, that it would have gone up for a revote to see if it would have passed then. Host that is chris in loveland, ohio. Jim is in indiana. Caller i just wanted to define the political sense if health care was such a good law, why are so many people, especially in congress, exempt from it . Host jim, tell us about what you think, why congress how congress should be covered. Caller congress should follow the same laws. If they are going to make laws for us, they should follow the exact same laws. They should be having the same health care we have. Host jim in bedford, indiana. We should note that the hearing on the Affordable Care act is taking place right now in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. That is chairman darrell issa giving some of his opening statements. We will dip in for a little bit of this hearing. Todays hearing is likely the last full Committee Hearing of this congress. This committee has a primary obligation and has lived up to that obligation to look at government to make government more transparent and accountable. And at times, members on both toes of the deus have helped create that transparency. But no Government Program needs increased transparency and accountability and honesty more than the formal care act known as obamacare. It has proven time and time again to in fact have made false claims. Every member on both sides of agree that the Affordable Care act, or obamacare, is a large, expensive program relying on a comp lex network of Government Programs which significantly impact the lives of all americans. Design,history of passage, and implementation with the law is fraught with halftruths and misperceptions. Here are a few of the halls claims the administration has made regarding obamacare. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. Nothing in obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No changes required unless Insurance Companies change existing plans. Health care inflation has gone down issa,that is darrell beginning todays hearing on the afford with care act, featuring Jonathan Gruber. If you want to watch the full hearing, it is happening right now on cspan3. We are talking with just our democratic callers for the next 25 minutes to go on this question of the passage of the Affordable Care act. It makes political sense for the party. Some recent columns about this, including Paul Krugman Hoss column in Paul Krugmans column in the New York Times. He writes, what is the purpose of winning elections . The answer i hope is to do good, not just set up your election your next election. It would have been incredibly cynical not to have seized that opportunity, and democrats should celebrate the fact they did the right thing. Paul krugmans column from december 4. We want to get to our viewer calls. National city, michigan, yvonne, good morning. Caller i think it is terrible that they keep cutting medicare 65,000 iave mean, a 5,500 deductible. 320 for drugs. Just to give an expansion of medicaid for people that are not even working. I live in a small town, and people up here are not working. ,hey get food stamps, medicaid and they go and they get the drugs from the pharmacy for nothing, and they sell them for 300. Host we are talking in this segment about the politics of the passage for the Affordable Care act and whether democrats have suffered. The lead editorial in the wall street journal, obamacares casualty list three elections later, the law continues to be a catastrophe for democrats politically. Arlington heights, illinois, good morning. Caller i happen to agree with senator schumer. I felt that way as long as about two years ago. The reason for that is i have been longterm unemployed, been going back to school, and i am burnishing my credentials a bit. But i think politics would have been a lot better had democrats went after the labor market and letting theation, gpu letting the gop fight them along that. I think people who think this is good politics are the people who were employed and could actually worry a bit about health care more than their job situation. Your responseld be to the argument made by paul krugman in his piece, that good policy makes good politics . Caller i disagree with that, and i have to say it is for my own personal reasons. , good been unemployed policy, yeah. Perhaps political will would not have been there if the democrats had spent it on, say, improving the job market. But i think that would have been a much more palatable battle to fight before the American People. Host don is waiting in st. Louis, missouri. Good morning. Caller i have a couple of things. First of all, i watched cspan a lot at the time they passed obamacare. They got the best they could get at that time because the republicans blocked medicare for all, which would have been the best deal. As far as the lady before, people who were not working already had medicaid. Obama is providing Affordable Health care for millions of working people. Tonow a few who have managed get it, but it is very difficult to get it in missouri because our republican state legislator is not taking any of the federal money on that exchange or anything. It is hard here to get it. And it is america will it ever passed in the first place because not only do republicans get a lot of Campaign Money from the Insurance Companies, but so do a lot of democrats. The Drug Companies spent hundreds of billions of dollars in negative advertising. Do not have all of that money out there on your side. Host to your point that it was the best deal they could get at the time, henry waxman, democrat from california, would agree theyou, as quoted in hill newspaper. Liberals punching back at democratic criticism of obamacare. Congressman waxman as saying, the obamacare law was the best democrats could do given the resistance from centrists Senate Democrats and outright opposition from the publicans. I decided from republicans. Senator schumer, and democrats and senator schumer should be proud of it. Congressionale aggressive caucus, he argued that while there are plenty of improvements that could be made focus law, critics should attention on getting those things done instead of questioning the value of the law as it stands. We want to hear from democratic viewers this morning. Nancy is up next, los angeles, california. The whole thing, this is basically jiving me crazy. This should not be a political issue. Happened thing that was that the republicans have been fighting it for four years when they could have made the law better. I think schumer is disingenuous because he is so close to wall ,treet, that fixing the economy the democrats and the republicans are not even ready to attack the things that caused the problems that we have, with the big bang and the tax laws and everything else. The chances of people getting a fair shake with people like schumer is very slim. I think that it was a historical law and it was important that it passed. I am happy that it passed, but it needs to be fixed and these guys really need to start working on that. So thank you. Caffe is in battle creek, michigan. Good morning. Caller hello. I am very disheartened to that some of the democratic leadership has walked away from the Affordable Care act. As a nurse who lost her job in 2009 due to Health Reasons at the height of the great recession, i am very aware of the deficiencies that we had at that time, and losing your Health Coverage when it is tied to employment. I also had a daughter who passed away and became ill about at that same time and passed away two years before the Affordable Care act came into place, and i just feel that, had she been able to hang on for a couple more years, she might have been helped here in michigan. Unique perspective on the deficiencies that were in place and some of the things that are helping people now. Host thanks for sharing your story. In terms of political implications for democrats, here is more from the wall street journal editorial. It is hard to find another vote in modern history that has laid waste to so Many Political careers. 60 democrats cast the deciding 60th vote for the affordable 2010, butn 2009, and come january only 30 will be left in the senate. That is an extraordinary political turnover in merely three elections, the largest in the postwatergate era. The law has been nearly as damaging to democrats as watergate was to republicans. Some of the retirees left for reasons such as becoming secretary of state, like john becauseut others left their own reelection prospects were hardly stellar. Think chris dodd of connecticut in 2010, or virginias jim webb in 2012. No fewer than eight of the retirees handed their seats to republicans. About theking political implications of passage of the Affordable Care act, the debate happening among some of the Democratic Party. Norman is up next, new york, new york. Good morning. I just want to say that the government has their priorities backwards. Why didnt they take all this money for these big rich Oil Companies and corporations and all of this money with the loopholes, and all the money for other countries, israel getting 3 billion, all these other countries. Norman, stay on the afford will care act. Caller why dont they use that money to Fund Medicare . To Fund Obamacare . Host we will go to dan in lima, ohio. Caller good morning. Number one, i think it was good. We needed to do something because people were dying. Peopleld think that would be for saving lives and helping people, for working people who did not make enough money to buy Health Insurance. Democrats basically have been cowards on the subject. Number two, i would like to say that when Mitch Mcconnell was running for his seat, he said that the people of kentucky could keep their obamacare. Now, is that a lie when he votes to kill it . Thank you. Impact of the of Affordable Care act, House Minority whip steny hoyer on friday released a rundown of some of the impact on his webpage. Here is a bit from that statement. Across the country, millions of americans are experiencing the benefits of the afford will care act, benefiting from the elimination of lifetime limits on coverage, protections for those with preexisting conditions, measures that ban discrimination against women and other critical patient protections. Through theent federal Health Insurance marketplace is off to a strong start, which with over 765,000 people signing up for plans in just the first two weeks. From twitter, tilt windmills writes in, if the democrats are not going to. To adopt singlepayer universal, then yes, adopting a plan literally drafted by the Insurance Companies was a waste. We want to hear just from democratic callers for the next few minutes or so. Frank is from walden, new york. Good morning. Caller i think the Affordable Care act was a great idea. The only problem is that it should have been tweaked then and it should between now. I have talked to Small Business individuals who had great coverage before the act made them choose something different. It has been expensive to a lot of people, especially the Small Business owners. Something, it is not fair to the people who have to change their sources of health care. I myself am not covered. I am covered under medicare, but still, it is something that is necessary in this country, and unless rather than fighting about repealing it, they should more or less move toward tweaking it. This way people do not lose their coverage, which is desperately needed throughout the entire country. Godsend to those people who have it now. Thank you. Host in terms of possible rewrites to the law, also a topic brought up by the Editorial Board of the wall street journal, they note that liberals like nancy pelosi take solace in believing that the losses democrats sustained in recent elections were worth passing national healthcare, that she may be wrong even about that political bet. Still so unpopular that republicans may still have a chance to write it after 2016, and even Hillary Clinton may acknowledge the need to reform the reform. Phyllis is waiting in florida. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I am a 63yearold retired Public School teacher with a very small pension, and without the aca plan, that i have here, i would be uninsured, which is kind of scary. Single, so that is also a concern. Watched the Kentucky Senate debate, admits mcconnell said that they can and Mitch Mcconnell said that the kentuckians can keep connect but can rule out obamacare. So wasnt he lying to his own constituents about the program leading them, which i know which no one seems to have called him on it. Of lastly, i had a mother died beforehildren, the aca of breast cancer. So now we have two small children without their mother, and the Affordable Care act could have assisted her in saving her life. Host phyllis, when you hear stories like that, do you think it matters that democrats have suffered politically for passing this . Caller i think in the long run when people find out stories like mine and like my niece, it is going to be something of it is going to be put in history books as a very good thing for america. Debra,e will go to waiting in jonesboro, georgia three good morning. You are on the washington journal. Caller good morning. Host good morning, debra. Caller good morning. Host go ahead with your comment. I can hear you. Healthcare. Gov is a good thing for american. Everyone should be proud that someone has taken upon themselves to establish something for this country. I think the republicans need to work with the democrats to make sure that this works for everyone. We should be proud that our country cares about all the people in the country, and that we want to make sure that everyone has Affordable Health care. That is debra in jonesboro, georgia. If you are a democratic viewer and you want to comment on this, we have eight minutes left before the house comes in. Happy to hear from you on this question. We have asked whether the passage of the Affordable Care act was good politics for the Democratic Party, an issue that was raised by senator schumer last month and then debated since then. The latest stats on the Affordable Care act, this from gallup, a new report coming out in recent days. 57 ,y six in 10 americans, say they are satisfied with the total cost they pay for health care, on par with other readings over the last five years. So far there is little indication that the afford will care act, also known as obamacare, as affected the way americans view their health care costs, either positively or negatively, despite positively or negatively. Backdrop, there is little evidence of change in those perceptions from recent years. Conversely, few are satisfied with the total cost of Health Across the u. S. , indicating that while most americans believe it is too expensive nationally, they do not consider it a problem for themselves. You can see the chart that talks about american satisfaction with their personal health care costs. That from gallup and you can see that online on their website, gallup. Com. Lets go to fran, waiting in jacksonville, florida. Good morning. I am calling to make a comment on this. I have a personal interest in this now. I was displaced from my job seven years ago, and for five years i was holding my breath for health care. I enrolled in the Affordable Care act in february of this year, and in may got diagnosed with brains cancer that with breast cancer. I just finished my treatment. I am all clear, i suppose, but i looked at the bills coming in, and there is no way that i would ever be able to pay that off. I could not afford health care before the Affordable Care act made it available to me. I dont know how many people who are in my position. And people still in my position because they will not even give it a chance because the republicans have poisoned their minds against it. What could be bad about everybody being able to save their lives . And as far as young people, they are discouraging them as if they do not need health care. That is what the Insurance Business has always been about. Commentt me ask you to on the comments that we saw from senator harkin in the piece in newspaper, indicating that democrats should have maybe passed a better law or not passed anything at all. Disagree because i watched that process from beginning to end. They had to bend over backwards for those republicans. Most of these ideas that are not working were republican ideas. But they had to concede in order to get this thing past. If they had been spending the ,ast few years tweaking it addressing the issues that people had about it, working them out, we would have been way far ahead than we are now. So i think those republicans who do not have health care, the republicans who say they lost their coverage because of obamacare, they need to look at the Insurance Companies and their employers and see what role they had in their situation. A few minutes left before the house comes in. We will try to get as many calls as we can. From philadelphia, pennsylvania, good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. I think the question is right on. For democrats, it was bad politics, but it is coming down historically be good policy. It is good policy for a nation. One of the problems the know,ats have is, you they did a pretty bad job in forming informing their constituents. And that reflected in the numbers that turned out for voting. If they got the communication out and got people more engaged, they could pass in the senate and congress and the house in 2016 because i was just listening to a lot of the callers who called in. Think about the numbers across the nation that this bill is impacting positively. I think the republicans know it. Host is it a matter of selling this better during the elections . Do you think democrats ran away from the Affordable Care act in some of these campaigns in 2014 . Caller absolutely. And that is what harmed them big time. The senators who lost in 2014, do you think they would have won if they embraced the Affordable Care act . Caller embraced the Affordable Care act more, and support the president on the campaign trail. I mean,y from it running away from it really shows folks that they did not believe in it themselves. I think Going Forward because that is all we can do now is look ahead they could figure out a way to sell this bill to the American People more, in a more common sense, basic way that people understand. What people were getting. I am watching your show and a lot of folks are calling in across the nation, that all round states that were up for grabs in 2014, 2010, right . And the story is the same across the nation. People benefit from the bill. Thank you. Host do you think this will be another election issue in 2016, in the primaries and the president ial election . Guest caller absolutely. There is a good argument to be made for this bill. I do not think it will be going away for the next two cycles at least. Int we will try to get teresa from new jersey. Good morning. Caller good morning. I think that the democrats need to stick together as a unit. They should push the bill and the aspect of the Affordable Care act. They are having a hearing on it, and not only are they having a hearing on it, they are divided. You know, things would turn out a lotbetter. The republicans lied and said that there were. They had their constituents believing this. Host i want to point our for theto cspan3 Affordable Care act. The house is coming in. We will take you to the floor. Er pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The speaker pro tempore the speakers rooms, washington, d. C. December 9, 2014. I hereby appoint the honorable doug lamalfa to act as speaker pro tempore on had this day