Washington journal starts now. Host good morning and welcome to washington journal. With a possible Government Shutdown looming, americans are wondering once again about the state of our government. Senators and representatives are trying to find some way to Work Together to come up with a budget with a small group of hardliners holding up the process. The Supreme Court seems to have a new public controversy every week. And the upcoming president ial election may mean change coming out of the white house. With all of this, our question for you this morning is about your level of satisfaction with washington. What is your current level of satisfaction with u. S. Politics . We are opening up our regular lines. That means, democrats, we want to hear from you at 202 7488000. Republicans, your number is 202 7488001. Independents, you can call 202 7488002. Keep in mind, you can always text us at 202 7488003. And we are always reading on social media, on facebook at facebook. Com cspan, on x at cspanwj, and you can always follow us on instagram at cspanwj. Americans are once again looking at a possible Government Shutdown in just about a week or so if republicans and democrats cannot come together and get a budget, or at least a shortterm cr, through. With all this coming out of washington, our question for you is what is your level of satisfaction with u. S. Politics . Are you happy with the way government is going, are you unhappy . And if you are not, what are your solutions . Theres a Pew Research Poll i want to bring to you that asks that very question, what is the level of satisfaction with the political system in the United States. I will bring you the results right here. This comes from a Pew Research Poll done earlier this month. Right now, it says 4 only 4 of u. S. Adults say that the political system is working extremely or very well. 16 of americans say they trust the federal government always or most of the time. But 63 say that they express not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the u. S. Political system. So if you look at the results of this poll, not Many Americans right now have a high level of satisfaction with u. S. Politics. We want to know what you think, and if you are not satisfied with how the u. S. Political system is working, what is your solution . What should we be doing different . Lets go straight to our phone lines and talk to ed, calling from georgia on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. Yeah, my problem is, as of the last tuesday, the 19th, we now owe over 33 trillion. And as most people do not know, we never pay anything but the interest. We never put a dime on the principal. If we were to pay 1 billion a year on the cancer bulk, it would still take 33,000 years to get rid of the debt. We are in big trouble. Host so what do we do . Do we cut defense . Do we cut social programs . Do we raise taxes . How do we get rid of this debt and not affect the health and wellbeing of americans . Caller what i think as we ought to cut all the freebies. This country was not meant to be supporting everybody. They are supposed to support themselves. Host ok, tell me what you call a freeby. Are you talking social security, medicare . Caller well, social security, we paid for that, so i do not consider that a freeby. Host what are you calling a freeby . What should we cut . Caller i am talking about there is people out there right now getting money, and some of them are illegal people getting 500 a week. It is crazy what is going on. Host all right. Lets go to gary, calling from jacksonville, florida on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning. You know, these republicans that come on, they are unbelievable. A couple days ago, there was someone talking about hunter biden not paying 40 million in taxes when host so my question this morning is about your level of satisfaction with u. S. Politics. What do you think about our political system right now, and what do you think should change, if anything . Caller the republicans cant i will tell you how you cut. Cut defense in half for 10 years, save 5 billion there. But corporate welfare. 1 trillion goes uncollected from corporate welfare. In 10 years, that is 10 trillion in the coffer. You save 20 trillion by cutting defense in half and getting these corporations and billionaires pay their fair share. It is ridiculous. Host what do we do to get other americans to agree with your point of view . The u. S. Political system means the majority vote and the congress and the president and the Supreme Court act. How do you convince other people to agree with you . Caller you need to get the democrats in charge of all three chambers, because the republicans have fought minimum wage over the years. They have never been for the working man, they have been for the wealthy man. They are not for the common people. They are for corporate welfare and these Oil Companies getting these subsidies, these tapper of these tax breaks. President biden said they made record profits and did not pay their fair share in taxes. It is ridiculous. Host lets go to steve, calling from san jose, california on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. The state of politics is really bad. The house, the group of about 12 that is going to shut down the government if they do not get their way is only trying to do the right thing. Everybody agrees that our current level of spending is unsustainable, but the democrats do not have a plan when we go broke and our money is worthless, what are we going to do now . I challenge you to have a democrat that on this program, on cspan, that promotes massive spending and deficits and ask him, when our money is worthless and we are paying more on the interest 50 , 75 on just interest what is the plan . Host so how do you get other people to agree with you . How do we get our political system where a plan can actually be made and passed through congress . Because as you said, right now, nothing is being done. How do we get our system to wear something can be done . Caller it is very, very simple. The only people that are expressing concern are fox news. The liberal news media abc, cbs, nbc, and, for the most part, cnn all the other news media is not sounding the alarm. If they do their job and they have people on that tell us, experts that tell us we have got to do something, then something will get done. Host all right. Lets go to richard, lost richard. Lets go to rusty, calling from greenbelt, maryland on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I listen to washington journal all the time. Ive never called in before. But i took the opportunity to call in this morning, because the topic is one that is one that should really concern everyone in our nation. When you were posing the question or giving the opinion poll about how many people in the Country Trust the government , i cannot really say i am surprised by that, but the solution just gets kicked around all the time on this program, and i do not think there is any hard and fast solution to the problem. But i think the lack of stability and the lack of people on both sides of the aisle to be willing to work with one another really works against trying to solve a lot of the problems we have in the country, and i think hard decisions have to be made about the things the federal government is spending on. But it is really hard to get people to agree on that, and it is very depressing to think they are not moving forward, not getting anywhere. Host all right. Lets go a little bit more, look at this poll a little deeper, and see what americans are saying. The Pew Research Poll we are talking about this morning asks americans what their level of satisfaction is with u. S. Politics. Here are a few paragraphs from that poll. A growing share of the public dislikes both political parties. Nearly we numb in 10, 28 percent, express unfavorable views of both parties, the highest share in three decades of polling. A comparable share of adults, 25 percent, do not feel well represented by either party. Speaking of the president ial campaign, as the president ial Campaign Heats up, 63 of americans say they are dissatisfied with the candidates who have emerged thus far. Setting aside the president ial campaign, there has been a downward trend in views of the quality of all political candidates. Just when he 6 rate the quality of political candidates as very or somewhat good, down about 20 Percentage Points since 2018. And one last thing, the majorities back h and term limits and eliminating the electoral college, reflecting a large part of americans support a change to the political system, including establishing term limits for members of congress and scrapping the electoral college. Age limits for both federal representatives and the Supreme Court drew broad support, but there is little appetite in the public for increasing the size of the house or ratifying the allocation of senate seats. We want to know your level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with u. S. Politics. What changes would you push . What ideas out there do you support, what ideas would you ignore . Last night, at the phoenix awards dinner, President Joe Biden addressed the prospect of Government Shutdown, which seems to be on its way towards washington, d. C. Here is what President Joe Biden had to say last night. [video clip] for those in congress owing so much division, they are willing to shut down the government, you know it better than anybody. Just a few months ago, after long negotiations between myself and the new speaker, we agreed spending levels of government for a National Security priority while still cutting the deficit by 1 trillion over the next decade. Now, a small group of extreme republicans do not want to live up to the deal, so now everyone in america could be forced to pay the price. Lets be clear. If the government shuts down, that means members of congress, members of the u. S. Military are going to have to continue the work and not get paid. A government code Government Shutdown. Impact food safety to Cancer Research to headstart programs for children. Finding the government, one of the most basic response abilities of congress, and it is time for republicans to start doing the job america elected them to do. Lets get this done. Host lets see what is actually happening right now with this potential Government Shutdown. Joining us a by zoom is a reporter, the congressional reporter for punch bowl news. She is going to update us on congress latest effort to pass government funding bills before the september 30 deadline. Good morning. Guest good morning. Thank you for having me. Host tell us exactly where Congress Stands right now when it comes to passing the government funding bill or coming up with a short Term Solution to prevent a Government Shutdown . Guest we saw last week that House Republicans did not really move forward with any of the appropriations bill or the cr they had proposed earlier last weekend. Right now, the plan that Speaker Mccarthy is working on with some of these negotiators is they want to actually try and get some of these Appropriations Bills that are less controversial past. They pass a bill for about four bills yesterday, and both are set to be passed tuesday. Of course, that only gives them for five days to get all of that done before government funding runs out, so it is not enough time. Also, i want to add Speaker Mccarthy did say he does not think acr is necessary. That is also a possibility, to the detriment to some of his hardline members. Host exactly what is congress doing right now . Are they working over the weekend, or are they moving at a slow pace . Or is there a sense of urgency on capitol hill right now . Guest members were working this weekend. They were on call by the whip. We did see a rules Committee Meeting yesterday, and that is why they were able to move ahead with some of these other bills. And a lot of other members did go home, and that was controversial among some people, who complained they should be here getting work done kate i would say that cents of urgency is evidently there for a lot of members i have talked to, but others who have been opposed to a stopgap bill and opposed to the kind of spending, some of these hard right republicans in the Freedom Caucus and some of those members are less so worried. They are not worried about a shut down and not worried about the timeline of what is going on. We will really see things come to a head this weekend. Host who should we be looking at . Is this negotiation going on strictly in the house . Our senators involved in these negotiations . Is the white house involved in these negotiations . Or is this a houseonly discussion . Caller i would say the focus is on the house. The finding has to originate from there, and they are the ones who have members who seem to be who do not seem to be super concerned about the possibility of a shutdown, so it is work on swing some of those are republicans who say this will not be the worst thing that happens, we have to get spending under control. The senate has a bipartisan proposal, a stopgap bill in case things need be, so there are members working behind the scenes in both chambers, looking at here is away both parties can come together and come up with a shortTerm Solution just in case, but it will be a tough, uphill battle right now for gop leadership in the house and getting everything done there. Host that has been a lot of attention paid to the house Freedom Caucus. Is there a split in those members on exactly what should be done and how they deal with the future of possibly Speaker Mccarthy . Guest definitely. We saw that last weekend with the cr proposal put together by members of the house Freedom Caucus leadership and members of the main streets caucus, which is a group of moderate republicans, kind of an unusual faction there working on a proposal. But you did see many of their Freedom Caucus own members reject that deal, saying it did not go far enough on x, y, z. The are some members who will not budge until there are cuts to the fbi, who say they say is weaponized against conservatives. There are some who say they will knock on the stair is cuts to all members have their own issues they want to work through, but of was, there is always contention. Host tell us who you will be watching this week, who are the key players we should keep our eyes on. Guest so ive been definitely paying attention to some of these people who have been in and out of the whips office all week. We saw leadership of the wisdom of the Freedom Caucus working with gop leadership, which is unusual. That is in line and we saw some of these other moderates come to the table as well. Actually worked with matt gaetz on a proposal, in the midst of trying to get through some of these bills. And of course Speaker Mccarthy and the rest of gop leadership, he will be under a lot of pressure, and we will definitely watch how he handles it. Host given your reporting, your sources, and what you have seen on the hill, how likely is it the government will shut down on september 30 . Guest right now, i would say it is still a high likelihood the government will shut down, given the time crunch. Lawmakers only have, at least in the house, four legislative days this upcoming week, with the jewish holiday, so that takes time away. It is just not going to be enough time to get through all of those bills, let alone negotiate probably a cr deal, which completely failed last week. We are really in a time crunch. Right now we are on a trajectory to see that a trajectory to see the Government Shutdown on october 1. Host we would like to think because ulnar we would like to thank Mica Soellner on keeping us updated on what is going on in capitol hill. Thank you for your time. Guest thank you. Host once again, with all of this happening, what is your level of satisfaction with u. S. Politics right now . Is our government dysfunctional, or is our government operating exactly as it should . If you are dissatisfied, what changes do we need to make to the system to get a better working government . Lets get back to our phone lines and talk to jackie, calling from virginia on the independent line. Good morning. Caller this is jackie, and i think host you are on, go ahead. Caller ok. I think we definitely should set limits on the time that the elections the people that are elected can stay in congress. And from the president down, it should be a set limit. Host jackie, it sounds like you are in support of term limits. Caller i am in support of term limits, i am in support of bipartisan working together, and i think that they need to pull in some of the money from the people that we loaned it to and get it back, and i think we should need to cut what Congress Makes in half and put it toward the host all right, lets go to frank, calling from aberdeen, maryland on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning morning. The basic function of our representatives, if they are not talking to each other, they are not doing their job. And they have not, by large, been doing that since 1995 and Newt Gingrich declaring war on the democrats. It is one thing to go over and have a partisan battle on the floor, but it used to be that members of congress, their families got togeth