We went to get your thoughts on this deal that has been reached to fund the government, to push up the debt limit. Involved, butost how they are achieved. You can give us a call in three lines this morning. If you want to post on our social media pages, cspanwj on twitter. On facebook facebook. Com cspan. Send us an email at journal cspan. Org. This deal taking place tentatively yesterday. In the New York Times, Congress Strikes a deal with the president. Would alert default. Is here. Bolton could you tell us more about how you achieved this report . That this is something john boehner, and Mitch Mcconnell, harry reid, and nancy pelosi their representatives negotiated it with the legislative liaison for the white house and shaun donovan. They did it quietly. There wasnt a lot of talk about a deal coming together. There wasnt much visibility of the principles in a room together. It was done quietly and, a lot of people as a surprise when it came out yesterday. A pretty important deal. Stent Discretionary Spending by 112 billion if you include the overseas Contingency Operations fund. On top of the 80 billion that you mentioned. It is a big boost to Discretionary Spending, and has reforms to entitlement programs. Especially Social Security. Move toward flat benefits. Be tied tos would the federal Poverty Level and set of predisability earnings. Host as far as how it gets paid for, what has been the reaction specifically for those concerned about medicare and Social Security to help pay for the effort. Guest the democrats were not yesterday. Nd andSocial Security, disability benefits reform, that was something that the Heritage Foundation was proposing and one of its think pieces. This morning, they are coming out to oppose the debt and budget deal. Even though there is a Social Security reform, or something the advocated for, they say that it is still not good enough. Heritage action is coming out opposed to the debt and budget deal. So is the club for growth. File republicans, i talked to some of the senators from yesterday. By and large they were ok with happy thatcain was defense spending has been increased. He says it is not everything that he wanted. It was short of his ideal level, but he will take it. The republicans who were upset were the farm state republicans because there is a 3 billion offset that comes from cutting Crop Insurance and that is something that roberts was very upset about. The house side there was a meeting with the entire republican conference. It is in line with the Heritage Action. They criticize this deal. On the house side, could they cause issue once both take place . Guest yeah. I think very much so. If you have Heritage Action club for growth, two important advocacy groups in the right coming out against it, it will peel some rep republican votes off. If you are going to be reforming medicare, extending the medicare sequester, you think you could lose some democratic votes. We are characterizing as a challenge to pass through the house. Host what is the timeline now that we have specifics . When could we see votes . Guest my understanding is the house was supposed to post this bill last night, which would allow them to vote on wednesday. That is when paul ryan becomes the new speaker. He becomes the new speaker on thursday. I think the idea is for the house to get this done on wednesday. John boehner says that he wants to clean up the barn a little bit. The idea is to get this dirty Business Done before ryan comes in at the end of the week. Host the is talking to us about the white house and congress reaching a tentative 80 billion budget deal. Stay with us as we take your calls. You have heard some of the details and we will get some more. It would raise the debt limit and that would take place until march of 2017. That is some of the details coming out including increased offsets, and raising spending caps for two years. Andre, what do you think of this deal . Caller the deal is pretty good. I like that it was done to everett the default, but my question is, how did low oil prices rusher congress to avoid default . Much did china moved to cut Interest Rates by 25 basis points . Host lorraine, from redford, michigan. Caller i would like to know, why pick on medicare and Social Security, when those people need it the most . Its picking on the poor again . Host alex, give us a sense of what we might hear because of turning to medicare and Social Security . Guest i think that democrats will be very concern. Before an to bed, got a call from someone before i went to bed, i got a call from someone who is autistic and was concerned that he would lose his money every month because of these reforms. We did not have the text of the bill, but as we look at it more closely, if you tie the Social Security disability deficit to the federal poverty rate rather than predisability earnings, in some cases it may mean more money for you. But, why are people with disabilities being asked to pay for this . That is a good question. I think that one of the things that then mind is Social Security Disability Fund is due to get a big cut anyway. Yes, they are going to take a haircut, but if there wasnt something done to reform the program, there would be a substantial cut at a later date anyway. Money, andas out of something had to be done. I think there will be more of the same if there are not more deals done to give people haircuts, instead of waiting to lastminute to solve big liabilities. Ost 202 7488000 202 7488001. 202 7488002. And professional leadership reaching a deal on the white house that extends over two years. Dan, good morning caller democrats and republicans have worked to forge a compromise, but i think we need to continue to cut spending. The Social Security Disability Fund has been growing by leaps and bounds. The amount of money we have been spending is due for a cut. It is the new welfare. People that cannot get money on welfare claim some kind of mental disability or something in the government is giving it to them. Obama weo high, need to cut. It is perhaps because we are a bit too liberal on what we call disability. It is medicare and Social Security come under the gun. I have never heard anyone address the issue of the benefit package members the house and senate have which is beyond anything that anyone in the Public Domain has. Or the private sector. There is always money enough for that in the budget without any discussion. But those on another type of always to beem subject to cuts. I think it is ridiculous. To have it in the same budget where you cutting medicare and Social Security increases the defense budget. It is about time that this country stops being the defender of the entire world. Other countries have armies and navies and are wellequipped to handle it in their own area. We have the only ship in the waters in the ukraine. Britain and france have marvelous navies, as does germany. Onesre we always the having to be the ones with the show of force . Host lets hear from del in pennsylvania. Democrat line. Caller answering this question, we are the ones who benefit by stealing all the Natural Resources. Bill,is is an outrageous i am with Bernie Sanders. He will oppose it 100 . Cuts in Social Security are unnecessary. This country is overflowing with money. The stock market was at an alltime high a couple months ago. It has to be stopped for the benefit of the people who will be walking to the street begging. There are too many people who dont have enough to eat, they are eating dog food. It is outrageous. Host thomas from new york on the republican line. Caller would like to address one of the issues. One of the previous collars had stated the need to cut spending. In this great country, in order for us to be strong, we keep forgetting the most important resources the American People. Even though they approve the budget, you have to understand that is more like putting up and eight on a gunshot wound bandaid on a gunshot wound. Lets like you trying to solve your house budget and you are only taking out to solve your housing issue. Host keep calling on the lines to give your thoughts on this legit deal. On this budget deal. Alex, there were some who wanted to see a shutdown to engage in larger issues about spending. What will be the reaction of those folks . Guest i think they will be pretty disappointed. The main disappointment is that you will be increasing Discretionary Spending. That is when republicans use the possibility of default and leverage to extract concessions from president obama. As Mitch Mcconnell likes to say, they were the first meaningful reductions in Discretionary Spending since the civil war. Korean war. He will now be signing off in a deal that will bus them, but he pay for ithem with mandatory spending cuts. Talking to some other republicans on the hill, they are not so happy that some things they would like very much like Crop Insurance is being cut to pay for nondefensive Discretionary Spending, and an array of things. Conservatives, especially those running for president , they are going to come out against the deal. But taking the temperature of the senate and republican conference yesterday, i would say that the majority of them supported. On the house side, people have been so exhausted by this leadership fight, i dont think there will be much of a fight. I think this passes both chambers. There will be grumbling but it will get done this week. Host have we heard reaction in aul ryan or others specifically paul ryan. Guest one of our house reporters emailed last night and said that ryan stayed silent in the meeting. There was a meeting to talk about this, and one of the outspoken conservatives got up and was very critical of the deal, i think the meeting got a little bit heated at times, but ryan, im told, stayed quiet. I think he is trying to stay out of this fight and let john boehner take the arrows. Host brian on the independent line. Caller i am against the gutting of Social Security. The one people get when they find out they are not mentally fit. Work and ihurt at need that money desperately. It is absolutely ridiculous they will sacrifice my people to keep rich people happy. That is one of the reasons i am voting for bernie. Go bernie. Bgo bernie. Host dennis from louisiana. Caller i would like to comment on this cut for Social Security and medicaid. They could cut some of the subsidies for the Oil Companies, especially here in louisiana. Theybsidize every well, dont pay taxes for 10 years, etc. But the Defense Department needs to be audited now. They cannot even tell you where the billions of dollars they flew to afghanistan went. Plus, farm subsidies, industrial subsidies, no taxes for 10 to 15 need to be done before you try to balance the budget on the backs of the lame and the old people. Host a couple tweets this morning. A rare moment of congress doing something. This does not mean they earn their pay checks and perks. Also tweeted, an 80 billion debtthat raises our spenders in bc. D. C. Governed by crisis deal that doesnt reflect the will of the house but the will of the speaker. Dave. i am the thing that gets me is we paid into this, and was taken out of our checks and everything. By the time i was 40 years old, i started receiving from the government saying, if i ever became disabled or ever retired, that i would get this much each month. I cannot understand, it is money we have paid in, and it was entrusted that we would receive these moneys, that if we ever became disabled or something. I am 58 and i had a ton of steel dropped on me. I am all busted up. The thing is, i would love to work if i could, but i dont have the legs left and stuff like that. They will cut my money and i already paid into this and worked hard all my life. I have been working since i was 14 years old. It has got me totally upset. I think it is a bad deal. Host tony from cape coral, florida. Independent line. Caller i had a question for mr. Bolton if he is still on the line. I missed you by about six minutes this morning. I am on ssdi. I have been on there for about 12 years now. Month once they take out my Social Security and medicare. Is there going to be a drastic cut to that . I am paralyzed. I paid into this and i heard rumors they would cut it 20 . Was wondering, if he is still on the line, if there is information he can give me about my benefits. Guest would you host would you care to weigh in on this question . Guest i have not looked at the precise text of what that reform looks like, but it is something published by the Heritage Foundation. They lay out their plan for improving the Social Security, Disability Insurance. He should take a look at that. One of the things in the heritage, they were pushing this and the republicans are pushing this, if you look at the heritage. Org report, you will see in the reform they propose individuals who currently receive ssdi benefits but continue to receive the same checks. This would apply to new applicants and beneficiaries. Of the rough guideline now and will have to look at the text itself. When i was reporting this last night, i did not yet have the text. Host are we expecting to hear from john boehner today . Guest absolutely. I think he will have to weigh in. I cannot predict the future, but he will have to at some point. We will probably hear from him today. Host alex bolton has been on the phone, from the hill, talking about this deal and guiding us through it. We appreciate you spending extra time with us this morning. Guest my pleasure. Host stella, from new york. Democrat line. Caller my question is, they rp, theying at aa medicare rates would pay out 104 and . 59 per month. They said they would raise it up 104. 59 per month. They said they would raise it up 59, it was supposed to go to 2015 rates. I am wondering if it is going to go up in 2016 . Host i dont have details about that, but i will tell you what the New York Times says. Saying this agreement would raise spending by 80 billion over two years, not increasing the emergency increase for the emergency war fund. And will be offset by cuttings to medicare and Social Security disability benefits as well as savings and an array of other programs. Those are some of the details we have even as it was being announced last night. More information expected today. Democrat line, from texas. Physically that you have a very enlightened public that listens to your comments, and most of the people this morning have said what i think. We should never cut the Social Security and medicaid due to the fact that we are forced to pay into those funds and i heard no mention of any cuts to the military or any subsidies that we give or any other programs. Another person mentioned the benefits of congress. There are other things they could pick on, other than what we are forced to pay into to begin with. We will get their thoughts on this deal as it is being announced later on. Amy goldstein talks about the latest when it comes to the health care plan. Saying when it comes to those with an Insurance Plan sold to the exchange, a 7. 5 increase is expected for the coming year, nearly four times bigger than a year ago and the rate will increase for 2016 compared to the average growth for this year that servey premiums as a benchmark for federal subsidies that help most consumers buying the act. There now, officials contend that the health plan will be for those willing to shop for the best rate. That cushioned by the fact nearly nine in 10 are eligible for tax credits taking subsidies into account. Nearly four and five people will have access to a health plan for which they pay no more than 100 in monthly premiums. Here is scott in oregon. Independent line. Caller i agree with the color from texas, why do they have to take out money on the backs of people on disability and Social Security. I am a new recipient. I have had four back surgeries. We dont choose to be retirement age or hurt. One of the ticket from Congress Money . Why do we pay so much to oversee countries . Somewherethey take it where people dont have any other recourse. I make 1000 a month and i barely live. They are going to shut my power off and i dont even have cable tv. Why cant they find a way to make it work for us . Next. Randy is up caller i would like to start by thanking you and all the folks behind the scenes bringing that to this nation and you are doing such a great job. I would like to see more. I have to agree with a lot of the colors this morning. I dont particularly like them going after disability, because i am on it and i am here in the crop country. Subsidies and other places. Oilcompanies sell strategic and they want to allow us to start dumping our oil out on the market. Those guys made enough money in and i have toars agree it is time for us to start working for the people. Guy, i am for Bernie Sanders and i believe that is the real american spirit. I think that is what he has got. I hope that is what people look at. Host aside from the particulars, what about the idea that a budget deal was reached at all . Caller that is a good one. I have to admit because i was on a school board. And i worked for general motors. They never signed a contract they liked and i never voted on one i liked. Likejust like to your reporter said he answer that while i was waiting. This is the cut for the new group. That is a little bit easier to take, i dont like it as much but you cant cut from somebody who has their life set on a very you dont get big raises and you cannot work a saturday to make up for lost money on this so, you cannot take from the ones who already have their life set on the amount. Thank you for letting me talk. The wall street journal has an interview. You probably know the name of charles koch who contributed lots of money to candidates. With is a profile of him some Interview Questions talking about his political activism. Koch said of his charitable contributions, 5 million went to explicitly political purposes. His staff said the money went to the republican senator and can chris. He cities looking for issues were he can work with both parties. As for the money he spent against mr. Obama, he said it is not against him but for these ideas. I would love to be able to support democrats. While he shares many Voters Decide his faction he expresses alarm at the rise of mr. Trump and Bernie Sanders. What happens when voters are frustrated is they give the government even more power. I have no idea how this will turn out. It is scary. D. C. ,ashington, independent line. Caller i would like to Say Something about the disability. Together andcome work out some kind of agreement where everybody that is on ,isability can Work Together and come up with more plans and more ideas where you can keep the soldiers in and individuals and families on disability, keep them working, some kind of way, where we can still support disability. Twelve,ou go to one of his deeds will be mighty upon the earth. The generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house. That is what we have to work on. We have to stay strong on that. Everybody is not into the word so that is why the system is so messed up. Everybody needs to be in church or reading the word of god, that is my comment for the day. Host from washington, d. C. , mitchell, independent line. Caller one thing to pose for your listeners, how did the recent benghazi testimony and the fact that i dont think the republicans came out looking all that well and whether or not that impact or influenced the budget negotiations and discussions . And perhaps they were more willing to negotiate given the recent testimony, and the fact the republicans were not able to really condemn hillary the way that they thought they might be able to . Host mitchell in washington, d. C. Talking about the budget deal that was reached yesterday between the white house and congressional leaders. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7488002 for independents. Republicans debate in boulder, colorado tomorrow. One of the profiles in the Washington Times takes a look at jeb bush and what his super pac may be doing to bolster his campaign, saying right to rise ads innt 14 million on New Hampshire and north carolina. The group has reserved another 30 million in advertising, but right to rise Officials Say options for what they can do are at the top of the minds among some donors. Mr. Bush and right to rise are not alone in taking the approach. Group handles the vast majority of supporters and this weekend a super pac marshaled 40,000 volunteers to go doortodoor to promote his white house bid. If you go to the Washington Post im sorry, the New York Times. Look at the campaign on the democratic side of lawrence lessig. Only raised about 1 million and he is mounting a quixotic campaign, and struggling to get noticed. Despite raising more than Lincoln Chafee, mr. Lessigs candidacy is not considered serious by many analysts and Party Leaders who see him as an activist and gadfly. Also relented on his insistence that campaignfinance is his only cause, unveiling policy positions on 15 other issues. Mr. Lessig is perhaps the only candidate around who has attacked low rivals such as Lincoln Chafee low polling rivals such as Lincoln Chafee. Pedro, good morning. I want to ask a question to the republican colors. I am a broke republican callers. Old,a broke, 54 year veteran on disability. How are poor people voting for these people . They are not answering any issues to help the poor people . What is that Freedom Caucus about . Is that really the tea party . And why dont we have any quality caucus an Equality Caucus . Baby. He bern, host now we have a caller from dallas. Caller republicans picked on poor people, but the democrats do, too. When it comes to budget cuts, the poor people are always the ones they decide, whatever subsidy we are getting, lets cut it from the poor people. They dont think about the corporations. Says,should be a law that when they start thinking about budget cuts, start thinking about budget cuts with the businesses and the people who have the most, not with those who have the least. One of the reasons why the probably pick on the poor people is maybe because we dont have allowed enough political voice. Maybe it is because we are not organized enough. Those organizations and walks into an in washington speaking up for us . Getting congress and flooding senators with emails and phone calls . They are wrong for picking on us, but we need to make some more noise. So, thank you for taking my call. Host rick from houston, texas. Caller i appreciate you taking michael. Taking my call. Cutting. Eld is host are you there . Caller i am still here. The oilfield is cutting 30 of their jobs, houston is dying. We have a representative that is nothing but a socialist. These people that think it is always just the poor people taking the hits i am on disability, too. At least i am on a private policy because i paid for it. This is incorrect. The way that this works is, the Democratic Base far outnumbers the republican base, that is why they want to give away so much to these people. Whole setup, it is not income inequality, they want to redistribute wealth. Enough is enough. Pay 99 of the taxes everybody get real and go to a v. A. T. Tax. Host the New York Times profiles one of the key people who has put together debates on the republican side, sean spicer. Theyve also profiled some of the things that he has to tackle saying, once the states were chosen with an emphasis on early voting, the party look for demographic second handle the debate, a big enough stage, green rooms, adequate parking, and a media filing center. Helps in part because republicans will debate in boulder, a liberal stronghold. His daysys he spends on more tasks trying to represent the candidates concerned and demands on things like how many tickets each candidate gets, typically four, how many cars they can bring in, usually two, and harbinger outreach was brought in to found with help with the just ask. Logistics. Al is in washington, pennsylvania. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have a winwin situation for everybody. Anddisability, the budget, every american to save money, lets eliminate all of the free aide we give to everybody. I am tired of it. Nobody gives me money. Host bill from oklahoma. Caller democrat line thank you, sir. I will get aggravated at this every time republicans try to do anything, it is always on people with Social Security and medicare. They go on about obamacare, this and that, the one thing they never say is about their own government paid health care that they get, that taxpayers pay for. As far as taxes, the top 1 dont pay taxes. Corporations dont pay taxes. The top 1 dont pay taxes. You can prove that by their tax reports. They go after the poor continually wanting to take from the medicare, Social Security and people who live on that. Life, andked all my paid Social Security all my life. Now that i receive it, the republicans want to take it. I hope that every democrat in the senate votes no on this thing. Vote no. Says they fredericks are raising the debt ceiling until 2017, but dont say what they are raising it to. Why is it topsecret . If you go to the Washington Post, a about u. S. Policy when it comes to u. S. Forces in syria. Says there are considerations being made. A proposal would put a small number of advisors on the ground for the First Time Since the United States began military operations against the Islamic State last year. The pentagon has sent teams into syria, and the newly proposed special Operations Forces would syrian arabderate rebels and possibly kurdish troops such as Peoples Protection units. As for the iraq side of the border, the president s top advisers have recommended embedding certain advisers such as the attack that we take rim aldi. Such a move would position u. S. Troops to find training bases closer to the front lines and in both the wreck syria, officials have discussed targeting and both iraq and syria, officials have discussed targeting Islamic State officials. In wyoming, independent line. Caller i would like to comment on that 808 billion deal. I have a suggestion. Lets get the superpacs off ofher, and take 50 each of them and put it back into the American Economy. That ought to reduce the deficit considerably. How much of that 808 billion deal is going toward defense spending and National Security . Thanks, bye. Host doc, baton rouge, louisiana. Go ahead. Three fourths of this country is on disability . Everybody that calls this morning is on disability. The reason for that is because the democrats have made it so freaking easy, if you wake up with a sniffle, you are on disability. They want to give away everything. We dont have anything to give away, anymore. We are broke, and we are getting broker by the second. Host what do you think about the deal overall . He is gone, but we have one more. Tim charlotte, republican line. Caller i wanted to comment on what the gentleman from louisiana was talking about. General publiche really understands how many people are on disability under 40 years of age. They have not paid anything into the system, they are just training the system out. Draining the system out. The color from oklahoma doesnt understand there are many on disability who dont deserve it. The gop did their job, we would have a lot less of this. The Government Accounting Office ought to do things properly and we would have a lot of people off disability and this money would come back into the system where it needs to be paid. Host before you go, aside from what you specified he is gone. Legislators joining us to talk about not only this budget deal announced last night, but other issues as well. Whoesentative tom cole, sits on the budget and appropriations committee, and is currently a part of the Republican Leadership team. The speaker of the house elections in the future of the republican party, later on the funding of the Highway Trust Fund is for thursday. Well talk with represented of John Garamendi of california. He serves on the committee about the vote and plan for longterm solutions when it comes to transportation issues. Nightsissed last landmark cases program, it focused on the lochner versus new york case from 1905. You can watch it on our website and it will reair this saturday night at 7 00. We take you back in time to the turn of the early 20th century, to see what conditions were like and what that means for the lochner case. [video clip] the state of new york was about bakery conditions in new york at the turn of the 20th century. At that time, a workers worked in underground cellar bakeries like this one with they had to toil for many hours every week, producing bread to feed of vast and growing city. At that time there were 2500 or more bakeries. An incredible number. The bakery workers would have to come into the sellers, and essentially spend their lives here. The ceilings in this bakery are relatively tall, but at the time most work maybe six feet to eight feet tall. They were hot, humid, there were pipes which dripped sewage and other things onto the floor. Here we come to the oven. This is an oven from about the 20th century. It would have originally been a coalfired oven and there would have been a big pile of coal here. Black coal, always kicking up a lot of dust. So everything in the room would be grimy with coal dust. And the oven here would belch hot fumes, laden with coal dust. Bakery workers were breathing this allday. The bread would have been stored the break or at baked bread would have been stored somewhere around here covered with a thin layer of coal dust. That was the atmosphere of the cellar bakery. You add to that the fact that there were perhaps vermin, and cats to catch them, and they find a nice row of warm loves, and they sit on them and sleep on them. Conditions were not the most sanitary by any means, either for the product or the workers themselves. Washington journal continues. Host our first guest of the morning is representative tom cole who serves the Fourth District conserves the appropriations and Budget Committees. Guest good morning. Host could you tell us what you heard about this deal . Deal. It is a twoyear billionout roughly 80 of additional spending, 50 billion in the first year and 30 billion in the second. Thats with a total budget of over 350 billion. The additional money is paid for in a series of offsets. Some of it involves reform to Social Security and disability system. Others would be things like sales of oil from the Strategic Petroleum reserve. Some changes in Crop Insurance which would save the federal government about 3 billion. There is a whole series of relatively minor things. First Social Security reform and about 30 years. There is a medicare component of this which will help offset the additional spending cost as well. Poppingill champagne corks. But you have to look at it in terms of the alternative. Absent this deal, we will have default. Not only will United States for the first time not pay its bills, you would see the Immediate Impact on the Interest Rate and stock market. If you dont reach a deal like this, and do the subsequent appropriations bill, you are looking at a 40 billion cut in the American Military. This saves us from that. Bargaining, of hard a lot of compromises. There will be plenty of people on both sides to throw rocks at it, but you have to show me what the alternative is. Host we heard from many this morning about the deal, particularly those who get insurance. As far as these reforms . Is it current people or new Disability Insurance . Part, the the most should before this. Absent this, there would be a 20 cut to disability payments next year. It increases penalties on people who increase commit fraud. It sets up a new unit to go after people that do that systematically. We have quite a bit of it in this area. Yououre committing fraud, are stealing money from people with disabilities. Those things are good. We will sort of cap the pavements and link them to the federal poverty payment system. Overall it is better than the alternative. Host do you expect support from the house Freedom Caucus . Guest . I would be surprised i would hope they would. I am not critical of them for that. They have concerns about a variety of things here. The real question to me on the republican side is, can you get a majority of the majority . I always say that there are three groups. The Freedom Caucus, that is 40 to 60 people counting folks or sympathetic. There is what i would call a group of governing republicans that are pretty reliable votes for leadership and would vote for the continuing leadership. Groupsut the same sized voting no and hope yes. They want to be able to vote no but they dont what the consequences of it failing. We need a lot of those people to step up. If you think it is a good deal, you ought to vote for it. If not, i understand it, but dont expect the minority of therens to get some are enough things you can go home and talk to about that are good that they like. There are other things that they wont. If you are from an agricultural state you will not like the fact that there are 3 billion less in federal subsidies. If you are from an Energy Producing state, the idea that we will take oil out of the Strategic Oil preserve and we have low oil rises we wont do that immediately. Low oil prices is not good news from texas, louisiana or oklahoma. But the point is you keep the government functioning and you make sure that people get paid. Make sure that people on Medicare Part b dont have a 50 increase in premiums, and you make sure the American Military doesnt sustain tens of billions of dollars of cuts. You have the chinese rattling cages in the south pacific. The russians relitigating the borders of Eastern Europe and sending forces into the middle east. And obviously a functioning terrorist state. Not a time to be cutting the American Military. Us to talkuest with about this deal and congress. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7488002 for independents. Jay is in oklahoma. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Guest good, how are you . Caller just fine. Think, as americans, we need to realize that there has to be some type of fiscal responsibility. To turn inficials their paychecks and the money we send to the government and a responsible way. Every year, the same situation rises. You cant keep spending more. What is it going to take for that to sink in . Guest i agree with your basic point very much. When the republican therity came in in 2011, annual deficit was 1. 4 trillion. It is still too height, but it will be 439 billion. It is the fastest decline of the deficit ever. It will not be good enough. Eventually you have to look at entitlement reform. Those are the drivers of the debt. Those programs plus food stamps and interest amount to over 70 of federal spending. If you dont make reforms there will never balance the budget. We are spending on the discretionary side. About 150 billion dollars less than when george bush was president in 2008, and we are spending less than our own first budget told us to spend. Spending there have been some progress, but with entitlement reform you are right. That is something that this white house has avoided. We try to engage them on that. Now the price budgets both have significant reforms. Medicare and medicaid. Modeled after what we did in 83. It would set up a commission for congress to vote on the issue. Those are the tough decisions we need to do but it is hard to get a divided government but the other side is not interested in entitlement reforms. Republicans have fought hard to do that. Caller one comment i would like to make. Women livey men or together monogamous lee for 20 for0 years monogamously 20 or 30 years, they pay a lot of taxes. When one dies, the other is not entitled to that benefit, so that money goes into a government slush fund. In our community now, there is a lot of comment with our local leaders that we want that money, it is our money, and we want that money. The fact that the government said you cannot marry, but then again, we will take the money that you paid in, how convenient that is for the government. When we come after that money, Social Security is going to get kicked in the lake. Kicked in the leg. I wanted to let you people know that gay people are now legislating with senators and congressmen that that money should go back to us, and i would like to listen to your comment offline. Thank you, i think you do a great credit to the country. Guest i think you have a valid point. Marriage laws are changing rapidly, but that does not necessarily rectify what has happened in the past. We have other groups that pay and do not get back. Statistically, that is not a huge problem for Social Security. It is a huge problem for the individuals impacted. In terms of the health of the fund itself, the basic problem is a simple one. It is the downside of a good problem. When people were when Social Security was designed, the average american didnt make it to 65. Only the government would have a deal like that. But if you got there, the average person state about five years. Get tofrankly, if you 65, your chances to getting to 85 are better than 50 . Or chances of the early 90s are about 25 to 30 . Those are good things. It has changed the nature of the system. Beginning three years ago, more money is going out than coming in. There areler says, some who have put money in that are not able to get money out. That is true if someone happens to die, they dont get to take the money they had out, and have a go to their family. , butis an equity issue statistically, the main problem is we will double the number of people on Social Security in the next generation. Boomery boehner baby generation is retiring and thanks to modern medicine, we live longer. Once the system goes bankrupt, 2033, we dont stop paying Social Security. You would have an immediate 22 cut. That is not what most americans want to see happen. I wish we would get serious. My friend, john delaney and i, have a serious proposal. We have not been able to get the congressional leadership on either side or the administration particularly interested in it, but sooner or later the math forces you to deal with medicare or medicaid and Social Security. Host this is frank in west virginia. Caller good morning. Before i get to what i told the screener i want to talk about, i would like to suggest that everybody read tom colburns book on waste. Client when heas my was in the house. Caller he has done a better job of pointing out waste that maybe anyone up there. He wasobama got in, pointing out how much he could save on fraud, waste, and abuse. I have heard this for years and years. They just passed this bill. Do wedo we have to why have to pass a bill . All thet should be done time and some agencies do try to do it. It is come for some it hard to get at it. Tom has written some terrific things on fraud and medicaid. We literally have units that go after fraud now in a way we did not before. They have saved the federal government tens of millions of dollars. Your point is well taken. These are supercharged issues. Security,ouch social medicare, medicaid, that is kind of the third rail of american holidays. Inple always think waste is some other place, and a program that they arent interested in. Honestly, they get less scrutiny because in programs, like defense, where there is certainly waste, or at least every year. We seldom stop and give things like Social Security, medicare, medicaid, a really hard look. Frankly, they have organized special Interest Groups that defend them and will say, anytime congress does anything, they are throwing gravity over the cliff, or taking away the benefit that you earned. To gunshot, in my view, about confronting these groups. If you dont, you will never balance the budget. Host do you have direct involvement in this deal . Guest i didnt. This is negotiated at the highest level b between the speaker, the president , and the two minority leaders. People and their respective staff. Theres a lot of support by committees to answer questions, but the main deal has been negotiated by the leadership of the house, senate, and the president. Host do you know it was forthcoming or did you just find out about it last night . Guest i knew was coming. I know the negotiations have been going on for a while. I have some good friends on all sides of the negotiation. Host what did they tell you . Guest basically, it ended up about where they thought it would. On wednesday and thursday last week, i think they werent sure it was going to make it, but it 6040 might. You had different perspectives from different sides. Nobody is going to be 100 happy with this thing. In termsto look at it of what the consequences are, if it does not pass. You really want massive cuts to the American Military . I think the answer is no. Excuse me, iss this additional spending paid for . Yet, it is. There will be plenty of people who are upset with it, but spread theink they sacrifice fairly evening across the board so no one group can say they were singled out. Host how much list do you have going to supporters . Guest i think there will be a lot of resistance to this. I think the more conservative stronglywill very oppose it. I reread some things they said in the mornings papers. Host have you had contact directly . Guest we were all in conference last night, so we heard everyones initial thoughts. We saw the broad outline, so it is easy to see where the fault lines are. I think it is possible to get a majority of republicans up to which we could grow 140150. I think the same thing will happen on the democratic side, probably a little better. Onre will be some heartburn the democratic side over social cutsity, disability, and for medicare providers that were already implemented under the budget control act. They will be extended out longer to pay for this thing. Again, there are plenty of reasons for people to not like it. But i would ask them, give me the alternative that you can get passed, that the Republican House will pass and a closely sed,ded senate will get pas and a liberal president of the United States will pass. Everybody is going to have to give something up. No one can force what they think is the ideal solution on the other party. That has been the case for 56 years. Noel from New Hampshire, go ahead. Caller this is in the same vein of abuse of programs. I would like to point out abuses that i know are corporate welfare. Golf course as the greens keeper. The superintendent and assistant, when they go to their meetings and conventions, and trade shows, they always call the Escort Services in. And, ohl come back, boy, we had some girls for 1000 a night this happens repeatedly, over and over, everything paid for, the women and entertainment. That is all corporate welfare. Auto guys come down, wendy industry was in trouble in detroit, and they stepped off taxpayers paid for their 30,000 stepped off the jets, and have their handout, give me some more. I realize the politicians in washington, they take it vantage of these programs. Cutting want to start of abuse and waste, maybe you and your colleagues should look in the mirror. Guest what you describe is not just corporate welfare, but criminal activity. You are to be talking to the police. I would hope you would report that to the appropriate authorities. Second, in terms of looking in or, i think you made a good point here congress has cut its budget more than any other part of the government, frankly. Congress has not had a raise, and im not arguing they should, but they have not had a raise since 2008, and they effectively got a pay cut because they went on obamacare which raised what they pay and terms of health insurance. I do not say that to get any sympathy for congress, but to know that those kinds of cuts have actually happened, and is one of the reasons why the deficit is 1 trillion less today than it was in 2010. That is a good thing. At the end of the day, you have to get to a balanced budget. A lot of the low hanging fruit like that has been picked, so to speak. You really have to sit down and have a cost about the cost of Social Security, medicare, medicaid. Are goinghey bankrupt. If you do not make some changes there, then youre never going to get a balanced budget. Your basic point that you ought to lead through personal action, i could not agree with you more. Host ryan from maryland. Caller will you be voting for this . Guest you know, i have not read it all. I read almost all of it this morning at 4 00, so my mad memory may not be so good. Almost certainly, yes. There are some things that i dont like. I can give you a list of them. At the end of the day, i think having financial panic we have paid our debts as a country since 1789, in full, on time. We are the most reliable creditor in the history of the world. That is something you dont want to change. Second, i think, important to me, at least, look, we live in a dangerous age. We have thousands of people deployed, protecting us each day. They dont have to worry about whether they will have the training, equipment, things they need. I think that would be criminal. The deficit act would disproportionately hit the military. I dont think we can afford for that to happen. Host chuck, republican line. Caller good morning. Ive a question for mr. Cole. These people go out if we go out here, and look at the situation that america is in today, we can take all these people down in congress, the house, and the senate. People input these the mess we are in today. All they can do is create more debt. We are wrote, giving money to every country in the world we are broke, giving money to every country in the world. To these people have any is the sense business sense at all . I dont think so. Guest you have to be a low more discriminatory, who and when . This president has racked up more debt than any other president in history. Reelectedent also got. He has a veto pen, and he has more than enough votes to sustain that. We have a divided power, a system of checks and balances. We have made some hardfought progress on the deficit. We have a long way to go. When you say, the people have been here, to be fair, i would not be in this category, but about two thirds of the people we have have been elected since 2010. They have been draining the swamp. Risk bign a risks, and the things they are willing to take on, they are willing to do that more. Some would shut down the government, thinking that would help. That was tried in 2013, and did not work well. These kind of hardfought agreements, there are, if you will, incremental and aquila said, are about all we have. You can get a lot done in a short period of time. Would say, why not use the potential shutdown to have arguments about the spending, why not use the debt ceiling . Guest number one, they never work. People who argue for shutdowns can never show want to work. They would to say, if we would keep it shut down for longer, that would be better. When he shut down the government, things get worse for different individuals everything all day while that process goes on. By the way, it is always expensive because we do not dock the pay of people who work during that time. Usually have to pay more in overtime as they catch up on the work that they were not able to do other regular basis. It is financially counter effective and politically ineffective. It is an inappropriate tool. If you want to change things, go winn some of elections some elections. At the and of the day, it is pretty frustrating that the other side can be to anything that you do. By the way, the democrats had this frustration in 20072008. They had the house and senate, and people yelling at them, stop the iraq war, and they couldnt. They had to work hard, and go with the presidency. That is what i tell my colleagues on my side of the aisle. It matters who is the president of the United States. It is a very powerful office with a very strong veto, and a. Reat bully pulpit if you want to make the greatest single change, make sure you went the next president ial election. Host our guest is representative tom cole of oklahoma. A member of the appropriations committee. Next is nathan from ohio. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I have three things that i want to point out. The first being that when we Start Talking in the budget performingng or programs, such as medicare, medicaid, and disability, you really need to look at what is happening outside of those pressureto put so much on them. For instance, i was born with a disability. I worked all my life. I knew that at some point i might have an injury the i would need time off for it. I protected myself by have a Disability Insurance. Unfortunately, i had a large incident happened, where i have spent 10 years with the international company, managing my disability when this injury came along. Then, they shifted their burden from them, to Social Security disability. That was ok because it alleviated their own burden to their shareholders, but it is not right because it added additional stress on to the Social Security program, which, by the way, obama, with the Affordable Care act, actually extended quite a long way. That has not been done for a long time. When you sit there and say that obama, and the democrats, have openly, not caring, i have to say, actually, it was president bush, having multiple wars on the credit card, that they did not pay for, as well as getting us into a large hole that was one of the worst since the great depression. If you want to claim that the gop is fiscally responsible, then you have to prove that by actions,saying it, by like not wasting 1. 4 million on hearings that do not go anywhere like benghazi, or giving the rich even more perks than the already have. Host we will let our guest response. Guest a lot there to talk about. Makes i think your caller a good point about Social Security disability. What is done in this agreement, as far as i can tell, it is to try and save it, to protect it. We do know, by the way, there has been a considerable amount of abuse. That means that nine people out of 10 are using it appropriately, and what was intended to. We have had a tremendous expansion in the numbers there. Those things are good. And terms of the fiscal discussion, we can debate this a lot of different ways. I guess i could argue that every year, the democrats were in power in the house and senate, deficit the went out. Every year the republicans have been in power since then, the deficit has come down. I would argue, if we are lowering the deficit, it is not because it is easy to do. We are spending less money than we were spending on the discretionary part of the budget went george bush was president. Those are real spending cuts, painful, and many cases. Again, i would stack our record up with anyone elses. The bottom line is, and i think you make this point, both sides have a lot to answer for. Both sides have made a lot of promise, and not done the corrections that you need to do on the demographics under those programs. As the baby boomer generation retires, as people live longer. Those things change what we can expect. You have to sit down on a regular basis and deal with them. Neither party has been willing to do that. Frankly, i give paul ryan a lot of credit, the first guy to put it in a budget, and pass the budget for consecutive years to make some of those changes was paul ryan, but he could not get the budget through the senate, or through the white house. By the way, whether it is democratic or republican, the budget deficit is going to go back up. The Congressional Budget Office issued a report about this earlier this year. Just about the time the president leaves, most of the inings will have been made various areas, and the growing retirement population will be pushing the Social Security, medicare, and medicaid right back up again. The next president has to sit down and deal with this, or run for reelection in a time of a rising deficit, something that a republican or democrat will not want to do. I think we will have a real serious discussion about entitlement reform, and tax reform, as well. Withax code is riddled inconsistencies, credits, gimmicks. We might argue as to who is overtaxed, and who is not, by do not think there is much argument that major tax reform needs to happen. Ont is probably one and two the next president s domestic agenda. Host we have of you are on twitter asking how the passage of the budget will affect paul ryan as w speaker. Guest in my complicated some. They might drag them into this discussion. Votenot know how he will if he opposes the deal, some people might be oppose mr. Ryan. Daniel webster is running. Nothing wrong with that. Others might choose to ride. Others will certainly look at it. I think it will just be those two. Normally what happens, when you go to the floor, the conference unites. It is really a question of who people will vote for on the house. If you lose too many people, and do not reach the requisite of those voting, you could have turmoil. Representative ryan, whose performance as budget chairman, ways and means chairman, his performance as Vice President ial nominee the fact that he is uniformly regarded as a very conservative individual will hold the votes there. Host some members of the Freedom Conference have expressed concerns about him. One of our guests last week expressed concerns. [video clip] i mentioned 60 of republicans not only feel let down, but feel but trade by the republican establishment in washington, d. C. Simply changing one leader to another will not assure them. Paul ryan has certainly been a leader on budget and fiscal issues, and the need for entitlement reform, but on the other hand, his views on comprehensive immigration reform, and another other issues, way heavily in the minds of our viewers out there. Inare looking for changes structure, changes that would change how the house is operated. Just because you are from wisconsin, california, virginia, or ohio, does not mean that your voters should have more of a say in the process. We need to open it up. For far too long, voters have been attacked, marginalized, and wrote a gold ridiculed by leadership. We hope that we will have leadership that will reflect, rather than attack them. Guest i think, and terms of opening up the process, there is a great deal that i can probably agree with. Im an appropriate. I went every appropriation to come to the floor. We did six bills this year. We had to stop, partly because the flap over the Confederate Flag issue. We had people who didnt want to vote on the Confederate Flag. Those kinds of things, he and i would probably find a lot of common ground. I will differ with him a little bit on this idea that conservatives are not represented. This is probably the most conservative Republican Congress in history. Even in the 1990s, when they balanced the budget, they never cut Discretionary Spending. This covers has done that. They never did any serious entitlement reform, other than on welfare. A foughtress has asked and won some victories in those areas. I think it is a very conservative conference across the board. Where we tend to disagree is not on the issues, but on the tactics. We do have an element that wants to shut down the government, and thinks that is a winning strategy. I would invite them to go back, and look at october 2013, and tell me if they won. I dont think they did. Obamacare is still here. I would not count on getting that lucky twice. Tim and i agree, they ought to be wide open. Anybody that wants to want to be able to go run. You have the opportunity to make aints, and other guys want united conference. The last point is the real question is do you do it on the floor . If you do it on the floor, what you do is work with nancy pelosi to choose who the next speaker will be. That is a very dangerous, risky thing. Ryan ort against paul john boehner, but an active to five against the whole conference. You should not try to deny the 200 or so that will be with brian. Ryan. Host how do you think paul ryan would be different from john boehner . Guest i think he is more visionary and policy oriented. I think he is a supreme communicator. You will see the ryan vision elevated. That is something good for conservatives. Onnature and i served the Budget Committee went ryan was chairman very inclusive, he listens, you know what he is planning, you know what he is thinking. Im not saying that is not true of john boehner, who has been a very good and underrated speaker. I look at the guy, and he has deficit by 1 trillion. He got the first entitlement reform. He got rid of earmarks. He did all of that when barack. Bama was president i think ryan has a chance to build on that, and go further. I think generationally, the change is good for the republican party. I think he will be a very interesting workmate or counterpoint to the next president of the United States. Host lets hear from ron in florida. Caller good morning. Would you be in favor of a system that would multiply benefits . Of any entitlement coming out. It would enhance the 10 , and multiply it, not through the stock market, but for example, we have systems cashback systems, coupon discount systems currently circulating in the American Economy that would benefit. A 30 spawn retail activity isause a lot of the activity now more cyclical. That a small say bit of that money might go to a little waste. When you consider a system that 10 of thosee benefits . Tost i would need obviously, as they say up here, see the paper on that. Get yourure i 100 idea, but broadly speaking, i am in favor of things that increase individual options, and control, that provide a measure of flexibility that are not one size fits all. I will believer in the Social Security system. I think it has lowered part of among lowered poverty seniors, and in some ways is the most successful antipoverty program, if you look at where seniors were before Social Security, and where they are today, it has worked. Flaws inas some real it. The demographics are changing underneath it. If there are ways to multiply, and im not sure what those i have been for individual accounts in Social Security before, things that would divide people flexibility. I would be open to those kinds of things. With all due respect, i need to see it. Im not sure i have a full grasp on what you are pointing out. Host from virginia, teresa. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have a question. The government has used the money that is paid into Social Security for years for other things, and never paid it back. They talk about entitlement reform. We have paid into Social Security our whole life. Now, they put people on their that have worked have not worked long enough to get Social Security. They get ssi disability, but it is coming out of Social Security. Obama has cut medicare to pay for obamacare. I have seen seniors go into the hospital, and get jerked out of there because medicare will only pay for so many hours. But, if they are on medicaid, they will tell them they can stay there as long as they like. Shouldnt medicaid have the same restrictions as medicare . All these immigrants that he has brought in here, 90 something percent of them, i read in the food, is on medicaid, stance, welfare, and they are entitled to our Social Security now. Bankrupting it. What about all of us that have paid into it all of our lives . Should we not be protected . Im a widow, my husband was a veteran. He paid into it. Now, they want to cut what im getting. It is not fair to all of us who has paid into it all of our lives. You see the government i read and article that harry reid put up for the senate to get 14,000 a month retirement, and only have to serve one term to get it. Guest let me respond to that. I dont know what harry reid proposed, but that is not the case. What you read on the internet, and what is reality as far as congressional benefits are vastly different. No one gets 14,000 a month of he retirement, and to get the full retirement, you have to serve decades. It is not what people think. You raise a lot of good points. Certainly, people who have paid in Social Security should have protected. Its fully i do not know of a single plant out there that calls for reducing benefits. Actually,e proposals like in 1983, the last time we performed it, started with people in their 30s, not in their 60s. I think that is unlikely. Also, i disagree with you little bit when you say that we put ious in the system. Look, the law is clear on this. When there were years of surpluses, we were supposed to buy government bonds. That is exactly what the government did. Right now, we are in deficit of Social Security, meaning fewer taxes are coming in. They are drawing down those government bonds. We could argue whether or not it should have gone into the stock market, an index fund, that is legitimate argument, but the idea that money has been stolen aisle of Social Security is not true. Im still looking for the person whos healthy they have had a Social Security check, and it got cut, or they were told they would not get it anymore. The government will absolutely continue that. It is a trickier problem than you might suggest. First of all, illegals pay in, and get nothing out. Most of the studies show that they are a net contributor, not a net detractor. If you immediately legalize people, and allow them to get a full Social Security benefit for the time they had been here illegally, your point would be worth talking about. Right now, that is not the main challenge. The main challenge to the system is simply this. The babyboom generation did not have nearly as many kids as their parents did, and they are living a lot longer. They are now drawing money more money out than they paid in. Remember, that money does not just back up someplace. Social security is basically a payasyougo system, always has been. The first group of recipients 40 years paying in, then drawing out. By the way, that would be like my grandfather. A caps on out of poverty. Their they worked hard whole lives. I do not go back and try to rewrite history and say we should have done it differently. The system has never been designed to accumulate vast reserves that you would then draw down. 2013, we werebout running surpluses. That was because of ronald. Eagan, tip oneill they raised the age of eligibility. I cannot retire at the age of 65, like my dad did, they increased what businesses paid into it. We have changed Social Security about 20 times, since we passed it. What im saying is you will have to change it again. Not as driving it is legal immigration, not people stealing money out of it, not peoplestealing reserves, are living longer, and there are more of them. That is not a bad thing, by the way, it is a good thing. Host one more call. This is bill, mobile, alabama. Regarding helping Social Security, what is the resistance to doing something . Whong the cap off of those earn more than 128,000 im not sure of the exact figure thaty additional taxes in income bracket. I have never heard of proposed in congress, and im assuming that even though everybody says, that is a good idea, why dont we do that, can you explain to me what is the resistance to doing that . Guest i can. Smallof all, if you are a business person, you are not only paying your 6. 2 , or whatever it is, you are matching it. We have raised this cap. About 100 is 18,000119,000, but you are certainly in the ballpark with what you said just. If you are paying at the upper end now, you pay more in than what you will draw out on average. It is how much more do you want to pay. Ofyou are on the bottom end the income bracket, you are actually drawing more than you probably ever put in. Again, nothing wrong with that, you have played by the rules, and paid, but there is a question as to how much you want to raise the taxes. If we had a commission that met, i suspect that would be one of the things on the table, as well as the rate at which it increases. , since wee age level are living so much longer. Perhaps you raise it faster for people at the bottom, then for people at the very top. Warren buffett probably does not need the same Social Security or medicare benefit that momandpop on the farm do. That is the reality of it. We need to look at these things again. If you simply raise the cap, you would not just fund social iturity, you would overfund rapidly. You have to look at the equity a making people pay more into system that they cannot drop out of. Host representative tom cole, a member of the appropriations committee, and deputy whip. Not only looking at the budget, but also conversations about transportation and highway funding, our guest will be John Garamendi. We will talk about the budget, plans for a longterm solution. He will join us next. , president and ceo of the Congressional Management Foundation will talk about the newly proposed spending rules on members of congress. Washington journal continues after this. Booktvgnature feature of s are all big coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the country, with top nonfiction authors. Here is our schedule this weekend. We will be an nashville for the southern festival of books. At the start of november, we are back on the east coast for the start of the boston book festival. At the end of the month, it is the louisiana book festival in that route. And, we are by for the agency year in a row for the miami row from8th year in a miami for the florida book festival. Cspan has your coverage of the road to the white house 2016, where you will find the candidates, this ages, the debate, and most importantly, your questions. This year, we are taking the road to the white house coverage to the classrooms with our contest, giving students the chance to discuss what important issues they want to hear the most from the candidates. Follow the coverage on tv, on the radio, and online at cspan. Org. Cspan presents landmark cases, the book, a guide to our series which explores 12 Historic Supreme Court decisions, including marbury versus madison, brown versus the board of education, miranda versus arizona, and rovers is wade. D roe versus courtn by veteran supreme journalist, tony mauro, and published cspan, in cooperation , landmark cases plusailable for 8. 95 shipping. Get your copy today. Washington journal continues. Host our next guest is John Garamendi, a democrat from california, member of the transportation committee. There is a vote taken place on transportation issues. We want to talk about that, but first, i want to get your thoughts on the announcement about the budget being reached. Guest really important. Maybe a time that we will Work Together. We have to. We have really Serious Problems. The budget is one of them. The sequestration has been an enormous problem, not just for every other, but activity that the government is involved in. This is good. It does not solve all of the worlds problems, or all of americas problems, but it is a good step forward. Host is it something you think you could support and vote for . Y . Why . Guest it suspends the debt limit. It allows us, the American People, to continue paying our debts, which we ought to. These are not new debts, there are things that have been paid for over the last two generations. We need to pay those bills. It allows us to do that. It also increases the ability for this government to address problems in national defense, as well as domesti programs. Probably heard our last guest talk about issues that he may have or callers may have looking at medicare, disability, your thoughts on those efforts . Regard to the Social Security disability programs, it does need to be performed. I have a long history of dealing with these things. I was the insurance commissioner in california for eight years. We had Workers Compensation issues. Frankly, there was a lot of fraud going along. Going on. To deal with the fraud is important. It aegislation does little. Doesnt go far enough . It it remains to be seen. Wasndly, theire abusive activity going on. With regard to Social Security, there are no cuts to Social Security. There are changes that take place, but they are minor. Go further,ou say as far as dealing with the issue of Social Security fraud, how far would you go . Guest eliminate the fraud. If someone is honestly disabled, fine. People are abusing this program. What usually happens is we saw in Workers Compensation when the economy goes down, people turn to Workers Compensation to compensate their income, often, fraudulently. Inhink one of the reforms this required that there be a medical evaluation, not just a clerk taking in information, but a medical evaluation. That is important. Host you do serve on the transportation and infrastructure committee. What do you expect to happen . Guest the house of representatives i think this week, maybe next week, depending on how the budget deal goes will take up a transportation infrastructure built. We know that at the end of this month, there will be actually, we have to kick the can down the road. We will kick the can down the so, and inmonth or that time will take up a larger structural reform of the transportation infrastructure system. That is important. We are really, really good at kicking the can down the road. We have to come to grips with our infrastructure. The legislation that we will take up after we kick the can down the road for a month is insufficient. It passed the house of representatives and for such a Committee Last week, and it is woefully insufficient. Host because . Guest it does not increase the ofding beyond a modest rate inflation. It will guarantee that our Transportation Systems will get worse. That is an indictment of the house of representatives withttee for not coming up a robust build actually moves this nation forward. On the roads, rails, waterways, in the ports. Host the Senate Version of this bill, it goes for six years, but three years of that is funded. Guest both bills are six year bills. Both bills lock in a woefully insufficient amount of money to deal with transportation in his country. A few americans get to travel outside of the United States. When they go to europe, china, they see a Transportation System that actually looks like it may be present day. You come to america, and are looking at a Transportation System that is not yesterday, it is way yesterday. We need to build this. This is about the foundation for Economic Growth. The senate bill and the house levelockin the current of funding for six years. That is a disaster. We certainly ought not do that. Do youow much money think has to be put out there to take care of the transportation issues . How does that compare to what is being proposed in legislation . About 120t billion to 150 billion. We can pay for. The Department Transportation made a proposal called the roe america act, and it does that act, and itica does that. American companies hide their profits overseas. The legislation says, you will pay your fair share. Youris where you will pay fair share of the taxes. 140 billionabout dollars100 50 billion over those six years. Lets do that. Lets let those corporations pay their fair share, and build the foundation so those corporations can grow, and americans can have good, middleclass jobs. Host representative John Garamendi of california. He serves on the transportation and infrastructure committee, also the Armed Services committee. You can ask them questions about the issues we have discussed this morning. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. For independents, 202 7458002. You can also tweet us at cspanwj. Our first call for you is mike in willow creek, california. Caller well, hello. Greetings from Northern California on this morning. One of the longstanding issues i have had with the way that we Fund Transportation nationwide is that california pays vastly more into federal taxes, due to our demography, the nation of thatconomy, and all of there are other states which we are basically subsidizing. This is an ongoing problem for california. We have been a donor state for forever, with one exception, the american recovery act, that stimulus bill. For the first time, california did very well in that bill, perhaps because the speaker was from california. This is an ongoing problem. We need to take a look at transportation and infrastructure being a national issue. We know, for example, the majority of imports from asia, and really, around the world, arrived at the ports in california oakland in the north, and long beach, and los angeles in the south. That is great, but the impact is in california, right around the ports and the cities. The National Freight program that is in the grow america act, that i really think we ought to take as foundation for legislation, has a very significant increase in the freight movement. That would be a significant and very important thing for california because it will allow us to not only will our ports, but also deal with that first mile coming out of the ports, so we could end some of the congestion that we see in california. The eastern ports have a similar problem. This is something that has to be done with on a national level. Yes, california is really the seventh largest economy in the world, and im afraid we will likely continue to be a donor for some time. There are specific programs in the transportation infrastructure bill that should would be ager, and specific help to california, as well as those other port states in the nation. Host from missouri, jim is up next, independent line. Caller hello . Host you are on. Caller good morning to you. My question is this. The funding of the highways, and that, when the money gets allotted to them, who actually have control of where that goes, and who determines what state gets what . The money that you are putting i say, thelike highways are all built with natural materials, Natural Resources, that belong to we, the people, of america. The money, as im understanding, it does not have any value anyway. Why leave anyone in charge of anything in this country to build anything with Natural Resources . Or sixyou put about five different issues together. Lets see if we can take it apart and have a go at it. First of all, the funding of the federal level, almost all of it, goes back to the state for what are known as federal highway. Rojects in the state some of the money goes back to states for state programs only. Some of it winds up with local cities and counties. That is the highway piece of it. Goes back toiece the local transit district. Some of it goes to amtrak, which is a National Passenger rail program. It varies across the board. Most of the money winds of going back to this eight, it is allocated based on a formula the number of miles of traffic in an area, the number of ports, railroad systems, and the like. There is a specific formula. That is wrestled with by the members of congress as they try to help their individual states, counties, and cities. That is the way the money is distributed. There are formulas and specific as you look allocation formulas set up. Regard to an issue that you talked about, which is what is the material being used this is really an important question. It has to do with the buy standards. To me, everybodys tax dollars ought to be spent on americanmade equipment, supplies, and materials. We ought not be buying chinese steel with your tax dollars to repair the bridges and america. We ought to buy americans deal, made by american workers, in American Companies here in the United States. I will give you an example. The new oaklandsan francisco bridge, most of the steel in the bridge was chinese steel. I thought it would be cheaper. It turned out to be more expensive because it was of poor quality. The jobs were in china. Not, the United States. I will give you another example. The bridge in new york americanmade steel, american jobs, on time, on budget. My mantra, make it in america, use your tax dollars for americanmade equipment, materials, support american workers. Host david from new jersey, democrats line, go ahead. Caller good morning, congressman. I think the problem the democrats have is you do not interesto the people rates. Ultimately, it takes seconds to to say isl you have if you have a home, you know historically when you bought your home, Interest Rates were paid, however, the bank 2. 5 , so they made 3. 5 . . 25 forbank is paying that money. T is free money for the democrats to actually explain that to both republicans and democrats, and say, people, we can now borrow billions of dollars at . 25 on the dollar, 2. 50, andosed to now we are getting ready to increase Interest Rates what will they increase it . Double the cost of money. If you do it now, you ultimately are creating jobs, which gives you a tax base. Democrats,hat as make people understand, get a chalkboard, and explain to the people. It is simple. Guest you phrased an important point. That is the federal government can borrow money at a very low Interest Rate. The 10 year treasury is probably around 2 , extremely low. Certainly, we ought to refinance. As you might refinance your home mortgage, refinance the outstanding debt. Secondly, you are right, we can borrow money. Act, whichw america i happen to like, there is a proposal. One of my colleagues, mr. Delaney from maryland, would use four and profit, hidden overseas, bring that back home, tax some of that, but that in transportation, and put some in an infrastructure bank, achieving what you talk about, very low Interest Rate loans localities, states could use to improve their infrastructure. That is a very good idea. Act has aamerica. Maller proposal in it unfortunately, here is where the hangup is. It can be deficit financing. The mantra, much of what you heard about in the previous discussion with mr. Cole, talked about the deficit. Yes, there is a deficit, and yes, it is a problem. The question is what are you spending the money on . If you spend it on transportation, you find that for every dollar you spend, you will create about two dollars of Economic Growth. In other words, you get a return on your investment, not only on infrastructure, but creating jobs, and new tax revenue. It is winwin all the way around. Host there is a story in the paper today looking at the and dealingon deal, with positive train control. He talk about positive train control and the deadline coming up . Guest yes. Positive train control is an in which werogram know exactly where the train is, you know where it is going, you speed, and it sets up, in the cab of the locomotive, a mechanism that would slow down or speed up the train in an emergency situation. For example, the philadelphia accident. Had there been positive train control, the engineer would not have been able to enter the curb at too high of the speed. This has been put in the law, more than a decade ago, as a result of an accident that happened in california. It takes a long time to create these systems. We have tens of thousands of out there, and the systems have to be put in every mile of the track. It takes time, and also very expensive. It has not been completed. The way the law presently said, if you do not have positive train control, youre not moving the train down the tracks. Well, positive train control is not going to be completed by the deadline. Therefore, we are faced with an option. Host when is the deadline . Guest it comes up, i think, at the end of this year. The deadline says, no trains can is positive there train control. What do we do . There is no positive train control, do we stop the rails . We are not going to do that. I think we will extend the deadline, moving forward 12 years, and continue to force the Rail Companies which they are doing, they are actually spending billions of dollars on this and other improvements to get along with the process. Part of it is amtrak. The amtrak budget has been held in a very tight domain. Not enough money to get everything done. One of the things the amtrak has not been able to do is complete its part of the positive train control. We will extend it, at least, i think we ought to extend it, unless we want to shut down the rail lines, which is not a good idea. We must force the system to move to get this done. It will create a safer system. Host even though what we saw in philadelphia, are you concerned with giving an extension . Who knows what happens between now and then . Guest you are between a rock and a hard place, are you . We are not going to extend the deadline, and under the current law, you cannot run the trains. You cannot run amtrak, you cannot run freight rail. What does that mean . Shut down a sai large portion of the economy. The problem in philadelphia may well have been a human error problem. The engineer should have known that he was going into that turn too fast. You still have an engineer in place. You still have the trains operating. You will not have the Electronic System to assist in the safety of the train. Nonetheless, rails are relatively safe. We have Serious Problems with the shipment of crude oil, another issue that needs to be dealt with. They have not taken the with the crudeh oil being shipped through the committee feared what we ought to do is force the Oil Companies to reduce the volatility, the explosiveness of the oil on the trains, and slow the trains down as they move through our communities. Host we are joined by representatives John Garamendi of california. Our next call is betty from texas. Hello. Caller good morning. Guest it is a good morning. Caller im 85 years old. I lived through the first depression in the 1930s, when people had nothing we had thel when vietnam war under lyndon johnson. We paid a fair tax. I paid it. I have been paying taxes for 63 years. I am still paying taxes. Problemthat part of the with this war that we have had is that everybody was on board. They were happy to go to war, but nobody wants to finance it. You phrased an ongoing issue. We will see that in the budget issue, the deal that was put together last night. You will see it for many days to come. More the Afghanistan War and the iraq 2 war are the first wars and a mark in history that were borrowed money, borrowed from china. We asked china to finance that war. We sold them the bonds, what we talked about a few moments ago. The results, we ran up a huge deficit. You added on top of that the 2008 economic collapse, the deficit got even bigger. We are still in that same problem today. We are not financing our wars. We are adding money to the defense budget. You can argue whether it is necessary or not, whether the programs are necessary. I have some questions about the necessity, for example, of engaging in a new trillion Dollar Nuclear arms race. That is also underway. The point you made is absolutely accurate. The current wars are on borrowed money. We did not finance these wars as we had all of the previous wars with an increase in taxes. We fought the wars without a burden to the american taxpayer at that time. Future taxpayers are going to get to pay for it. That is not right. If you are offered twitter said this. Host a viewer said this. Amtrak is playing chicken with the law. Opportunity in terms of time, absolutely. There was enough time, there wasnt enough money. Congress and the United States have been starving amtrak for years. The money that they needed to trainse, to build control, to buy new cars, upgrade their services was made available. It stretch out. System thatny real installs this positive train control, do they get federal money . Guest yes and no. Amtrak, yes. Put it the other rails in themselves. They have tax benefits that are associated with that expenditure. Host from colorado, joe. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to commend you mr. Representative for being an american first and not a democrat or republican. Guest thank you. It is simply this. You want to know about fraud . Social security is where you should start first with the law firms and judges. My wife and i were employers. We paid in for many years. The we chose to buy law firm accused us of fraud, we could be insured. Obamacare came along. As a republican, i was shocked, that until obamacare came along, my wifes cancer could be reinsured or taking care of. When i went to apply, when i mentioned that i had two discs aten out of my back, the guy Social Security right away made the decision i was a front. By the time i got a hearing, i didnt have enough quarters to qualify for disability after owning a Construction Company for nearly 17 years and paying in a large amount of money. I am not complaining. My point is that i am an american first and a hispanic second. This country promised as an opportunity. My question is why is everybody afraid to look at how the Social Security judges and law firms are in bed with one another and try to make criminals us ou outf us at the age of 63 by lying so that we can get medicaid . Guest you raised an issue that is an ongoing concern of all of us. I raised this point early on. When we talk about Social Security disability programs. Your description of your medical should i am a long way from colorado so i am not able to judge this but that kind of medical problem should be evaluated by a medical determinatione a that yes, you are disabled, or no, youre not disabled. If you are, the appropriate benefits should be available to you. What you have described is the other side of the coin of Disability Insurance fraud. Cases of aitimate disabled individual not being able to get it because of some decision made by a clerk, perhaps there was a lawyer involved, maybe not. That is not right. Have suggested and what we did in california when i was the insurance commissioner was to set up a mechanism so that there would be an honest medical evaluation of a disability. Disabling to a certain percentage. Then you can go forward knowing that what the actual medical circumstances are. Case, youd to your may want to contact your local congressman. I know that in my district in california am a we get numerous medicaid,numerous medicare issues all the time. We work with the appropriate federal agency to try to sort out what is the situation and what kind of benefits, if any, are prepared. You may want to contact your local Congress Person and ask them to assist you. Host a viewer on twitter asks about dealing with budget shortfalls with an increase of the gasoline tax. Would you support an increase in the gasoline tax to pay for transportation . Guest weight dont need to go there. Grow america does not increase the gasoline tax. It brings home to america profits that american corporations that are hidden in tax havens overseas. Can be done. I will note that the gasoline tax and the diesel tax has not been increased since 1994. Therefore, given inflation, it doesnt by nearly as much. We have far more efficient automobiles, miles per gallon have significantly increased, probably doubled over that period of time. The value, the ability of the gasoline tax to finance the Transportation System has significantly diminished. Host from brunswick, ohio, independent line. Caller good morning. I would like to know how are you going to vote on the trade . Guest you are talking about the Transpacific Partnership . Caller about the trade policy, tpp . Guest that is it. Everything i know about it would lead me to a no vote. We dont know everything about it. Document. L a secret some information has been leaked. It is nonetheless been made private. What i think i know about it, what i have heard about it, some of the early versions of it have, for example, the gutting of the by america provisions which i talked about a few moments ago. It basically allows japan and all of the other countries in that trade deal, and there are 10 other countries, to have a full access to the american taxpayer dollars as though they were actually in america building the steel, building the trains, building the buses in the United States. I dont like that. That alone is reason enough for me to vote against it. If in fact that is still in the bill. We will see. It has not been made public. I do not think it will be for another month or more. We will see what is in it. I am very concerned about it. Haveof these trade deals been good for everybody but the american worker. When he first deal went through with the World Trade Organization and then the north america nafta deal, we have and thats time lost 8 Million Manufacturing jobs in the United States. Those are good middleclass family jobs that are long gone. We can bring them back with good y america, goodu transportation programs that build the infrastructure that we need for Economic Growth in the future. Host republican line, rick from louisville, kentucky. Go ahead. Caller i was wondering what we get serious about the fraud in defense contracting as well as hiring contractors to carry out our defense needs. I think there should be a site that you can access nonprofit tax returns maybe Congress Needs to have some of those senate many hearings where they bring their tax form yearly. Share it with the public. Also, support them with whistleblower protection within the organizations. Thank you. Raised three different issues. With regard to whistleblowers, they are protected. They are an important part of how we learn what is going on in Government Programs, Government Contracting programs. Secondly, with regard to nonprofits, ill give you one example of a nonprofit that is a major problem for america. , theis the super pacs 501 c fours, nonprofits that are now dominating the political life in america. Usually, just a handful of very wealthy individuals creating a super pac and using its nonprofit status to be able to dramatically influence the elections in the United States. It is a serious, serious problem for our democracy. There are plenty of other problems in the nonprofit rome, also. Realm. Contracting for defense contractors, an ongoing issue. Nothing new. This dates back to George Washington and trying to get theer guns and cannons for in 1777,al army back 1778. This is an ongoing problem. We need clear oversight, congressional review of contracts. In about an hour from now, the house Arms Service Committee will be holding a hearing on contracting. How to improve the contracting, make it faster, make it simpler, make it cheaper. We will see. An ongoing issue has been with us since the inception of this nation. Harry truman in world war ii actually gained notoriety across the United States, so much so that he became a Vice President , after roosevelt died, president by running a series of hearings during world war ii on defense contractors. Like you for your question. Host the Washington Post this money has a story about possible proposal changes for activity going on in syria. Its as one of the proposals being considered would be to put up a small number of u. S. Advisers on the ground in syria. For the First Time Since the United States had operations there against the Islamic State. Side,t comes to the iraq it is recommended they embed advisers on the brigade level. What do you feel about the u. S. Involvement in syria . Guest when isis started a year and a half ago, i said this is going to put us on a slippery slope. Congress must carry out its constitutional respons ability of declaring war. We have not done so. The president s action is based a 2003nterpretation of declaration of war which is now called an operation authorization to use force. Applying it to the Current Crisis situation in iraq at a time when he claimed that the war was over, it is restarted, obviously. Syria, the same situation. No decoration of war. The bombings are taking place based on a legal interpretation of the afghanistan declaration to use force. Planning that in syria, there are elements claiming that in syria there are elements of al qaeda. Stretch. Legal friendly, congress has abdicated interest constitutional i will say itty is a slippery slope. In for a dime, and for a dollar. We have seen the First American deaths in combat since the end of the iraq war three years ago. We will see more. We have a responsibility. We need to set the parameters. If we want to be on the ground which is precisely what this would be, lets say so. Lets be clear about it. Let the American People know. Lets have a full debate about what it means. It is a very serious situation. Russias involvement makes it more complex. Not that it wasnt complex to begin with. We have to deal with it. We are not carrying out our response duties our response abilities. Result is that we are not creeping, we are sliding into a new ground were in the least. Host eric, peters town, georgia, democrat line, youre next. No troops in syria, we dont have money for that. Let me tell you what you democrats are doing with this bipartisan deal. What you are fixing to do, you are fixing to make the democrats lose this next election. That bipartisan deal where you talk about cutting Social Security i know you wont vote for. I know republicans are not going to vote for this deal. This bipartisan deal is bad. , they these bad deals come out of this bipartisanship. They are bad for my community, the africanamerican community. When you cut welfare, that is bad. Billyou this bipartisan where you are cutting medicare and Social Security, you democrats are fixing to lose bill clinton didnt have somebody following him because of Newt Gingrich and all of those bad politicians getting together. It has turned people off once they realize what you people were doing. Just because you say bay partisan bipartisan, that doesnt mean it is good for democrats. Hey will enter into a deal when you have a democrat in the white house, you agreed with ronald reagan. They were not agree with what you do. They push everything on you for bad policies. Guest you raised one of the great dilemmas that my party has. That is we dont control congress. We have not controlled the congress of the United States since the 2010 election, generate 2011. Republicans, a conservative party, have controlled congress. Last year, they took control the senate. They run the show. We can object, but they have to come to us to get the votes. Then we are able to provide some leverage and get at least a better deal. The president does have a veto, but that veto might very well have led to a shutdown of the limit. Ent of the debt in december 11th of this year, a shutdown because there is no money. We have to negotiate. We have no choice but to negotiate. Frankly, our negotiations have led to a far better outcome for Social Security which has not been cut, medicare, which is not cut. On the disability program, there is a modest and insufficient way of dealing with the fraud that has occurred in that system. We know from the previous talkedion, mr. Cole about the issue of medicare fraud. There is medicare fraud. Traded jose by doctors and a few hospitals out there perpetrated by doctors. We need to go after that fraud. Interestingly, the money to go after it was cut by the Republican Congress. They reduced the money that the irs needed to investigate those doctors and hospitals that were thought to be defrauding the system. The police and money was cut. Policing money was cut. It is our task to make sure that the benefits necessary for those who are in need are adequate. As a democrat, we will continue to fight for that. We will also fight for jobs. That takes us back to the transportation infrastructure which is the premier job program. We could put millions of americans immediately to work , full somest, strong trance rotation infrastructure transportation infrastructure program. That is our task right now. The senate bill does not do it, the house bill does not do it. It continues the current mediocrity that has caused 63 bridges 62 3000 bridges and america to become an adequate, dangers, subject to collapse. 30 of the highway lanes in california are inadequate, filled with potholes. You go on and on. Freight movement, so forth. We need to build america. That is what we stand for. American families having decent jobs building the infrastructure of this nation. Terry from akron, ohio. Independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I like the congressman to comment on there was a bill sitting in the house that would allow Public Employees like police and firemen who have worked for years and contributed and Social Security as well as working their jobs for the public. They only get a portion of the benefits that are allowed. It seems unfair that they were all those years contributing to Social Security and only get a portion of what they are really entitled to. That you please comment on i will hang up and listen to your response. Guest this is one of those reforms that mr. Cole talked about that in the bush elder bush period. That saidurity reform for people who had Social Security had worked and programs where there was a Social Security payment and then switch over to a Government Program like teachers, firemen, policemen where they do not pay into the Social Security system, it would deny them when they reached 65 to be able to access that portion of the Social Security that they pay for in some part of their working life. I think it is unfair. Obviously, you do, also. I believe they ought to receive their appropriate Social Security benefit based on what they pay for during their working life. That is not the law today. This is an ongoing issue, a particular problem in california with the teachers and california that may have spent the first 10 years of their working life working at a restaurant paying into Social Security. Go back to school, become a teacher, not pay into Social Security. When they become 65, they cannot take advantage of the 10 years that they did pay. It is wrong. It ought to change, it ought to be part of a larger reform which mr. Cole talked about. We need to do that reform. We are probably ok on the larger Social Security issue for the next 10 years. Maybe longer. Of ally, this issue this split needs to be addressed. I hope it would be addressed now because it is unfair. You were a rancher . Guest i am a rancher. Host i ask that because there is a story coming out of the who and the role of red meat, bacon, sausage, processed meat causes cancer and red meat probably does too. What is your opinion on that . Guest anything in excess will cause a problem. Everything in moderation is probably good for you. If you want to eat red meat morning and at night and a lot of process food, chances are you are doing too much. There has been a lot of studies over the years about everything. Red wine sauce all problems. It could, but if you drink too much, you have a problem. Too much red meat, youre probably going to have a problem. Isont believe that red meat going to be the end of anybodys life. It is a good source of protein and a good source of a healthy diet in its moderation. Host thank you for your time. Coming up on our program, we are going to take a look at the allowances that members of congress get to spend on their offices and other topic is topics related to that. Fitch will talk about those newly proposed spending bills when washington journal continues. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] im craig caplan, cspans capitol hill producer. I cover the house and senate floors. Also key events on capitol hill. We as a network are committed to covering the hearing gaveltogavel. It was a highprofile hearing. We have covered all of the hearings from benghazi on the house of representatives. This was one of the next in the series that we have covered. I got there at 7 00 in the morning. The crews were already set up. They had put cameras in before and gotten into place early in the morning for our morning show, washington journal. Goingould sure what was on in the hearing room before anyone was getting there. I was starting to tweet out things that were happening outside of the room as well as inside the room. I was showing the camera crew, what the committee was doing. Making sure we were as close as possible, getting the key moment when she came into the building and when she went into an annex room across the hall with her team for aids, her staff. The reporters were assigned, whether they were print, online, tv reporters, desks they could report from. A lot of people from the public said they it was their first hearing. It was a a historic moment. It was interesting to hear from them. I tweeted a picture at the end that shows secretary clinton talking to other members of the house, mainly democrats. She seemed very pleased, had a big smile on her face. Gawdy who appeared to be sweating was happy to leave the room since the hearing concluded. I thought the most interesting thing was the conversation that didnt get captured on camera. I mentioned one about chairman clintonsmrs. Aid. There were other moments. We devote gaveltogavel coverage to the house and senate, the house on cspan and the senate on cspan 2. When it comes time for those key hearings on capitol hill, we devote resources of cameras, putting it on television, radio, and online and making sure the viewers can completely understand without any commentary that entire event. That is one of those key events, covering this hearing with mrs. Hillary clinton before the house elect to midi on committee on benghazi that a lot of people were under for years on. Washington journal continues. On how housession members spend money for their offices and other things with fitch, the president and ceo, good morning. Tell us about the Foundation First and foremost. What do you do to educate legislatures . Guest we are a nonprofit nonpartisan program that has been around for 30 years. We try to help Congress Members communicate efficiently. We also educate citizens who come to washington on how they can have better communication with congress. Host ehouse panel recently changed the rules for members of. Ongress with how they travel one of the things they changed was how they decorate their offices. One of the reasons they did that supposedly and reportedly was because representative aaron schock, illinois, what happened to him . Guest it gives a little bit of an inaccurate for trail of how and whetheres setting is, their environment. If you go to a congressional office, most people would find it rather drab. It is a federal building. The Senate Buildings can be more and eight, but not much. Ornate, but not much. It is rehabbed furniture, no Congress Rooms Conference Rooms. It is not how it is portrayed on tv. I was watching a west wing episode where two of his Staff Members were going to congress. The scene portrayed them in this whileahogany meeting room a waiter served and coffee out of a silver pitcher. I river thinking to myself that must be the other congress because i do not work there. I do not get silver pitchers, i get styrofoam cups. In part, some of these stories give a misleading view of how Congress Really works. An active investigation into congress men schock so i will go into details, but in general, members of congress have a budget. For the furniture in washington, it doesnt include new furniture. You get as part of your job in an office d. C. Is and furniture. You have to furnish your own office. That is about 1. 2 million. There has been one institution that has cut its budget and the United States in the last four years, that is the congress. They have cut their budget by 20 . If they were planning any decorating, they have less money these days to use. sst in representative shcock case, there was a price tag of 40,000 attached to it. This doesnt happen regularly . Guest not at all. That is why he got caught erie it doesnt happen. When you go into a number office, like any persons office, it is a personal statement by them. You will see pictures of family, pictures with famous people, items that are part of their persona. I was in a member office, a member of the Armed Services committee. There were swords on display. A couple models of airplanes. They are trying to make a statement to themselves because that is what they want to surround themselves with. Not unlike any other ceo office. You are very small. That is something people are surprised by. It is usually 20 by 20. The studio i am in right now is twice as large as a congress office. Host house or senate . Guest senate side, it is bigger. Individual senators get nice space for themselves. They have Conference Rooms where as on the house side they dont. It is different on the senate side. Host that would be different, a representative versus a member of leadership how their office sizes change. Guest the one thing the house of cards got right and the only thing they got right about congress was apparently they did the Majority Leaders Office to a how higho the point of up the light switch was. They got that right. Everything else was fantasy. Settings they occasionally get right. Host what guidelines when it comes to because of these new rules, what are the guidelines for people who want to decorate their offices . Host they put a decorating budget in the guidelines guest which is slightly superfluous since most people dont decorate their office. They put in another provision regarding private charters. Not something that members of Congress Really need. For those who do flight private charters, they will need it. There members of congress do that. Most of them fly coach going back home to their own district. Host this was probably when it comes to private charters what are the rules . What dictates how they can use private planes . Guest there are new rules that required members of congress to seek authorization from the relevant committees when they want to travel most of the travel that members of congress do is between their district and washington, d. C. According to research we have done in a survey of members of congress, they travel back home 40 times a year. Most members of Congress Keep their families in the district. When that last vote happens on lake thursday or friday, they are on a plane back home to their district to do the types of things they normally do in a district, meeting with constituents, townhall meetings. How members of the congress can spend on our office, 2027488001 four republicans, 2027488000 democrats, 2027488002 independent. Are they searched like are they force like most people to search for that ticket prices . Guest one of the only minor perks they have you saw the stories in the 80s and 90s of the lavish travel they have, they dont get that because of a number of ethics laws, they get possibility on when they travel home flexibility and that there is a ticketing office they can go to to get they dont know when they will travel home. They have to get the best flight. Budgets have been cut in recent years. When the unexpected affects of that is that members of congress have been slightly inconvenienced. They are not flying out of Reagan National as much. They are being encouraged to fly out of the baltimore, washington airport. It is a longer commute. It is causing them to change their habits a little bit. Like any organization, if you cut your budget, you have to make accommodations. That is what has happened to converse in the last four or five years. Guest you can call in on the line. Host democrats line, you are first up for our guest. Go ahead, please. Caller thank you for taking my call. As i sit here and listen to this, i think to myself this conversation is appalling. You have over 100 Million People out of work. I have a desk and a chair i can donate for the increase in the Social Security that we are not getting. How outrageous is all of this . Truly, how outrageous . The socialing to cut security, disability, and everything else, and yet, we are having a discussion on furniture. Is it something wrong with this picture in this country . Host are people outraged by spending on this level . Guest it is understandable. When you hear stories about lavish spending, it gets frustrating. When you add up the numbers, it is not that much. I did some Research Last night in preparation for this interview. The United States congress of the it is not 1 budget of the federal government, it is. 1 . Legislative ranch which makes the policies and laws that affect 100 of us. While it is hard to believe that members citizens are actually getting a good deal in terms of their investment into the United States congress, i get that. Theres a lot of negative portrayal not on cspan but through other networks, i get that. When you look at what they spend , they are remarkably frugal with their own budgets. A have to do more with less, as i have said. Years, they try to be good stewards of the taxpayer money. Host 2027488001 four republicans, 2027488000 four democrats, 2027488002 four publicans independent. Caller good morning. Pedro, i think it is a disgrace that the way our congress does spend money. I am 80 years old. I never know whether next month i will get a Social Security check or not. I have worked ever since i was 14 years old. This is the consideration i get . Noise of dollars on the congressional hearing on benghazi. For what . Why is it all Tea Party Republicans that control it . Ohio, theyan from remind me of the oldtime cartoons. You guys probably dont remember. The little rascals, gawdy seems like denny dimwit. Jordan is the a bully from the little rascals. Thank you very much. Guest i can appreciate looking at Congress Sometimes looks like a cartoon. I am old enough to remember. Ittle rascals and alfalfa i am old enough to remember little rascals. I can appreciate that sometimes of the at congress is a character. That is one of the challenges the American Public has. A dont get to see the whole congress. An interesting idea. The media does not cover congress. The media covers the congressional leadership. If you look at the people on the press, only 11 of members of congress are on meet the press in 2014. By the way, thanks to my Research Assistant for giving me that data point the other day. Only 11 of members of congress are on me depressed. What are the other 90 doing . Y are hard at work hardworking Public Servants. The average work week for a member of congress is 70 hours a week. If you break down the pay for a member of congas, they get paid about 55 an hour. That is the equivalent of an optometrist. Again, it is hard to believe from what you see on television that this is a hardworking class of people. I am talking about their work ethic, not their work product. Im perfectly aware that their product right now is not popular with the American Public. In general, this is a class of people that are Public Servants, making sacrifices. They are not spending the time with their families as they might like to. Instead, they are working for their constituents. , for brad from maine fitch, go ahead. Thisr i am listening to and i get upset watching this and listening to what is going on. My main concern is if we want to the national debt, the answer to theses to look at expenses and the money that is being spent and washington, d. C. Lavishly. Consider the other thing is how many days of the year do these people work . Do they get paid whether they work productively or not . If they are not working productively, and we all know that is the case, we listened on cspan [applause] two Hillary Clinton being questioned for 11 hours. That was the taxpayer dollars. We need to start looking at getting some money from the very people who claim to be working. With this. Pset i think they should be more productive. The 45 of the rest of the world or the rest of our country if you dont work, you dont get paid. If you dont work productively, you get fired. Host ill let our guest respond. That one of the things citizens dont actually see of members working is when they are not on the floor. Hearings and other floor activity, but that is a small percentage of members of congress working. Most of the time, they are meeting with constituents in their office in washington, d. C. The average number of meetings and member of congress has on a daily basis is 13 meetings. Their day usually starts around 7 30 and ends around 9 30 and then they read and prepare for the next day. According to our research in surveying members of congress back home, their average work week is 59 hours a week is usually taken up by meeting with constituents, going out to events. Not a lot of office time. Interestingly enough, many people have the belief that members of congress spend all of their time fundraising. When you look at the time they spend on their calendar, it is 20 of their time on political activities. That is still a lot. Spending 510 hours a week going to fundraisers and things of that nature. It is not what they portray. Even members of congress exaggerate what they do in fundraising. It is to get sympathy from their colleagues. It is doing the types of things when you look at members of congress and the time they spend , it is on the things you want them to do. Andolicy related activities meeting with constituents and interacting with them in gathering information so that they can make the decisions. Those decisions affect their constituent lies. Disagree with the lady from maine. As i understand it, their pay what did he say . 55 an hour . Plumber 50 for a half hour of work who came and fixed my week in my my week in my faucet. They are not making more than an average plumber in alabama. Here is the thing. Old couchhere in my with split leather and drying out hinges. I love this cap. I dont want our present it is up there in secondhand Thrift Store Furniture just because it saves money around the office. I want to treat the nice. We elected them. That. 1 of the cost of our budget would really help much to bring down 18 trillion worth of debt. I am in sympathy with them. That is my call. I would love to hear your comment. Guest god bless you, jim. People in america which are that sentiment. I happen to. I happen to not need lavish furniture. A dont want it. They dont want it. They dont sit on it that much. They are bopping about between Committee Hearings and press conferences and things of that nature. I dont think they are really looking for the lavish furnishings that it is portrayed as. It is a problem. You talked about the budget and what they are given. There has been a significant decrease in the last 20 years in the resources members of Congress Actually have. There was a recent study that looked at the Congressional Research service. The Government Accountability office. Two institutions, nonpartisan institutions that do research for the United States congress. There has been a 20 drop in in the lastnel 1520 years. Ask yourself. Do you really want those watchdogs going on a budget . Do you want to make them more robust . Do you want to give members of congress the tools they need to understand the applications of Public Policy . A trillion dollar decision being made with pennies. Is that the right decision . The right thing to do . A good investment of our taxpayer dollars . That is something we are looking at is whether congress is anding down to the bone whether it is affecting policy decisions that they make that affect millions of people . Host we know from the Congressional Research service that numbers of Congress Make 174,000, house speakers, 223,000. How does his operating budget change when he become speaker . Guest incoming speaker ryan will get a bump in his salary. Thes already challenge of ways and Means Committee which has one of the largest step in the unit states congress, 80 staff the roots. Staff members. Entiree looking at the tax code. It is thought by the treasury department. It is more by the Accounting Department of major law firms. He is not getting a big bump. He is getting bigger digs. The Speakers Office is a sweet office. That is one of the few ornate offices in the United States congress. Mind mr. Ryan, congress been ryan has been a comic servant most of his life, never been a lobbyist. He was a Public Policy expert. He was a bartender in a nice watering hole where people go for margaritas. This is a guy who has brought himself up by his bootstraps. His family is back in janesville, wisconsin which he goes back to on a weekly basis. That is one of the issues he has wanted to preserve. If he moves into the speakership and is elected as speaker of the house. Host were you surprised by that request . Guest no. I am a dad of kids 79 years old. His kids are of similar ages, he has three children. I applaud him. We applaud it. We think there can be a work life alignment alignment as a member of congress, even with a 70 hour work week. Asking for not moving to 90 hours a week. That is a reasonable request. That is what sherman ryan was asking for chairman ryan. We look for these types of challenges members of congress have in trying to balance their life and their work. It is not an equilibrium. We encourage them is of congress to carve out that time. Interestingly, the challenge to having a better worklife is the staff, the demands, it is the numbers. They are politicians. A want to say yes to everybody. That is one of the unusual things. People come to washington and the me with a member of congress. A say she was so nice. She was very friendly. That is right. One member of Congress Said to me, i think all members of commerce are middle children still try to please their father. I think that is true. Members to have a better worklife is to say no to some things. To say i am going to do this with my family instead of that. I have seen members of congress do it. I know i member of congress where a young family had moved to washington dc because he wanted to spend more time with his young family. When the last boat was done, his staff knew he was going to dinner with his family last boat was down. Discipline, cooperation with your staff to do it. That is important. Staff are an incredible part of the equation. It can be done. Host from washington, d. C. , democrat line, mary. Caller i am calling in as a staffer who schedules a member and manages members budgets. I want to reiterate your point. Budgets have been cut so extensively that we are struggling. I know that doesnt make sense to the average american, but members usually have at least two district offices that they , buy suppliesh for, maintain staff with. Some of the members in the number,ities like my the rent is extremely high. Those are things that we cannot change. When there are custody budget, and there have been several in the last few years, it is usually staff that is mostly affected. Work productivity is affected by a lack of staff. Host who do you work for . Caller a democrat from new york. I dont want to say. He is a lovely guy, he has been in office for a long time. We are struggling under these budget issues. Number works all the time my member worked all the time. Researching, going back to their butts there. T do you hav host do you have a question for her . Guest know. Thank you for going in. Congressional staffers do not. Et the limelight they have undergone some cuts. When the budget got cut, the first thing that got cut was a communications budget. They started cutting the bonuses that numbers of congress were given to their Staff Members. They have not seen pay increases. We did a survey of congressional chiefs of staff a few years ago. We asked a question, which of these factors do you think will lead to a staff member leaving your office in the next year . The number one answer was the frozen budgets. Without staffer leaving and working as a lobbyist, what does that do to the decisionmaking on capitol hill . When you are losing that kind of institutional memory . These are dedicated people, congressional Staff Members. On average, a staff member can make 25 more money in the private sector than as a public servant. When you talk about sheaves of staff, it can be 200 more. And surveys of Congressional Staff, their levels of engagement as employees are off the chart. Responderske first in the know terry in terms of their work ethic, how they care about what they do, their andion as an individual how it relates to the office. It is extremely. In the last few years, they have gotten a tough deal. We are worried a little bit about the longterm institutional impact that may have of losing these great staffers. Host barbara in new jersey, republican line, hi. Caller thank you for taking my call. My question is a generalist question. When you hear republicans or democrats say we are cutting the budget, isnt that after they have already increased the budget . In my earlys that years i was a contractor for the government foretell communications. For telecommunications. What i experienced was a many of the agencies had a budget. Hypothetically, 1000 a year. If they found that by the end of the year they had not exceeded that, they would spend the money on junk so that they can go back and say we needed this additional 10 for the following year. Do you find this to be true . My question is is it true that they are cutting the budget that they already increased . Thank you. Guest i am not a budget expert. Im not going to pretend to be in terms of the federal government budget. The congressional budget where there has been increases in the budget has been in security the Capitol Police have seen an increase. They have built a Capitol Visitor Center which is a wonderful facility for visitors to earn learn a little bit about this beautiful, magnificent building and learn about the congress. I can tell you that for the United States congress, individual Office Budgets have been cut in real dollars. The average budget from a house member has gone since 2011 from 1. 4 million to 1. 2 million. What people dont realize is that they are cutting customer service. Much of what they do is serving constituents. Cuts to theulted in number of people that can actually serve as constituents. Host bought from kentucky, go ahead. Bob. Caller thank you for taking my call. You made it sound good,. 1 is what your budget is. Look at the national budget, what it is. 1 is a lot of money. That thosending is workers and those congressmens offices and senators offices that make upwards of 100,000 a year. Another thing. My gas to go back to work. Why should we, the people, pay for your flights every weekend . Guest i can appreciate your perspective. If members of congress were forced to pay for their own travel back home, we would only have the wealthiest people in our society serving and our congress because that is the only people who could serve a 40 thousands of dollars to go back and forth. We have to ask ourselves is that what we want . We want only the richest serving us . Is that a representative body . That is why we try to provide members of congress with a budget their jobs. Hundreds of thousands of dollars the average american makes 50,000 a year. I realize that making 174,000 a year is a lot of money. When you look at what they could be making, these are people that are easily giving up jobs that could make a lot more money. A are not doing this for the money. A are not doing this for the prestige. They are doing this because they are Public Servants and they want to give back to the people. It is a big sacrifice. That is why you see people leaving. Host breath hitches with the Congressional Research foundation. Brad fitch. Website, theyhe put together a survey called social congress 2015. In a couple sentences, what is this about . Survey ofdid a Congressional Staff to see their behaviors and attitudes regarding social media which is all of the rage these days. We wanted to examine how they are taking comments and intorating these comments their decisionmaking process. One of the most astonishing findings came when we asked a question of how many comments on his social media platform that you operate on a social media platform would be enough for you to Pay Attention . We found 80 of Congressional Staffers said less than 30. Two dozen sentence citizens commenting on a social media platform can influence or have some effect on a number of congress. We thought about it, it is like a town hall meeting. You go to a town hall meeting in america, most of them are like what we signed 2009 with health care, 50 people showing up. You get 20 people showing up when the same colored tshirt, the same message, that will get your attention. I work for a member of congress from maryland and went to 100 town hall meetings. I can tell you that if you have 20 people show up in annapolis meeting,nds town hall my boss goes back to the office and says we have to Pay Attention to this. It turns out is the same on facebook and twitter. If you get those comments aggregated closely enough in time within the first 24 hours, you are they are going to Pay Attention to that. That is enlightening, positive, reaffirming that members of Congress Actually listen to their constituents. Lets hear from bob in minnesota, independent line, hi. Caller i have a comment and the question. Conversation you are having conversation to ones that mcdonalds employees or walmart employees are having about their low pay, long hours, not getting holidays off. Congress getshe three or four weeks off every other month. I understand that this year they are working a total of 97 days. Is that true . Guest that is not true. I know that is the impression. When they go back it is called recess, congress is in recess. A member of Congress Going out and play kickball every time the gavel closes a session. They are not playing kickball. They are not going on vacation. That is a pet peeve of mine when i see reporters talking about their vacation. Members dont take vacations very frequented. They are going back home and working in their districts. There are going to the american legion, the senior centers, the schools. They are interacting with constituents, exactly what you would hope they would do. Listen to their constituents so that they can integrate that data, that information into the decisionmaking process. Members of congress are the best pollsters in the world. They are the only pollsters who if they get their answer wrong they lose their job. They have a vested interest in understanding your views. That is what they are doing when they are not on cspan and Committee Hearings and the floor. They are listening to constituents back home. Candler, north carolina, republican line. We are running short on time. If you would jump in with your question or comments. Caller im going to hurry but i have quite the to say. I think the best thing to do is to have term limits and get rid of the career politicians. Ont think congress is set up to be a 12 month year job. I think they should have four or five sessions a year. We dont need to be paying for two offices. They need to be in their district, have only one office that the taxpayers are funding, and they can be with her constituents there, keep their regular jobs that they have and work. If it is term limits, we wont have to pay any retirement when they leave. These people are living high on the hog. They dont a how the working people are living. Dohink it would be good to what was intended and only go up there to meet a few times a year. If you try to call their offices, a lot of them dont even want to talk to you if you are not from their zip code. Many of them you cant even send email to unless you are from theres a code. Yet, their vote is affecting everybody in this country. Host ok, dana, thank you. Guest a couple quick comment. We are representative democracy. I know that is frustrating that you can only talk to your represent at it. Your beef is with mr. Hamilton and mr. Madison. That is what they set up. I agree that they should only have one or two district offices with technology and telecommunication available. With regard to term limits, half of the United States house of representatives was elected since 2010. We have term limits, they are called elections, they were just fine. Host brad fitch with the Congressional Research foundation. Thank you. We go to the house of representatives. The house is in order. The cheerleaders before the house, communications from the speaker. Chair leaders from the house. The speaker from washington dc, october 27, 2015. I hereby appoint the honorable david g halladay of signs john a banner, speaker of the house of representatives. Pursuant to the order of the house, 4015, we will now recognize the majority and minority leaders from our debate. Witeach pty limited to one hour anchember otherhan ajority and minor
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