Billion. Yesterday, we talked with republicans only in the first hour of washington journal about the debt ceiling vote. Today, we turn to democrats to get your thoughts on the 2014 agenda. What should be the parties priority . If you live in the eastern part of the country, dial we will get to your thoughts about priorities for democrats in 2014. Joining us on the phone is emma staff reportera for roll call, joining us phone to talk about House Democrats leaving washington for their annual retreat. Where are you, exactly . Where are the democrats meeting . And what is on the agenda . Guest we are in cambridge, maryland where the snow has turned to freezing rain. And we are at the reporters are camped out at the holiday inn houses down the road, but democrats and their guests are out at the Hyatt Regency on the chesapeake bay. The theme of the retreat is strengthening opportunity. They are going to be holding a series of symposiums, breakout sessions. They are going to give speeches that will be addressed by Vice President biden. And tomorrow by president obama. And they will be trying to crystallize their policy positions and messaging strategies and talking points economics,themes like closing the wage gap, very emboldened by the president executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors and they want to continue pushing for a higher minimum wage for all americans. They are going to be talking about tax code reform. That is for all americans. They will be talking about Nancy Pelosis agenda on womens issues. Nationalemocratic Campaign Chairman steve isarael, that the democrats will ask republicans, whose side on are u on . They claim they are on the side of the americans heading into the november elections. Host who was able to attend . And who pays for these types of retreat . Guest i cannot answer the question about who pays. My understanding would be that it is official, party funds. As far as who can attend or who is attending, given the inclement weather, we are actually not allowed in the Hotel Complex of the Hyatt Regency. We have very strict credentialing parameters. So we have not actually seen the full crowd. The neighborhood of 70 of the House Democratic caucus. Certainly, all of the members of leadership are in town. They came and spoke to us last night. Clyburn,er, james steve israel and Chris Van Hollen came to hold a greetings press conference yesterday evening. Democratsre asking only this morning to talk to us about what they want the party to do for the priorities for 2014. Tell us what democrats are saying their priority you touched on a little bit, but legislationwise, what will they push for . Guest you know, they are very, they came to cambridge is certainly feeling in terms of morale better than they had had a come late in the year. Rolloutr with a rocky of the Affordable Care act and a lot of pressure on democrats to explain why the law was not being of limited as smoothly as they had hoped and dreamed and promised. Theyre coming off of helping republicans passed the debt ceiling vote on tuesday. Which to them proves how instrumental they are at passing legislation to the house. And even the speaker john bane oehner conference. Withhope they can come up legislative priorities that republicans as well as democrats that maybewards, this is a watershed moment for bipartisanship. Democratic caucus vicechairman said he was not going to hold his breath. It is very hard for democrats to do much legislatively in a republicancontrolled house. As you know. And especially in an election year, where every vote is going to be looked at very carefully and republicans are going to be scrutinized for their legislative agenda, and the bills they put on the floor, as far as charting the course for seeas far as what they democrats put forward, it remains to be seen whether they can do so cooperatively with the party that is setting the agend a. ,st emma dumain, roll call thank you for your time. What do you want your party to do in washington. What should be there priorities . I need to correct something. Right at the top we told you about comcast acquiring Time Warner Cable. The number is 45 billion with a b. Usa today has the only story on the front page. Billionagreed to by 45 time warner. In the biggest media deal of the year according to a person familiar with the matter. In the all stock deal, comcast will pay 159 per share. Time warner cable shares have been rising as comcast and c media haveliberty months toing for acquire time warner. The number of consumers fell by 85,000 to 4. 4 million in the fourth quarter. Comcast owns 20 of the market. A combined comcasttimwarner would account for 32 of the paytv subscribers in the United States. We will tell you more about this deal if it is approved, as we continue this morning. First, returned to democrats only. What to get your thoughts on the priorities for the year. Zach in binghamton, new york. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller so you brought up this issue today because believe it or not, i was actually in d. C. Last week, and i had the pleasure of seeing the washington monument. And believe it or not it looked exactly like my erect penis. Host we will move on. We apologize for that. Gladys, go ahead. Caller yes, i think one of the main priorities ought to be jobs and not to be tax reform and also immigration. Bewellas as there should close scrutiny of this comcasttime warner deal. I live in san antonio and my Cable Company is time warner. I am an elderly person on a fixed income and i can barely afford this cable. Eventually i will have to have it turned off. I just think that ought to be a priority as well. And i think it is really important that we extend the Unemployment Insurance. People are hurting out here, about to lose their homes, dont know what theyre going to do. Thank you. Host do you Want Congress to weigh in on the potential merger . Caller yes, i want them to weigh in on this potential merger. Is it to the benefit of the consumer . They should consider extending Unemployment Insurance as well as tax reform, immigration, and the minimum wage. People are hurting in this country all over. And yet we cannot get any cooperation or get anything done. Host mike in new york. Caller it is concerning to me the democrat, i watched caucasus meeting this morning on cspan. Those are all important issues Immigration Reform, equal pay for women, minimum wage raising. But it is a kind of thing where people just want to have jobs. I think is a little bit demagoguery, where we are scaring people to think, even as a democrat i cannot believe the republicans do not care about the people. And ms. Pelosi, i have respected her. But to speak that way as if they are in different is not going to win anyone over. And i think may even be a little bit of desperation. So i think it is real important, and i am a smallbusiness Business Owner in new york. I am a physician. I do not see those things stimulating the employers to want to hire people. Again, they are very important issues, but just like the Health Care Act the first two years of the president i think everyone should have access to care, but it think a lot of time was spent on that bill and less time on the economy. The economy and jobs. Host less emphasis on health care, even though you are physician . Emphasis. Less if the bill was inclusive of everybody having access to care, or would still be 20 Million People that will not have access. So i do not know the purpose of the bill. I do not know that anybody knows what this bill is about. Host let me show you the front page of the New York Times, over 1 million added to the rolls of the health care plan. Up forlion people signed Health Insurance through federal and state marketplaces in january according to the government, and the number of young people in rolling increase faster than out of any other group. Hailed by Obama Administration officials have expressed increased optimism that they had overcome their initial stumbles and erase many doubts about the viability of the health care law. Lawer well, just by thel itself, for three years we heard that if youre 26 you can stay on your parents care. But you want those 30yearold kids to pay the bill. It does not make sense. How many of those people that have signed up are fully subsidize and how many of them are partially subsidized by the government . How many of those people are actually paying the premium by themselves . It is encouraging, and do not get me wrong i want everyone to have access to care but if we are making the bill and the cbo admits that we will have 15 Million People that will not have access, then some people will argue that is the First Step Towards universal health care. But i think the bill couldve been written a little bit clearer and a little bit better to make that happen. Host so is a democrat, should that be a priority, that they go back into this legislation . That democrats are willing to work with republicans on making a better . Caller yeah. I think it is a great idea. But again, i do not want to be insensitive, but i think if people work, and they are paying their bills, they are happier. And then we can work on a lot of these other issues, like Immigration Reform. I am for it. We are adding, again, i do not want to be controversial but we are adding all these people into the labor force and what happens to the middle and lower middle class . Are they going to have more access or less access to jobs . Host you are a physician. You own your own practice . What do you practice . Caller i am a dermatologist. Host what is the overhead like . Caller my overhead increases because there is more demand for electronic records. We have to meet certain criteria otherwise we get penalized payments from medicare. We have to buy the systems that are worth 30,000 a year. As a dermatologist, i have a little bit of a luxury of doing procedures and things like that, but my internet friends are ternist friends are getting bought out from hospitals. T is becoming very very difficult. Host back to the New York Times, 25 ofomising is that those signing up for insurance from october through january were ages 18 to 34. The young and presumably Healthy People whom Insurance Companies need as customers in order to keep premiums reasonable for everyone. In atlanta, georgia. We are talking with democrats only. We talked to republicans yesterday. What is the priority for democrats this year . Caller the priority should be to help the African American community. There is no way they will win me midterm elections unless they get out and vote. We have been neglected. We want the jobs. We want those farm subsidies and things cut. We want a program so our kids can get educated and jobs during the summertime. Im not we do not want no limit great and. Immigration is only going to take jobs from the africanamerican people. We have a lot of African American people that have marijuana crime. We do not let me tell you the congressional black caucus, we do not want no immigration. We want the job. If you have to pass keystone with it, that is what we want. Host steve in jersey shore, pennsylvania. Hi, steve. Caller i work every year on construction, and the thing of it is is i get no unemployment because i missed it by a few dollars so i needed the extension. I worked for the same company for nine years. And something needs to be done about that. That is not even fair. I have a job. It is not like i laid around for two years and did not been collecting. I worked nine months out of the year and i am laid off in the winter because you cannot work on state roads in the winter roads. That is mainly what i do. Host we are talking to democrats only this morning, getting your priority list, your todo list for the party this year, including the president and democrats who control the senate. They are the minority in the house, but what are your thoughts this morning . Dial in, send us a tweet, or join the conversation on facebook. Yesterday, the democrats held a News Conference as emma dumain talked about to go through their year of action. Here is what congressman becera had to say. Democrat from california. There is no reason why 2014 should be a year shutdown politics or why we just pack up and put it away and say there is no more we can do. Raise thethings like minimum wage not just for workers for federal contractors but for all americans. We can guarantee equal pay for equal work. Can renew emergency Unemployment Insurance for one point 7 million americans, and we can finally fix a badly broken immigration system. We know in Immigration Reform that we have the votes to pass that bill. And we believe we have the votes to pass all of those initiatives. This is why we think they should be a year of work. This is why were here assembled in maryland to talk about how we as democrats will work with the president for this year of action on behalf of the american public. Host we will go to edward in marinette wisconsin. Edward, what do you think . Inry, we go to jerome tennessee. Caller i was talking about the republicans. Like paul ryan, they lie to you still. They talk to that person earlier. Do not listen to him. Hes a plant. Republicans interfere, cheat, lie. Host what do you want to see the democrats do in 2014 . Caller uh, just keep doing what theyre doing. Try to win congress so they can get something right, something that should be done done and stop all of the blocking and abuse of power that republicans, they are threatening to impeach. It is then that should be impeached. Host front page of the wall street Journal Health options limited. Hundreds of thousands of americans in poorer counties face high premiums and have fewer choices through online exchanges. This is according to an analysis by the wall street journal, and looking at 36 states. And 515 counties across 15 states have only one insurer selling coverage. 80 of those counties the sole insurer is a local blue cross and blue shield plan. Residents of wealthier counties in the United States receive lowerpriced choices than those living in counties with a single insurer. This in the wall street journal this morning. And then also this morning, the headline in the Washington Post, president obama launches a new effort to raise the minimum wage. The president launched a fresh effort to focus on the minimum wage ahead of this years midterm elections emphasizing the populist economic message that will drive much of this years democratic agenda. House event, obama signed an executive order hiking the minimum wage to 10. 10 starting next year. He was following through on an announcement he had made ahead of this years state of the union address. Our cameras were there covering the president. Business leaders, government officials, and congress to also act on this issue. And the president there. You can see signing the executive order with folks in the background who approved of that. Democrats are saying that they would Like Congress to move on minimum wage. The house atn least, not likely to put it on the floor, but harry reid has indicated he would move for a vote in march when they returned after this latest recess. Heres the president yesterday. Keep doingoing to whatever i can to raise working americans wages. And i would ask any Business Leader out there, any governor, any mayor missing, do what you can to raise your employees wages, to work to raise the wages of citizens in your jurisdiction. Dsupport these efforts. A majority of americans, not just democrats and independents but republicans, too, support raising the money wage. The minimum wage. That is Something Congress should keep in mind this year. There is a bill right now in front of both the house and the senate that would boost americas minimum wage to 10. I am doing just like with this executive action. It is easy to remember. 1010. 1010. Lets get that done. Wage wouldinimum not just raise wages for minimal wage workers, its effect would lift wages for 28 million americans. It would lift millions of americans out of poverty immediately. It would help millions more work their way out of poverty without requiring a single dollar in new taxes or spending. It is the right thing to do. Host the president yesterday at the white house talking about raising the minimal wage for federal contractors. Washington times has this headline. The Labor Department says wage edict will not bust the budget. The labor secretary telling reporters that the executive order which will go into effect on january 1, 2015, will benefit hundreds of thousands of workers doing business with the federal government but could not offer a more precise figure. Republicans have said this will not impact that many people. Robert in new jersey. Robert, what is on your to do list for this congress, for the democrats . Caller i think the democrats probably should not be worried about Immigration Reform, because that is just goigng o who africanamerican people are already at a disadvantage when it comes to getting jobs. And the high rate of unemployment in the black community is a shame. And the Republican Party is just not doing anything to help anybody, you know. It is a shame. Host all right, robert. Are you still there . What are the democrats doing . Caller well, they are doing a lot of good things, y