Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20141117

Address us on twitter and facebook. You can also send us an email. Picture of the senator, he left the door open to a Government Shutdown. Not solve the problem, were going to continue meeting about this with house leaders. The fact of the matter is, the president will be well served go down this path. We have an opportunity here to do things the country. The conversation started late last week going into the weekend. Again the phone numbers. Right Washington Post about obamas gambit on immigration. If he goes through with this it middle e like giving the finger to the incoming majority. Edition of the post, obama signing and its order like this one was the first im as president who have bringing the millions of People Living in the shadows into the light, seeking major legislators action on any of his priorities in the final two is a of the presidency pipe dream, the president was asked at a new conference in australia. He was asked specifically about the government shut down on immigration. Mitch mcconnell word for there is no reason for government shut down. That happened and it was bad for the country and bad for any elected official in washington. It was resolved in the same way that it was being resolved it we had not shut down the government. That is not going to be productive. I think Mitch Mcconnell and john bain understand that. Writes that this decision republicans stated strict opposition to it. It would be a provocation on his part. And senate on house would react aggressively to this. Democrats and obama remain 2014 elections prove nothing about how the country feels about republicans, and how leaders quiet in ed to keep recent months. Washington post. First call this morning, kathleen from chicago, illinois. In the land for democrats. I think present obama should go forward with anything that to get this country back on track. Republicans have been getting away with anything they want to do. Why is it that this president cannot move forward with his job. They should say no. Shut it down. Lets hear from tom in columbus, ohio. The potential for government shut down . I usually vote for left. For six years the republicans have used as a political chip do anything they want. He needs to like move, now they want to take the chip away again. I believe he should do anything he wants before 2016. Of comments on had book, why not we have 30 since 1930 . A vernment shut down is not total is only 17 . If obama takes executive action he will get no support congress newly elected on the takeover. Mike, from ohio. Need a total we audit of the government including the pentagon. Am not t believe, and i racist im sick of people saying you are not with obama your racist. My insurance went up, an whole not even gone up. Americans need to put a stop to this mess. Both parties are creating the situation, we American People are the other was that going to stop it. Chris from florida. I say shut it down. Guy lie to us about everything to get votes. Shut it down, they say the same thing all the time. It needs to be done, he is not a kink. Needs to obay what gives this man a right to destroy and 60 is what this country is all about. They should shut it down. Thank you, chris. Down you will oll see, they talk about specific actions they could take. Some conservatives are pressing in congress to and ibit visas and cards the spending bill to prevent a Government Shutdown. The government is largely on temporary funding. This battle is likely to play out through a period. Lowa from virginia. To break the tinue no and there is repercussions for it, what possible reason would you ever have to do the correct thing . If you do not have to work to do any money. You possible reason would ever go back to attempting to do anything that creates a good life. I just want to say, immigration a downside of everything. They need to do inappropriate fashion. Max from our land, democratic. If this president does not do anything from immigration, congress will never approve anything he does. If he was to leave a legacy behind his gun have to do it himself. Because in congress they going to block anything he does. Do hope he takes that ccp and throws it down the toilet. On twitter, government always be as been and liberal n gop due to bias in media. To house d the issue yesterday, Speaker John Boehner hhas refused to debate one is complicated and difficult problems facing our country. All you have to do next week, if he doesnt want the president to act, is take up the senate bill, amended, change it and put your own bill. The governor of louisiana has also been quoted against the idea of Government Shutdown. Steve from outside dc. Welcome. Lets try mike. Thank you for taking my call. I do believe republicans are right to control spending based on the last election. Process clear on the for a shutdown, i would like to know more about that. I believe they are in the right to direct the spending. I dont think obama has worked well with them in the past. Thanks for calling. The se from virginia, on line for democrats. Are you there . Try brian in fitchburg, massachusetts. Goahead sir. Turn down the sound on your tv. I dont think i believe this is just throw them out. Im worried about china. China owns 90 of the minerals on earth. Any of d cannot get those minerals we are going to have more trouble. I can believe that. Kid in this a country they can have a job. I do know whats going on. It was write that so where is own, gop Immigration Reform plan . The dont have one. From florida. Morning and thank you to cspan. Issue for complicated our country. Just like when we had slave and had free labour provided. Had progress we have through the years, the irish and italians who came in, the immigrants who came in, was worried about exploiting until they were part of the american ideal. Now we hear this about our brothers and sisters from south and Central American. Why are we dumbing down this very complex issue . Shut down the economy, we have people working. Go to any Hotel Construction site, they are here and they are working. Call and people who uneducated, you should take advantage and get your skills. You will bring to the market place the capacity. For re all been exploited we allow workers. We are selling cars to people who are illegals. They do not get insurance or driving licence. We have children being born in the parents with having no legal rights. We have people coming in as guardians for children. About these africans, indians and chinese. Telling me that everybody in chinatown on the Government Shutdown, potential executive action. What you think about that . We need a think Government Shutdown. He could have done this in the last two years when he had congress on his side. Why would he wait until now. Because he still had the option to do after that. Should just grow up. An article in polito, on esident obama immigration why wait . Options s are gaining for collateral damage. The sequence of events since the election date has help smooth out differences of opinion. Democrats no longer have to senate will run off. Republicans will use the gration to gum up Government Funding bill no matter when obama announces executive order. Is now the white house is working on a timetable that i was not even expected. That is in polito. Washington dc, ggood morning. Just a general comment. We saw the last time these happen, even though it was a minimal shutdown. Republics are problem going to set the tone early. They do it later it will likely have repercussions for everybody. Lisa from california, democrat. Not make a mess, he tried to correct it and he has done a lot for us. He tried to help women. Whenever he tried to do something he was blocked. It has been a mess. People liestmillions of from their homes. Lets hear from clayton. Are you calling from . Mississippi. The government never shuts down totally anyway. Thanks for calling. Not write that they are hurting president obama. They are so rich that nothing changes in their hands. On twitter, immigrants come and mouth to produce to consume. They contribute positively to economy. Gop aawait obamas return, getting ready to fight tooth and nail on immigration. There is a big vote on the senate tomorrow and the Keystone Pipeline. The approval of the keystone to the e will go president s desk, we will see what happens after that later this week. Obamas new path faces coalition course. They make the point that there will be a lot of talk about here in washington over the next couple weeks. Mary calling from mississippi. I am geena. We are glad to have you. Just want to say tthough i think the time that democrats excuses for the president. To be he did not mean destroy the country but pretty much that is what he has done. You need to just accept it and get over it. Middleclass people, we are the ones that are being destroyed. The low class people get all kinds of help. They dont care. The rich people doesnt matter, have plenty of money. By the middle class of america is being destroyed. Wake up america. Michael, from maryland. Say, with a to shutdown, the republicans and some other rich people say to shut down the government. A Government Shutdown is not going to hurt obama by the American People. Obama first day took office they dont care what American People do. They are rich. We are suffering. I wanted to ing obama has been waiting after republicans to pass through immigration bill. He has been waiting for that. He has the power to relieve Many Americans. I beg to deport or the people together with the children . Are they going to split the families . Others immigrants criminals . They are looking for a better place and they are helping the american economy. He should pass the law. Those who are suspected of criminals should be deported. We want to hear your voices. Here is the front page of usa today. An act of pure evil. The reaction to the killing of peter kassig. A travelled the is humanitarian and student. We will hear from the president and the congress. The Washington Times today, obamas second all rome and hits a few bumps. Care customers across america flocked to enrolment. The launch was not a disaster. The one state Health Exchange had to take itself offline for a good part of the kickoff weekend. Republican for virginia. Good morning. During the korean war, truman a shortage of steel. He believes it would be okay to nationalise the still industry. He believed he had the authority to do so. The court said no. We referred now said that that the president s powers are at the weakest. Obama s situation barack has already stated that congress has acted. We do have Immigration Laws. Cannot do an he executive role by himself. Changed his has opinion lately. Waves of get into the this decision, it is clearly not legal. This is a situation where the merits can be argued, congress has acted and will act again. Barack obamas powers are the weakest in this particular incident. Morning, i ok this hope so. The less shutdown republicans win an election. Maybe if they do it again they can win 2012. I hope not. It only gave obama reason to shut down things that had the veterans and keep those citizens out of washington. The talk here about president quietly announcing a creating a legal channel 4000 are south American Kids to go to the us. Could give resident legal immigrants. Could open the door from legal immigrants honduras and others. Calling from state college. From the beginning, obama has been more of a dictator than a president. To secure a a great border, after securing a border with can talk about people staying here. People say that republicans and independents hhave thought the first four years. Were s the democrats that focused and obama, and all they have done is destroy the middle class. He has been nothing but a failure and has done nothing to move this country forward. Well talk more about what the president might do an immigration. Christie from florida. Good morning. The problem is all this power control between the politicians, they all want to win. The laws get lost in the process. It is about our basic laws in this country and people who come over and do not respect them should not get citizenship. It sends the message around the world that the way your week and that our law that we are weak and that our laws are not respected. Were going to have to make it so they cant be hired. They will have to think of their own way to deal with it. They thought of coming here illegally so they will have to think of another alternative for themselves. That is the problem, nobody sticks to americas basic principles anymore that our forefathers used to. The one who started in flexible immigration in 1987 when he changed our Immigration Laws and they are going to become the majority, and they come here and work and that is fine. You cant compare it to the original immigrants from irish and all that because they came over here legally and respected the law. They have to do the same. Thank you. Host back to facebook. Cutting off obamas allowance should get his attention. The republicans got blamed for the last shutdown but the truth of the matter is that obama does not compromise. Omise is to tell belinda congress to pass a bill to his liking. What a desperate. The new gop senate is ready to wreak havoc. This is george, republican caller. Caller hello. Obama is doing many things that he already admitted were unconstitutional and now he is doing the same. The only way to stop a dictator like you might be a Government Shutdown. Like him might be a Government Shutdown. Host conor in pa. Caller i want to say one thing about thiS Immigration thing. I dont see how a president claims to care so much of the country and cares so much about the people could be pushing this amnesty thing on everybody when we have thousands of veterans who dont have jobs and t im jobs and armaments cant find jobs and are homeless. Your document giving thousands more you are talking by giving thousands more. You handed everything on a silver platter when they came here illegally. I dont understand it. Host democratic caller am a good one to. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. I am 85 years old and i lay here every morning and i watching cspan. I enjoy the program. Host well, thank you for doing that. We appreciate your time. Old i worked years and paid into Social Security for 41 years. Today they give me 32 worth of food stamps. You go to the Welfare Office and you get 700, 800 worth of food stamps. Ending up with the best meet and and they dont pay for it with the money that we have worked for dinner. I think it is a shame that we have to suffer and we cant have but we are trying to struggle. I thought the obamacare and it has helped me a lot. I got the obamacare and it is health meet a lot. I got a pacemaker. How could you be off of the digital is a month how could you eat off of 32 a month . Host let me ask you about the whole ocean of a Government Shutdown and immigration and the potential for executive action . Caller i think it is a shame that they would shutdown the government because of this. It would hurt the poor most, though. When they shut it down, what can i do . Work it wased to only Social Security, under president roosevelt. Got 19. 80 and i because they get . 20 a for. Ocial security i think it is a shame to shut the government downnd make the poor people suffer because the rich are not going to be hurting. Host more on this socalled lameduck session of congress, and the president specifically here as well. The session of Congress Needed be lame. E neednt they suggestthey suggest five tt lawmakers can get together and accomplish by the end of the of. Funding the highways, reining in the nsa, extending key tracks breaks key tax breaks. That is the opinion of usa today this morning. To politico, they write that president clinton said he was surprised by the democrats lopsided losses in the midterms and he suggested that president obamas position executive order on immigration may have played a role in keeping some hispanic voters at home. President obama should maximize his pulpit and not give in to being a high bar by saying that he should turn to the budget assess to push through his agenda in his final two years. Above all, clinton said, obama should try to have fun in the job. Laura, you are a republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am really upset at the ignorance of colorings callers and agree majority of the american populace. I happen to be writing my thesis power. Rs diminished people are blaming president obama for thiS Immigration problem. However, if you were to analyze great deal of these immigrants came in through a republican administration, whose aim was to weaken labors power. Consequently, they took people that had good paying jobs, replace them with people that were willing to work for very cases is, and in some have researched that some of the laborers that were working and then when it came to the end of the week to get their paycheck, the boss said i dont know who you are. Consequently, because they were illegal, they were afraid of being deported. There are so many miscarriages of justice and a great deal of them were done under the republican administration. Im sorry to say that i am a republican, i am not going to be one because i absolutely do not approve of my own partys way of handling things in our country. Host thanks for calling. Laura, you said you are writing a thesis. Are you in a Masters Program or phd program . Caller phd. Host in what field . Caller sociology. Host where do you go to school . Caller wayne state. Host very good. Thank you. Arizona. Miriam is an independent. Caller good morning. To the question of the Government Shutdown over immigration, i am not in favor of that, nor am i in favor of i thinkutive order to that Congress Needs to get busy and do their job. I think there is a threatened action because congress shutting down is a good indication that it is congress job. The main message from voters is that we expect for our congress and president to work together. Host ok, thank you for calling, miriam. The New York Times today the state department targeted by hackers. The Fourth Agency computer breach. Department on sunday became the fourth Government Agency to announce a breach of its Computer System in recent weeks, after infiltration forced the agency to temporarily shut down its unclassified enough system and public websites. The breach, which the agency said it did not affect any of its classified systems, followed a similar one involving the unprecedented assistance of the white house last month. The deadline is being extended for General Motors accident claims. Here is a picture of ken feinberg, who we know very well on this network from being part of lots of these types of cases. He was hired by gm to administrate the fund. Families will have an extra month now to submit claims, it says here. Democrat. Da, caller good morning. Badderstand the shutdown is , but people also need to understand how many families are being divided, how many unlawful things are happening behind doors technically. There are so many people like the previous caller, talking about how people are getting paid and when they go to get the money, they go i dont know you. That is completely true. My parents are from Central America and i was born here and my mom, she works with all these things and she does protests and all of that. I am familiar on both sides. Families are being separated, how kids are being left year without their parents, being deported. I think they should compromise already, and the republicans should understand families are being separated. Host thank you for calling, susan from fort myers. Heres a shot of guest ryan Prime Minister the australian Prime Minister tony abbott and russian president vladimir putin. They are holding qualities. Earlyleft of the summit to be ready for the summit in moscow and get some sleep so it wasnt all smiles when they left. This headline in financial tin flies homeu early after taking flak. A barrage of criticism from western leaders at this meeting in brisbane, australia. They warned that his countrys fragile economy would be hit by more sanctions unless he stopped banking backing separatists rebels in eastern ukraine. Next call from gilbert, democrat. Hi, albert. Gilbert. Caller i wanted to address a few issues, and it has to do with the economy. I think a lot of people forget that we were in one of the worst recessions in the history. Can aell me this how dictator ringback economy bring back an economy without the help of the American People . How can a dictator be elected twice here in the United States of america . No, the situation is simple. Immigration is something that has been part of american culture. Swedish, finland, all the European Countries can come over here in the United States and be accepted. The southern border is the problem. Why . There are hispanics coming over here in america that is working and the caucasian people are afraid to lose their republicans the republic. Thathey simply have fear immigration will bring in an influx of more mexicanamericans , and they will lose their republic. Host thank you for calling, gilbert could another story we found in the post today, their lead. Teams were inspected over the weekend by some dea agents. These are surprised searches that have been going on. The federal drug agents connected surprise inspections onnfl team medical staffs sunday in the wake of Prescription Drug abuse in the league. They entailed tag searches and questioning by team doctors by dea agents, based on suspicion that nfl teams dispense drugs illegally to keep players on the field in violation of the controlled substances act, 42 senior Law Enforcement official. Who were those teams . The San Francisco 49ers confirmed they were inspected by federal agents following the game against the new york giants in a new jersey, but did not provide any details. We have one more call the potential for a Government Shutdown over immigration. Bonita from wyoming. How are you . Caller hi, how are you today . Thank you for having us on cspan. I enjoy your Program Every morning. And i do not believe we should just let these people who are just given having everything that they get when they get here. The American People are hurting. And it doesnt seem to me like anyone even gives a hoot. Im just tired of all of this fighting. The american highway patrolman cannot pick up illegals and get them out of here when they are illegals. They cause trouble. They take jobs that people need. And i think it is wrong. I think we better turned back to god because it is really getting to be a mess. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Host thank you, when, and everyone else who called. Coming up, we will get more details on what the president is considering doing on immigration from a legal and political standpoint. Timesnnett of the l. A. Will join us with that conversation. Later, congress returning again with the president in town and we will talk about the legislative agenda. First, while we wait for our first guest to come up, a little bit more from the president on the g 20 summit in australia. He was asked what has changed since the comments in which he said i am not an emperor. Here is his response. [video clip] well, actually, my position hasnt changed. Throughterest was in me executive action duplicating the legislation that was installed in congress that was stalled in congress, and getting a comprehensive deal of the sort that is in the senate legislation, for example, does extend beyond my legal authorities. There is certain things i cannot do. There are certain limits to what falls within the realm of prosecutorial discretion in terms of how we apply existing Immigration Laws. What we have continued to do is talk to office of Legal Counsel that is responsible for telling us what the rules are, what the ande of our operations are, of determining where it is appropriate for us to say we are not going to deport 11 Million People. On the other hand, we have got severe resource constraints right now at the border not in apprehending people in processing, having enough immigration judges, and so forth. What is within our authority to do . Reallocating resources and prioritizing since we cant do everything. It is on that basis that i will be making a decision about any executive actions that i might take. I will be what i said before. I will repeat what i said before. There is a very simple solution to this perception that somehow i am exercising too much executive authority. Pass a bill i can sign on this issue. [video clip] washington journal continues. Host our guest is Brian Bennett, correspondent for the l. A. Times. Tell us what the president is considering on this executive action. Guest the president has a list of options of things he can do without going to congress. There are 2 types of categories of things he can do. One is small tweaks to the way the immigration system works, and the other is a bigger, more affirmative program that would encourage people in the country illegally to come forward and apply for a twoyear work visa and twoyear promised they would in the deported. That would be modeled on a program that we saw obama launch in 2012. Program, just under 600,000 people who were brought here as children illegally have come forward and paid a fee and gone through a background check and been given temporary work visas and a promise not to be deported. The idea would be that if obama decided to do a program like that, he has to decide what population to invite to come in and apply for that type of temporary relief. Some of the things they are considering is making that u. S. Able to parents of citizen children they are here illegally but the children were born here and when you come to the states you can become a citizen. Host exactly what is executive action . Explain that to us. As the president is going around congress, circumventing congress, exactly what would he be doing . Guest the white house has decided they have the power to dictate who is deported and who is not deported. They are using a concept called prosecutorial discretion, a power that any prosecutor around the country uses every day. Prosecutors on a local level will decide, today i can prosecute 100 marijuana cases or i could go after prosecuting one murder. Im going to put my efforts towards prosecuting a person who i feel presents a threat to public safety. That is the use of passive tutorial discretion prosecutorial discretion. The Obama Administration says we have power from progress to deport from cars to deport people from the country. We are focusing our efforts on deporting people who pose a threat to public safety, who recently crossed the United States, or are repeat immigration violators, people who have already been reported before and came back. Host we will have our regular three phone lines on the air. Host and we do have a fourth line for this segment, for folks who are here in the u. S. Illegally. Host we certainly hope you will call in as well and show your situation and your thoughts on everything that is happening here in washington. Our guest is Brian Bennett of the l. A. Times. He will be with us for about 35, maybe 37 more minutes. We are about this potential executive action, which could. Ome as early as this week mr. Bennett, how long is the president been considering executive action, and what brought them to this point . How much work and study brought them to the point where they might do this now . Guest the president started talking about this earlier this year and the president was under a lot of pressure from groups you have been looking at the record of deportations under his presidency and felt like he hadnt done enough to protect families and keep families together. He was getting a lot of of pressure from within the Democratic Party to take some action. When the Senate Immigration bill was not taken up in a house, the president was under pressure to do what he could on his own. And he asked is that his new head of Homeland Security he asked his new head of the department of Homeland Security, jeh johnson, and what changes could be made to make it more fair and more humane in the way it operates. Host give a sense of the legal arguments on either side as to whether the president has the authority to do this. Guest the are humans against him being able to do this would say that this is too big an extension of the idea , toecutorial discretion deciding who is going to be deported from this country when hundredsalking about of thousands or millions of people should be left to congress to decide and not to the administration. , people havehand been pushing the president to do this have said that president an aggressived deportation missionary there was put into place under aggressive deportation machinery that was put into place under george w. Bush and the Senate Immigration bill would have given legal status to a large portion of the 11 Million People who are here illegally, and it is not consistent with that for the president to sit back and let the deportation regime continue to deport people if the senate law had passed and become law, would have been allowed to stay. Host one more quick question before we get to calls. Our taxpayers on the hook for any of this is the president action . Ecutive what is the cost and who pays . Guest 20 comes to this program when it comes to this program or something similar bigger, those programs are technically feebased. They need to be covered by the fees that the people applying would pay. Initially you have to put in a lot of staff hours into deciding it and putting up the applications and receiving the first. First batch. There is an upfront cost. Theoretically it would be covered by the fees. There are other tricks that are being considered to the system someone that would expand the number of hightech workers. There is a certain number of of theiven and one options would be to allow people to bring more family members with them on the reason so that on the visa so that you would be able to have more people coming in for technology jobs. Host lets go to the first call for Brian Bennett of the l. A. Times. Tom, independent, welcome. Caller thanks for having me on this morning. Host sure. Caller i have a couple comments. It is not that immigrants are i mean they are causing problems, but the government needs to step up and take accountability for what they do. There is so much stuff going on here that i dont think the American People even realize. Everybody wants to talk about the family and the family this and family that. Our state governments dont care about none of that stuff. Andimmigrants coming in making them illegal, they will be paying taxes and all the other stuff that we do that they are not doing that people complain about them doing. They have been here forever. They dontropeans, have no problem, they just file for a visa and get it. Why cant mexicans file for a visa . The jobs they do that, face it, whites, blacks, all of us were not want to go out there and pick lettuce in the middle of the heat. I am in the Construction Business so i know that they do it cheaper, and the big business steps in and they dont they pay them like they do, rip them off. This thing is all about money. You have the family law system that is totally corrupt. Youve got mediators, judges that i mean, half of what our problem is, most of it is family law system. Everybodys complaining about divorce in this country, and then once you get into that system you get put in their, like a segregation. They put you down there, welfare, and they destroy you host let me jump in. Do you have a question for the reporter, Brian Bennett . Guest uh, not really. Caller uh, not really. Guest he brought up some good points. There is a concern about people, especially some republicans on the hill, that opening up the doors like this and increasing the number of work visas will put pressure on the job market and make it harder for americans to get jobs. I think those are real concerns. On the other side, you have people saying that they people are already working and already in the market and what you can do by giving them a legal work permit is give them a little more leverage with their employer. Right now there are abuses that are happening to people here illegally because employers can take advantage of them because of their status. By giving them legal work permits they can improve their working conditions and are more likely to pay taxes and pay into the system, more likely to pay into Social Security. You can boost revenues to cover that. Host here is a recent piece by Brian Bennett. This is in the l. A. Times. Shot of the many immigration protests in and around town. You have a quotation from the speaker of the house, john boehner, last week. We are going to fight the president to thumbnail if he continues down this path. This is the wrong way to govern. They are also talking about suing the administration. How would that work and couldnt be successful you have to could it be successful discussedgress has suing the president before and the suits havent gone anywhere. They have trouble figuring out exactly what Standing Congress has to sue the president. It tends to be more about theater and public relations, these threats to sue. The budget discussions, on the other hand, is a real immediate power that the congress has. Right now republicans are talking about, look, if obama goes forward with these immigration actions, we have the power of the purse and we can cut off funding to these thisams, agencies that run , or try to cut off funding to the entire government and shut it down. Obviously, there is a Political Risk to the government if they do that republicans if they do that. They have been politically unpopular for shutting down the government before. Obviously, there is a lot of blame to go around. That is something we will watch play out the next few weeks. Host dan in new york. Go ahead, please. Caller my question is, i have a daughter who was born here. I came here in 1987 1997, sorry. The problem is, i used to work for an italian company. I was sponsored by the company. When i was sponsored by the company, i got the approval from the board of labor department. I dont knowny for what reason i got a letter from immigration to get the appointment, but my company did taxes,t to release the what they pay for the year, how many employees they have and stuff like that. Because i am a skillful taylor. I do all kinds of handmade suits , handmade garments. I am stuck in a situation, and im playing by the rules. I am playing by the rules, because i pay my taxes every year, everything. Now i am in a situation where im stuck between two rock. There is no way im really getting ahead, actually. Now im no longer working for that company, because they closed a lot of stores and stuff like that host you are calling on the line set aside for folks you legally here in the u. S. Explaining your situation. What is your message to the folks in washington . We might see an executive action by the president and a big fight to follow. Caller well, my main focus is that host dan, you there . Caller yes. Host go ahead. Caller my main focus is on i dont know why the republicans and the democratic cannot come to a solution where they can give focus on the skillful workers, the people who are really paying into the system, they are going by the rules and everything, and just focus. There are so many skillful people in this country. Host thanks for calling, dan. Brian bennett. Guest this is why the Business Community is so frustrated with the Immigration Laws now and why the chamber of commerce backed the immigration bill, because they see a logjam for business in the United States getting workers who have specific skills they need and they want to be able to go on to the global marketplace with that. Right now there are caps on the number of visas in different categories and certain situations, long lines for people to come in here. That thee Things Congress could do if they passed a law would be to open that up and clear that up. People have argued that by opening up the legal avenues for people to come here and work, whether in still the jobs or agriculture, you take some pressure off the border, and people who want to come here to work have a legal way to come youre so they dont try to sneak across the border and the people trying to protect the border can focus on drug smugglers and nefarious people who are trying to cross illegally. You mentioned the chamber of commerce. Have they come out with a position on the possibility of executive action . Guest the chamber of commerce is in favor of anything that makes business run better, and their position is that they hope president obama makes some visass that would open up for companies, and make it more easy for companies to get skilled workers in the country. Host more of your calls in a minute but more voices from the hill. A couple of voices on the sunday shows congressman tom congressman Louise Gutierrez were on the abc program. [video clip] wouldhink the president be much better advised to wait until congress is sworn in. He is tried to pick a fight. But we are talking about couple months. A couple of things. They want a more Border Patrol agents. They were included in the senate bill. We just came from an election cycle in which not only was the border not secure, but isis and ebola was coming through. They mixed all of this together and then they say we are poisoning the well. All i am saying is this there are 4 million americans this and children. You just heard the speaker say that this is a fight that he is going to have with the president. He is wrong. He will have this fight with millions of americans s fight is not over immigration. This fight is with the process the president is using, a process the president himself said was unconstitutional a couple of years ago. Host flavor from the hill, the latest debate. Anything you want to add, Brian Bennett . Butt well, it is difficult the timing is coming right after a big republican win. President obama has promised to take these actions before the end of the year, and the republicans are feeling energized, they feel like they have a mandate from voters to do their priorities, and they are frustrated that in the middle of all this, president obama has made a promise that he would go around them and take a bunch of executive actions on this heated topic. When it comes to you we are in a moment where we could have had republicans and democrats coming together and saying lets find some Common Ground issues that we can agree on, like Corporate Tax cuts were infrastructure investments, and there is frustration that the immigration issue is being thrown in as a spanner in the works. Host lets hear from kevin in pennsylvania. Caller yes, good morning. Thanks for cspan. I got a few comments and then a question. The leading senator that speaks for the American Workers is senator sessions. Strongly thated the congress, that they do in fact have the power of the purse and that we should have a shortterm funding of the government if president obama tries to do something, this executive action, which is really unprecedented in magnitude there may have been smaller ones. But there is a lot of different things. The election was largely about immigration, and the republicans won. Workers. Lites versus it is just astonishing that the other side, the workers side, is not able to really get any kind of hearing in the mainstream media, generally speaking. The one issue that never even is one day ithe read in the wall street journal and the New York Times that because of technology, the loss of jobs over the next 20 years is as much as 40 in jeopardy. And then the next day we hear that we need Immigration Reform, and references made to the comprehensive immigration bill that the Senate Passed, and they dont speak about the fact that it would 30 million workers would have gotten green cards over the next 10 years. Again, it is elites who want to depress wages against workers who want jobs. It just continues host thanks for calling. Brian bennett, he mentioned Jeff Sessions, incoming budget chairman. Here is a tweet he just put out. No surrender on immigration. Congress must event funds for executive prohibit funds for executive amnesty. I think we have some sound from him we dont have sound but we do have the tweet. Respond to what the caller and senator sessions are saying. Guest senator sessions is laid out for many years the strong argument that we as been in a recession we have been in a recession and have high Unemployment Rates and this is not the moment to be bringing in additional workers. The counterargument to that is that some of these service jobs, employers are finding it difficult to fill. Senator sessions most recently has decided that he is going to push the Republican Leadership discussionso budget over the immigration bill and threatened to shut down the government. Defundhe very least parts of the government that would be executing parts of the executive immigration act. Host our guest is Brian Bennett of the l. A. Times. Previously he has worked at Time Magazine where he was a reporter in hong kong and bureau chief in baghdad. Learning a lot about the nuts and bolts of potential executive action and what reaction to it might be. Jane, you have been hanging on in wisconsin. Go ahead. You are on the independent line. Caller yes. I dont agree with thiS Immigration for the simple ,eason that your forefathers when they got to new york, there were only allowed one Million People, there was people shut off and they had to go back to the old country. I think maybe you should like people that got here that are in the 80s and had a foothold in the United States, they should stay, but a lot of these other ones us they are always talking about they are always talking about 5 million. There are 11 million, 12 Million People here and i dont think there is that is fair to anybody else could 11 Million People looking for jobs, and they are taking them away from the regular citizens, and whatever happened to the nation of laws . The nations of the law on the old one says right out that you have got to go and stand in line and then get your green card, not come sneaking across the border. I think that is absolutely wrong. If i go down the street and break the speed limit, the cop is not going to pat me on the back. He is going to give me a ticket. Letsall right, gene, hear from Brian Bennett. Guest interesting point in that he feels like if people have been here for a long time, since the 1980s, maybe they should have some consideration. And that is one of the points that is being considered by the Obama Administration. Maybe you open up this executive Action Program just for people who have been here for 10 years or longer, and maybe have deep roots here like u. S. Citizen children, and the rest of the to fend for themselves, have to find a legal way or go back to their home countries. This is really the debate. You have 11 Million People here, some of whom have been here for a long time and efforts and have roots in the community. Some of them, their only crime they comeey crime here illegally and the question is what can you do about that. Do we want to stand millions of dollars all line in Law Enforcement resources going into communities and finding these people and putting them on our planes to go home, or should as a society should we decide to reach out to them and do a background check and encourage them to become legal members of the workforce . Host we have someone in this country illegally from alexandria, virginia, on the line. Caller good morning. This is francis. Good one, cspan. Host tell us your situation. Caller ive been here 24 years. Im a nurse, i think the school. We are sorry we are illegals. We have committed a crime and we thank the American People to forgive us for being here illegally. Now, this issue it is a nobrainer. The republicans are the problem. What is the problem in going to allow the congress to have a debate and make this into a law and help people . I have a daughter serving in the United States military right now. And they want to deport me . Ive been out of sierra leone for 24 years. I dont have enough relatives there. If i go back im going to my death. Im sorry, america. We are begging the republicans, please have mercy. 2012, barack obama got into the white house for the second time, and it was based on, i believe, the immigrants, hispanics who went out there and voted. So lets respect that will for the first part lets respect that, for the first part. Last weeks elections is what people say and the man is taking i to his own hands and taking executive action. They are to be ashamed of themselves. They push this man to go this far and they need to do something. Thank you very much for allowing me to participate. Host the words of francis there, in this country illegally, asking for mercy. Guest francis has been here for more than 20 for years and his daughter is in the u. S. Military and he is working as a nurse. He obviously has deepe roots here. Is there a way for the government to allow francis to come forward and i did this wrong thing and i want to pay a fine and get right with the law. Right now there isnt a way to do that for someone like francis , and the question is should the president do that on his own, or should you wait for congress to do Something Like that . One thing that francis brought up is that last year the Senate Passed a compromise solution, a bipartisan solution, and some people believe that if the house had taken it up for a vote, there would have been enough votes to get into the house. But Speaker Boehner didnt feel like he had the backing of his caucus to do that, and never came up for a vote. Host here is a question via twitter. Cookie guest explain why president obama said he couldnt take it action two years ago and now he can . Guest this is absolutely a dilemma for the president. He said in 2011 that he couldnt take action on his own. That was in the runup to the senate bill being debated and he was trying to put pressure on congress to act, and he was trying to answer lessons from the inner regret from the immigrant community, who were frustrated by the large number of people who are being deported under his administration. And so he was making the point that there is only so much i can do on my own and i need congress the person who made that comment has a good point. There does seem to be an inconsistency there and he believes yes the authority to do it now. The difference, if you want to parse it a little bit, is there any exact any action obama does take will not be permanent. Another president could reverse it. Betweenthe difference the executive action see my take on immigration and an actual law. The remind us with president s deportation record has been and what is happening right now. Guest when the president came into office in 2009, president bush presided over a massive increase in the number of order virtual agents and a large investment in the deportation apparatus inside the country, and that started to play out while obama was president. I know the United States can deport about 400,000 people. Right now the United States can deport about 400,000 people. What president obama decided to do was say i have got this deportation apparatus and i want to focus it on people who have recently crossed, who are a threat to public safety, or who have violated the Immigration Law will double times and been to multiple times. What were seeing is the number of people who are being deported have been apprehended close to the border is going up over time, and the number of people being deported from the interior which is sort of what normal, average people think about when they hear the word deportation, people being deported from the interior United States, taken from their places, that number has gone down over time. If you can imagine, since obama came to office comes yes deported fewer people from inside the United States and deported more and more people from the border areas. Host laura is standing by in pennsylvania, republican caller. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Republican, i am with Jeff Sessions basically saying that the election had consequences. Most people want the border sealed. They dont want the illegal people just crossing over, including the children that came unaccompanied. It was an outrage. That is what the election was about. Newslimbaugh and the fox has been showing tapes of obama do some of this legally, and yet he is proceeding to do this illegally. I think the compromise would be if he is calling on republicans , i think the bill 2 things who could be in the ner andth by boeh mcconnell to get together right now and say we agree, lets do Border Security right now, so and, you know, any other illegal person cant come through the border without us knowing. Second is employer verification. Although people who have been calling in saying they are illegals, was Social Security number have they been using . Know, we need to have employer verification where we say that these are the legal people here and if you want to give up 5 Million People knew Social Security numbers, you wait until the new Congress Comes in and then the president , who lost this election, deals with those. Host thank you, laura. Brian bennett. Guest its a good question, could the republicans come up with a border bill right now that could pass the house and the senate . They would be reliant on president obama signing the bill. Obama does have the power of the pen. One thing that has changed is that the republicans, because they control the senate and house starting in january, they could put together a sort of republican version of the comprehensive package, and then they wouldnt have to be negotiating as much with Senate Democrats or democrats in congress. They would just be negotiating with the president. There could be a possible path by which the republicans say, look, lets put forward our Solutions Come here is our solution for tightening the border, here is our solution for opening up some of the legal avenues that the business , and we arents going to put this together in a package and put it on the president s desk and see if we can get him to sign it. Host chris in florida, independent caller. Caller how are you doing today . Host doing fine, chris. Caller i want to clarify a couple things. With all these people being deported, the high rate that they are not departing from inside the country, it is actually the people turning away from the border. They are not even coming in, but obama is counting them as being deported and that is why the numbers are so high. Feebased. Is is that going to cover the Social Security that these people are going to receive, the disability, or the older illegals that are going to be getting this amnesty . That is every teacher out there with over crowded classrooms, lets bring in more kids. How do the unions feel about it . In my area every construction job is done and roof that is put up, it is illegals on the roof. They are in our Health Care System and not to mention the swelling prison population. All of these costs are not being addressed at all, but you say that we could spend millions of dollars, but we are spending billions of dollars in pricing these people to come in. Granted, bottom dollar, more people are going to flood the border. Host touching on a number of different areas. Guest this is a good question. I dont know what the cost would be at this point of the executive action that obama might take. We dont know what is actually going to be we dont know the scope of it. When the senate was considering their immigration bill, they had the Congressional Budget Office run the numbers and they found that based on all the different ,hings they were planning to do legalizing some people here illegally, bringing in some more foreign workers, that there would be extra money coming in to the u. S. Treasury through taxes and Social Security payments that would offset some thate additional costs would be incurred by the social welfare systems. It is worth looking very closely at what the cost implications longterm for communities would be by allowing people to come forward and giving them a 2year work permits through a program that obama is considering. King republican from iowa, warning of a constitutional crisis over all of this. What can you tell us about timing . Congress is not in session next week, but what about timing . Guest so we dont really know. The president is returning now from a long trip to asia, and my understanding is he is going to be presented with sort of a final draft of options. And he could make a decision as soon as friday to announce what he is going to do. They could decipher a whole list of reasons to delay that a few weeks. The president has promised to act by the end of the year. But there are other considerations. They do need to congress to pass a bill that would continue paying for the functioning of the government between now and the end of the year. They are going to have to weigh the decision of whether to take this action now or have it play into the negotiations over the funding of the government. To take aother tweet look at from congress meant guittierrez. Have signed a letter asking for executive action soon. We have bruce, republican. Caller good morning. I am passionate republican. Imf and american. I accept the fact that this is the lowest voter turnout in 72 years. Obama didnt lose an election. The people that didnt follow their team, they lost the election. To all themises people and he had to live up to those obligations he spoke of when he got elected. I understand that people want immigration to work the way they want it to work, but they have to consider some things, like if we are going to let people in to the country, all of a sudden, and everybody and they raise the minimum wage obama cant do everything he wants to do. It would be crazy if the Republican Party allow him to do everything he wants to do. My heart goes out to everyone with a problem in the world. America has got broad shoulders but it cant support everybody. People come across the border law,onts of the rule of and we dont set the rule of law, we alienate our neighbors to the south. We have to live with these people forever. They are not going anywhere could how they feel about us as neighbors matters. We cant just ignore them. But at the same time we cant ignore the rule of law. Host thanks for calling, bruce trade any thoughts . Guest it is difficult timing for the president here. She has promised to take executive actions and the republicans have come off a major win at the polls and they feel like they have amended to execute their priorities, which do not include the president s. Riorities on immigration and so we are going to watch this play out over the next few weeks and see what kind of reactions the republicans have to whatever steps the president decides to take. Host down to our last couple calls. Burke, virginia. Caller thank you for cspan. In theoyment of illegals United States can be stemmed, if regulation and rules can be set up to make sure that employers are not hiring these folks, with that be more of a longterm, sirius radio kind of put a halt to this thing longterm, serious way kind of to put a halt to this thing . Guest i think that is something that republicans and democrats have compromised on. In the senate bill, bipartisan bill, there was agreement that they would increase employer verification. Right now there is a voluntary verify thatled e employers can check the immigration status of people they hire and that bill would have made that mandatory and required employers across the country to do those checks. And the argument being that you deter people from coming into the country in the future. If it is hard to get a job here, it will be harder if you dont have papers, then you make you create a disincentive for people to come here in the future. He doesnt address people who are already here, which is something that policymakers have grappled with. People already here, people in the workforce. We are an Innovative Group of people and people find ways to get around innovation. Host one last caller, ross in texas. Caller thank you for taking my call. Comments. First, congress is up in arms now, but for the past two or three years, they have been busy in voting obamacare 35, 45 times come when they should have been working on it first. Secondly, what the caller before me said, we are really not going lid on the problem until we start locking up Company Owners who employ illegals. We needed to lock up the Company Owners and that will solve the problem with th right there. Guest that is another question, something the Business Community is reluctant to sign off on, doing tougher employer enforcement. Under president george w. Bush there were more workplace raids where immigration agents went to workplaces and checked immigration status of workers directly. The democrats a lot democrats didnt like that because they felt it was like punishing the workers themselves, many of whom were working in substandard conditions and didnt go after the employers enough. This is something that policymakers have to hash out, what is the balance between punishing employers who take advantage of illegal workers and hire illegal workers at substandard wages. Host we are just about out of time. What else are you looking for as a reporter in the next coming days . Guest i will be watching for exactly what the president decides to do, we are going to be watching for why the program that he designs will be whether it could be tailored to welcome about one Million People to come forward and apply for this work visa, it could be up to 5 Million People who would be eligible. Women read on the website. Because he is promised to end of the by the year, she brought it was a make an announcement and he will Leadership Team around him. We dont know, we will see. His National Security correspondent, thank you very much. Be ing up, congress will coming into action. Will be speaking further with paul albergo. Segment on eekly your money. Well be right back. The 20 15th student cam competition is underway. Showing a documentary how policies by the executive has affected you or your community. There is 200 cash prizes. On the ght the columbia , University Professor and how to manage the internet. One thing that is being overlooked in this debate is the question of people who do not have broadband. How are they going to get it . Addressing that right now. Especially to have more power do things like mandate universal service for telephone. Collection money which now goes to subsidising telephone services. It could be used to create real broadband. Future president could say, we ogram and Everybody Needs to have broadband. Pm on cspan 2. Washington journal continues. Table is paul albergo, of bloomberg. Thank you for joining us. Think of having me. The keystone xl pipeline is heading to the senate. They will take a big vote tomorrow, what are they going to do . I believe that it will up for a vote. I heard, the supporters of the bill had 59 it to the ussia bring floor. The driver had together to go through. Everybody not everybodys to vote for it. Democrats want to give him the chance to say look what i did. Want to help her there. Are they senators looking at . They are trying to get as many as they can, trying to get as Many Democrats as they can. I think any democrat that they them over st to get the 60. Keystone us what the xl pipeline is. The pipeline would connect alberta with a refinery along the gulf coast, mostly in louisiana. It will go right through the centre of the letter states. Issues is the sector that goes through nebraska. Concerns among environmentalist tthat a public like that could be dangerous. Other incremental issues, and primary concern i environmental. People also believe it would boost energy and low prices, and also great jobs. Has a president said for sure . He has not said for sure he will veto it. He has hinted it. Hinting enough n to indicate that there might be room for compromise. The republicans seem to believe there was compromise in this area. The president has been the significance of keystone both on his Energy Production and job creation, also with the Environmental Impact. Is keystone that go through, then why mental would still be protected. Might end up being something that the obama and station to give the republicans. The senate goes into today for some other business. Go on ystone debate will tomorrow afternoon. That on watch all of cspan 2. You can watch the debate of week in our website. Guest is paul albergo, Bloomberg News director. About e been talking immigration this morning. Over the white house with executive action. What a hearing . It does not matter what topic is being discussed, immigration is the shadow of the cast over it. We keep hearing from republicans that if the any action on S Immigration it would poison the well. It is hard to believe how much more poison to go into the well. It is something they have to do regardless how they feel. There are things that they have past the spending bill, keep the government open. They possibly will work to continue the tax breaks with credit in research and development. Whatever happens, before they get at this can to be a long discussion on immigration. The question is when the present is an act. I had they might be this week. Theyre not quite sure, so go a little longer. This is a president that was to sure he does it, instead of postponing it. Another headline, republicans a vote short for keystone. Hear from tony, connecticut. Goahead tony. I want to make a comment on immigration bill. The president should start thinking about those people. Is not going to help those millions of kids who are starving. The pipeline is not going to care of these people that need dont have nothing. They should be concentrating on people who are scamming the system. People who get legal food stamps. 30 a month food stamps. I think the supporters of the Keystone Pipeline say it would be a chance to add jobs to economy. Not be probably will enough to lower the employment. But it will help families who are finding hard and give some revenue to the economy. Reason why you cant tackle keystone and tackle immigration at the same time. Issue is the the temporary funding bill is going out until december 11th. Of the government isfinanced by this current bill . In pass any uest bills. Funding for the entire is depending on this. Expires on december 11th. Not done by is them, the entire government will shut down. Essential services will continue but most of the government will shut down. Has tor Mitch Mcconnell said he is not interested in shutting down the government. The spending carries ongoing, whether or not they the 12 spending bills. The chairman of the House Committee work as if there is going to be 12 spending bills will be packed in one omnibus package. They have to decide what their strategy is going to be. Folks who are very concerned over the Immigration Law. Could tire Government Fund by the Defence Department with temporary spending. You still have some leverage. If the president has taken executive action you can use the pill to find or overturn whatever the president did. Let that department shut down. Although Homeland Security is not a small department. Next call, susan, republican. I just wanted to Say Something about Keystone Pipeline. I sincerely hope our president will actually veto it. Iron ugh i am a republican very much concerned about the Environmental Impact. Have f these things always leaks like fracking. We as a society pay for that. Out of my that comes well is not drinkable. I just think the environmental that have been done i certain individuals to promote these economic policies that destroy the environment. There is a cross to that but i we as a society should be paying. Cancer going ramping. Thank you. Pipeline for environmental reasons. The economic benefit comes an increase Energy Supply jobs that come with a the ect like this, versus potential Environmental Impact. It is an impact that a number of people are very concerned about. It is much harder to extract that oil from the ground, it a lot of energy and makes a lot of pollution. The debate is the benefit of jobs to the risk of the environment. The estion on twitter, Keystone Pipeline drop prices even lower than today . Between fracking and other, amazing income of energy. And as a result we have seen prices drop. Oil is so low that even make keystone financially good. The cost of putting this out to the ping it down north coast might not be economically feasible. I have not seen anything definitive but it is possible. Independent callup from north carolina. Canada wanted this stuff. This is coming down from there. This stuff is going overseas to all these oil companies. Belongs is here and it the American People. Dont understand why nobody want to use the oil for American People. Cost uld drive down the under a dollar a gallon. We are selling our kids future. Need help. The reason why oil prices have been dropping, is that we have energy here. As we have increased our production the price has gone down. With could i have said list bit here instead of going overseas. The less we use, the less we have to go outside. There is a debate in this to open up exports to allow to export gas, to make some money off that. Of to satisfythe needs countries like china. Generally speaking we have seen the prices go down. The problem nt there it is a good thing for down, is es to go actually one of the reasons we have an increase of manufacturing jobs. So they can afford to build plants. Energy cost with is that it o so low is unproductive to pump gas. The republican side of the senate was on fox news talking about Keystone Pipeline. Cynical attempt to save a seat in louisiana. Around s been hanging for six years. All the studies said it will have minimal impact on the environment. It will create more than 4000 jobs. It will create 100 million in earnings. This is an issue, and nobrainer from the eyes of the American Public. It is finally coming to the of the united senate. Senator from louisiana. It really started all this roundup. The democrats took a real beating in the last election they want to keep that seat in democratic hands. Next election in 2015 is more favourable to democrats, if you keep once it is easier to reclaim the majority. She has not changed her position. The democrats feel, if they can the chance to show iit might not take that off the table in the runoff but it certainly makes it easier as a candidate. From the other side of the was also on fox news. It is important is that signal of the bat. The new republican majority has denigrated this president. If they can enrol him they would like to. The stakes are so high for climate and the environment, the damage that the problem will do. Or not epends on whether the president thinks that giving in on keystone will get him something significant someone else. Be sending some signals that the may be room for compromise. Hes talking about other achievements that the administration has made on climate change. It might be the signal saying that ultimately he might given. Albert from chicago. Republicans want to stop excessive action on immigration. Are on id all options gave able, the president them an option which said it would stop immigration, that just passed the bill. They were committed to doing anything they can do to do it. There will not do the one thing that will stop him. They are not t considering this action . The main reason they are not considering that action is not agree with it. With is not an agreement the Republican Caucus on how the country should go with immigration. They do not have a consensus. It becomes harder for them to move a bill forward. Issue with president oor the concern about the president s action is that he has overreached. He has abused his authority. Part of what they argued was that ny Campaign Stop to ded to put a president ial overreached. This revelation is an example of that. Bee of ere from a shelbyville, indiana. I have a couple of questions. I have heard that another big reason why the obama against the on was the tone pipeline, is not Environmental Impact issue, but because one of his biggest supporters and donors, and in the outer states, warren buffett. Owns the train line that carries the oil from of ada down most of the way the United States. They would lose the contract. Another thing i would like for your guest comment on, when the oil does get down to the coast, is a refined . On the open d into ships, s a gun crude oil, and then shipped that . Because if is refined crude, for ver buys it has to paid the shipping charges. If we buy it in the open market have less shipping charges. You want and so the second first. I think it is a mission of both. Have enough refining capacity. We go elsewhere. On the first one, i have not that and i believe the main concern is environmental issue. The environmentalist make a large part of the president ial coalition. They want to keep up portion of his coalition happy. I do not think he is doing it simply because you are to keep them happy. I believe there is a genuine environment is a concern. Albergo hes a bloomberg director of news. Your professor in American University here in washington dc. Left, e about 50 minutes hhe mentioned tax expenditures. Of the tax e part code that are not permanent. Breaks, that are small look for an es who how to finance them. Gets ebate on them just kicked from congress. To y get this provision is stay in place on the idea that some point they will take up reform and address these. Tax e are things like credit for development or wind energy. Some of them are set to expire. It is really important for congress to make a decision. Organisations that may want to of this tax ge credit would be concerned. There is support for extending them. There is support for extending is whether uestion in not the climate is right this lameduck session. It will be extended, even if its just temporarily. Help the next Year Congress and take a broader tax reform. There is also an authorisation bill. We expected to be passed. There is no major disagreement on that. The house and the Senate Leadership has set a priority for them. The first week of december. Out he senate will later be by december 11, by the time they contain a resolution that government will be over. There is an ambitious agenda by Senate Leaders. The question is whether or not on think of john Agreement Funding the government. Democrat would like to gain agreement and some pending nominations. Some tradition nominations, just to be able to get some of those. People waiting 0 for confirmation. Consent in early change in th a big the senate. What expect the republicans . Your probally sees a message votes. Will policy bills come to the floor of the senate that will care, Affordable Care act, put some restrictions on environmental. I dont think they think they can go anywhere president obama would veto them. Important for the republicans to be able to say what we campaigned on, now that we are done with that. Back to fans, john from indiana. Good morning. My question is is there a way to shipping that oil . That oil and texas. Why can we not get it from somewhere else. Order not the same as a king. The president would argue he authority to make determination. Essentially, the president ial function of deciding who to prosecute or not. They can make exceptions that they are going not to prosecute. Really legislation but extending a power that the present already has. Argue those of slippery slope. Not know where the power begins and whether as a stop. Obama is not spending money he does not have. Hes just deciding who to who not to deport. If the oil is toxic that is part of the debate. It is more whether it of ironment or cost than cting the oil is more the gainings. Is ada has decided there more gainings. You woke me up when you said is room for compromise. I have watched read, is that the democrats will be compromise on the Keystone Pipeline. Do an present does not executive order on immigration i will never vote for democrats ever again. To look and say, is executive action so important for democrats in the next election. What he will cause now with republicans if he took executive action on immigration. This is a political consideration, and how bad t, compromise might be for the democratic coalition. The issue of keystone, the present has been saying that is not in favour of the bill. But part of the signals he has been sending is that they are trying to downplay the Environmental Impact of keystone or more importantly all the other environmental victories they have had. A do think we have heard from number of people that keystone is in their pocket. The precedent does want to accomplish. Keystone is very important to if it gives ans, that to them he might be able to get something he wants. Collar from south carolina. Thank you. Theyd said our cost of living was going to go up. Im Social Security. That is unelected and six dollars a month. If they decide to pass the and the minimum wage to . 10, that is nothing for us. It we could get a raise wicket dump more money into the economy. They could spend more. Raise the minimum wage theyre going to have an inflation. They should not do that. Not really had concerns about increasing the minimum wage. From opponents, they said that if you raise the minimum wage it would drive to price increases. I do not think there is a lot of concern about that. Some states have already raised the minimum wage will see how work in the area. One of the arguments that democrats have been that if you increase minimum wage that is money that comes back to the economy. When has democrats are going to elect their leaders this week. What are you expecting . No surprises. It will be the same leadership to continue. The interesting leadership change is on the republican side. Over who is going to take the House Committee. That will be the interesting thing will happen this week. Not to seek reelection, leaving the seat open. He is not going to continue the. So he has made it clear that he go into interested to the committee, where expecting to get that spot. There is important for two reasons. Seems to be indicating she was to run for president. Those important for the promotion of his ideas. We have also had to areas of compromise like tax reform and trade policy. Both of these issues go through the committee, and it put paul centre of the discussion. Democrats put elizabeth moren into leadership position. How significant is that . That is very significant. More women are that there has been in the past. That tries to send a message to women. I believe she has been well received on the campaign trail. She has articulated issues that worked well with the democratic base. Her in the leadership goes to reinforce the democratic base. Independent caller from maryland. September 12, tthey have been talking about the american oil needed from the outside. This would be a corporation with canada. How does the construction of affect the peline Unemployment Rate in other states. Thats my question. The republicans talk about increasing our dependence on foreign oil theyre not speaking about canada. Is a great partner, with who we have a great relation. We want to decrease our dependence from the middle east might not places that be politically stable. Can have more homegrown, and i guess i as being part a of our hobbies. There is Unemployed People in louisiana. That supporters of that you can do something to try and help. Of course the keystone parallel is knocking to help virginia or other states. It is not a national solution. Democratic caller. I have a comment. Difference between leading boehner nnot vote on congress . There is no difference. Been se senator reids not cked by republicans for vote, and ystone Speaker Boehner is being them ked for not letting vote on immigration. More seems like you hear from the republicans. You have another point. Would like to see on keystone two experts, 114 and one against with the true facts. That they is ing going to create this many jobs. It is so confusing, one to me time you es an old hear that. Another saying something else. Guest you will have two on your show. Have the land owners and get the jobs been talk about. And taking notes here and i appreciate your thoughts and ideas. Specially to clarify some of the information. We have got to the point we talk about ay it will be helpful to have the experts to look at it. Who is going to pay to build a pipeline . Obviously the people who are going to build it will benefit from it. Those people who built it up to be hiring people to maintain the pipeline. Both ends of le at it, one to extract the oil and others to refine it or ship it. Defenders of the pipeline will say they would benefit. Robert is our last call. Good morning gentlemen. The Keystone Pipeline i have been following it. Im a journalist and activist. Draw three ed to quick points. Somebody at the it is my , he said first term aand you cannot concentrate on climate. Yesterday they said it would be an act of war. It looks Department Like climate denial. This is a very serious issue. The one thing we can be sure bill will be passed. Debate in the senate about the keystone. Im not sure say the government will be funnelled in. Is going to be fun to watch what happens with immigration. Just in this hour. Martin cilia has died. He contracted ebola while he was working in sierra leone. Ebola has killed more than 5000 people in africa. We will learn more about the virus today. He is expected to talk about the Ebola Outbreak in west africa as well as Global Health security. Event of a r the later. These are some of the other headlines. On the committee caters, prof from Columbia University speaking about how to manage the internet. One of the things that is being overlooked on this debate. Generally the big picture, the question about people who do not have broadband, how are they going to get it . Nobody is addressing that right now. Manndate universal service like we did with telephones back on it in a century. It collect money which right to subsidising telephone service, it could be repositioned to try and create real broadband, there are possibilities that we are entitled to. A ey could say we need universal Service Program for broadband. Pm on t at 8 communicators. Up now regular segment on money and how is being spent here in washington, our guest is bradford. Coming in in january, what will the situation be like. Talk to us about congressional salaries in a broad sense. Know they make about 170,000. Correct. It is a bit of a wakeup call. They also have a whole regime of ethics laws. They have two disclose even as what their investments are. New law called the stock act. The present financial world is very transparent. Americans can see what members of Congress Make. Lets look at the salaries here. Members of Congress Make 170,000 a year. Makes 200,000 a year. This on the screen. That we see now, have they been constant for a while . As you ers of congress can imagine, 10 to increase their own pay. They give themselves cost of living. We have at a time when economic challenges and we do not want to be seen as increasing a pay. The challenge of course is do you really want people to challenge that way . Do you really want only the rich to run for congress . At some point, is in the best the public to have small increases of pay. 170,000 may seem a lot to folks around the country. They need to homes . You look at ot if the average income of the americans. Most members of Congress Take a pay cut. Most members of congress are going to actually take a pay cut. It is not going to make a lot of cspan viewers happy. But it is true, members of usually do set up a home in washington dc. The average rent is about 3 4000 a month. They have all these extra expenses that they have to face. Well put the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen. Call in and ask away. What is the Congressional Management Foundation . Where are a nonprofit organisation. We try to make congress more effective. People laugh when i make that line. We have been giving professional management and training for staff. We also do research on how congress works. We made a survey of members of congress about what they do on their jobs. It surprises a lot of people how they spend their time. We also have Educational Programs at the congress. As was they were salaries, jobs are other types of in the congress. This is from last year. 106 to 1000 is the average salary for the chief of staff. 160k can 4 indicate as director. Is a differential between an American Public servant can make in congress and what could make in the private sector. More igher you go the differential it is. You could leave your job the senate and make double in the private sector. There is an incentive to leave Public Service when it comes than finding your kids. They had to leave their jobs because they had a couple of kids and the need to make more money. Even at the junior level, it could be a staff answering the phone for has representatives, and could probably make more in the private sector. Director makes 80 k. Why the difference between house and senate . A senate chief of staff, you have to keep in mind that 100 of them. In their ly do act transactional ways. One of the places of bipartisanship. They get on pretty well and do lot of work together. On the house side you are more of a manager. You could ate side have staff of maybe 100 you are responsible for. How does Healthcare Work . Under the Affordable Care passed by the congress, many Congressional Staff were kicked out the federal program. Have the same benefits as any federal eemployee. They felt that they should go exchanges like everybody else. Worsley did a study and survey staff, we asked them what they expected the impact would be. Almost 80 believed they would lose an employee because of the transition on health care. You could charge more if your order. Staff, the pay cut because the health increased. Lets get some calls in. Calling from albany, oregon. I wanted to comment that my had a pay raise since he has been in office. He has created 270 scholarships. My son would otherwise not be able to go to college. Congressmen who are given up the pay raises. Not a common practice. Usually have a need for financial need previous to the congress. See the spirit there. Mind that o keep in the entire spend a chip of United States congress is nothing in the sea of federal spending. Is very small compared to the rest of the amount. Calling from arkansas. Not be very old not really ate is what happened. I can when the house change hand. When the representative was member on e ranking the chair, a chair at the administrate. Special place for him. Salary, get the same and he got to keep the same office. Im not sure what are the advantages there is. Actually the chairman and have the same salary. Being is not a bonus for a committee chairman, you do get more staff of course. Job. Se you i like to play a game i call name that perk. We saw members of Congress Going on vacation, paid by the taxpayer and special Interest Groups. In reality, there are not a lot of perks left in congress. They cannot get free meals from lobbyists. The trips they go on our business trips. Businessinteresting trips. You get to go to china or europe or iraq or afghanistan, but it is not as lush and relaxing as it might seem. There are host but there are some other things out there, according to congressional research. If you are a member of commerce, you have a 3000 allowance for deductions for living expenses. Guest there are three perks left. One of them is the unusual tax reduction they get because they are expected to maintain two homes, of 3000. Another one is they can bring their spouse. I cannot do that in my job. That is not the third perk left is they have a parking lot at National Airport. Just like the supreme court, so they can go in and out. Most members of congress are 45 weekendsme 40 to per year, spending a lot of time in and out of airports. So they found that having a parking lot at National Airport was in their best interest. For how does that work them when they do not even know if they are going home, the airport . Guest it is crazy. Their staff has to book them on multiple flights. They are allowed to do that without any financial penalty to congress. They cannot fly first class. They have to fly in coach. That is one of the requirements. It exists in the law because they do not want to be seen taking advantage of that. Some of them spend and norton it amount of time in camp in travel. One from california spends 20 hours per week on planes. It is a little crazy and i was talking to him and he said to me almost sheepishly, and on the last flight i watched a movie or co congressman, it is ok to watch a movie occasionally. These are type a personalities. Pass laws and oppose them on the rest of us. That is why they ran for office. They are trying to understand policy nuances, and it makes for some pretty long hours, and a lot of time on planes. Host certain types of outside income are allowed for members. What is that income . The 1980s before there was a change in the law, there were a lot of different types of outside income, including honoraria from speeches, which caused an ethical problem in the 1980s. A person going on a trip would personal 2000 to their account. They dont longer can accept any kind of outside honorarium. If they are given an honorarium, it is donated to charity. The only types of income they are allowed are passive income such as stock investments. They are not allowed to sit on boards of directors anymore and they stay away from nonprofit organizations. Most rely solely on investments from a previous life or from a congressional salary. Host how do pensions work . Just like federal employees. They get the same type of pension as federal employees do. 401 k just like you would under the federal Employee Retirement system. The only ones that would not have a kind of a system our members who are in office dating back to the 1970s, or the 1960s, like john dingell probably has a different requirement a different Pension System. Most everybody else gets the same type of Pension System as a general gardenvariety federal employee. Host so there are benefits and also before three b . The 403 b . It is just like any other kind of federal employment. If you get to 20 years, that is real benefits kick in. They can add in military service if they serve in the military or other governmental service. It is like being a general government employee. By and large, that is the way they are treated, with the exception of health care. Speciale put in this category last year where they do not get federal Employee Health benefits. They are under the exchanges in the distant in the district of columbia. Host emily, a democrat, you are on with Bradford Fitch. Caller i have a question regarding retirement. How much do they receive, and how is it based . Are they allowed to keep Campaign Contributions in addition to that, and do they have an expense account . Guest thank you. No, under a law that was passed and went into effect in 1992, members of congress cannot keep their Campaign Contributions for personal use. If they use any of that money for personal use, they are subject to action by the federal election commission, and members pretty much stay away from that. Typicalnsions, it is based on the number of years that you serve in government. Multiplied by what is called high three as many systems are. Then the 401 k investment, through the sith through the thrift savings plan. 401 k gardenvariety with a lot of different investments. Their expense accounts the only expenses they can spend our own official activities. House members get about a 1. 2 million budget. They have to spend the money on salaries, on paper, on computers for their district offices. They submit a voucher or contracts and they are not allowed to expand two spend anything on personal items. If you have a staff retreat or staff meeting and you want to buy a pizza, that is illegal and you have to pay for that yourself. Guest host what about a car traveling in the district . Guest you can lease a car. But it is a headache. You get the same federal rate, just as staff do. You put in your mileage and you get reimbursed for that. Wet the numbers there that can put on the screen. Our guest is Bradford Fitch. Sonnel and Office Expenses he did talk about the 1. 2 million on the house side. It is about 3 million to 4. 7 million for senate. I dont think Many Americans think they do what they need to do, that they should do more. There is a little known fact that the actual budget for the house and senate has been cut. Unlike any other federal agency while sequestration takes effect, congress has imposed cuts on itself. Every office between 2010 and 2013 got a cut. That is a real cut. Had tofices i know either lay off a staff member through attrition or through furloughs, which i know some offices did that in 2012 and 2013. It is an interesting fact that most americans do not know. They just have not heralded it as much as they could. Members do not talk about cuts to their own staff, but they have cut their budget. The department of agriculture cut if the department of byiculture cut its budget 20 , there would be screaming in the streets. Congress does it, nobody cares. We did a survey, and i will give you something from the survey that we did. Congressional staffers of 2011 on Job Satisfaction one of them said, i am seriously concerned that the salaries in the house office leads to a lower quality work force. In five years on the hill, i have seen more people leave than ever. It is leading to a less experienced, less expert, and less intelligent workforce. So there is an actual impact on budget cuts to the constituent. Host just under 20 minutes left with our guest, Bradford Fitch. Peter is calling on the independent line from new haven, connecticut. Guest how are you . Thanks for cspan. I have a question. Our president goes to walter reed for his health care. Once a year. How come these people in the do not go to ae va hospital rather than have us pay with our taxes for their health care . Guest good question, peter. That is one of the myths that exist that often get. Why dont they have the same health care as everybody else . The reality is they do. They do not have a special hospital. They get their regular doctor, whether it be back home or in the district of columbia. The capital campus has a Nurses Office like you would expect for any property or business that had 15,004 years. That hasere is a 15,000 employees. They do not have their own doctors, they get the same type of health care as other americans. Theirike 53 of america, employer contributes a portion of their health care. It is pretty average to what most americans might get when they contribute to their own health care. Itks the same ray works the same way for the United States congress. The from twitter states send these guys do congress. Let the states pay their respective salaries and benefits. We have a republican caller from las vegas. Caller good morning. I had a question about the educational and regional staffers, andthe i would assume they come from the state or the i was wondering about the background. Guest that is a great question. Staff of aof the Freshman Congress years ago, and we had 16 openings and 1400 resumes. It is still a great place to work on some level, in that you get to choose from the best and the brightest. By and large, the demographic information regarding the u. S. Congressional staff is they are highly educated. Most of them have at least two degrees. If they are im sorry, four degrees. Many of them come from the states, but even d. C. Staff will try to find someone with a state connection. They also try to bring out experts, and that is what the freshmen are doing right now, finding a proper balance and mixing it with other staff from people back home. People from washington who know how congress works, and maybe people will from the Campaign Staff that round out their staffs. Host how do the new members of the house and senate learn about all of this . Guest it is like drinking from a fire hose. Members of the house of representatives came here for an Orientation Program that started literally seven days after they got elected. It is kind of crazy. Last wednesday they arrived and they are here for a sevenday orientation session, where they are given 25 pounds of information and they are going in for 12ourperday meetings. Likeis what life will be in january. The average number of meetings that congress has on a daily basis is 13 meetings a day, 17 70 hours per week. I am talking about their work ethic but not their work product. This intense orientation period, talk to other members, either freshman or sophomore, so they can balance their work. In leadershipte elections, so the leadership elections for republicans happened last week. They will happen for the democrats in the house this week. They do not get much of a break. They have to hit the ground work they have to do ground running. Can congress hire additional staff on the rhone . Can they get benefits . Which members could have a numbers advantage . A really great question. In the house of representatives you cannot use your personal wealth to augment either salaries or things of that nature. The reason they do not want you hiring outside people, they also want it to be transparent. You would not want someone who works for a special Interest Group or Something Like that and the public could not see it. There is flexibility in the senate, but by and large members do not augment their staff with their own personal funds. Host another viewer wants to know, what about hello see about Nancy Pelosis 737 air force plane when she was speaker . Does john boehner get this, too . Travel the same way. The leadership has a security detail. Maybe it goes down to the whip. They have a security detail that troubles, the speaker, the minority leader, Senate Leaders as well. , thesethe funny things hollywood programs that portray congress, one of them i remember in the pilot about the house, one member of congress is being picked up by a limousine. The only people who travel by people frome hollywood. That is their image. If you look at the congressional parking lot, you will see a lot of heat up old cars. Have two cars, which is really typical when you have one back home and one here in d. C. Host what about things on the smaller side haircut, drycleaning . Guest there is a dry cleaner in the city. It is not free, you have to pay for it. It is pretty much what you would expect in a large corporate complex, where you have to have restaurants and things like that. , and thes subsidized food is pretty good in the restaurants. Again, it is a privately run you payhat runs it, and pretty much restaurant prices, cafeteria prices. Host tina in milwaukee, a democrat. Forer thank you so much cspan. Good morning, mr. Fitch. I have a question and a comment. My question first i was curious about the five Years Service before the congressman can retire and may retire with full benefits. My comment is that 30 years i was an educator. , but my benefit was conditional on how long i worked and if i took any time off. Is it that is, how our congressmen can work five years and get full benefits . Myth iagain, another have to debug. Their Pension System. You are eligible for benefits when you retire. At the earliest you can get it, it is 62. You do not get full benefits. If you work six years, it goes in and multiplies out like our garden variety pension benefit would work, where you take a number of years you serve, the average of your high three salary, and a multiplier effect. The multiplier picks back up after 20 years. I worked 13 years and i keep my eye on this kind of thing. I is better than nothing, but will not complain when i get it. Until you worked 20 years in congress or 25 years, significant benefits do not take in. Host jack, Providence Rhode island, jack, providence, rhode island, independent caller. Caller i am going to bring in what the previous caller said this is my subject area concerning congressional pensions. A senator gets elected once, he gets automatically vest it he gets automatically vested in a pension when he works five years. The point i want to make is this. I worked for an Investment Banking firm for over 30 years, and after 10 years i was fully vested. But then they switched to a 401 k , and i was starting in the business when i was 24 years old in 1975. I started to take my benefits when i was 62. , the point i want to make you go into congress, particularly the senate. You are going to walk out with a pension. Most people do not know that. They know it now, the viewers who are listening. And nancy pelosi, before i understand, is walking out with it hundred thousand dollars a year in pension benefits. I saw a competitor network, and the guy who said it is a pretty smart fellow who went to harvard. And about the Senate Congressional pensions. The reasonrted she is going to get a good pension, good benefits, is she started Public Service way back in the 1970s or the 1960s under an old retirement system called the Civil Service retirement system. If you are a federal employee and she is treated like every other federal employee. Ifis a pretty good benefit you got part of that, if you worked at the local level. There are some pretty good benefits, but for her to get 800,000, she would have to be listed at over 100,000. She does not look like she is retiring. That is one of these myths that get out there, and it is frustrating that these news organizations put up this kind of information. It is just not true. They participate in the federal Employee Retirement system. Most members of congress have the 401 k and you can contribute a portion of the amount and it can be matched by your employer. It is very traditional, like you would get in the private sector. Fewer employers are providing pension benefits. Is differentrvice than the private sector these days. Host from pennsylvania, a republican caller. Wanted to say i may be one of the youngest callers you have had. I just turned 33. My whole entire family has been hardcore very to the right republicans their whole life, and i have kind of become level one of those where i agree with certain things, disagree with others. I do tend to still vote republican. This. Ment is pretty much you know, all of the years , all ofat the salaries these congressmen and representatives and stuff make for kickbacks and, you know, the amount of money they get for funding and keeping their offices running, honestly it boggles my mind when they complain about, well, we had a cut in this amount. I am a stayathome mom of three kids, and my husband is busting his but 50, 60 hours a week to try to make things work out the cousin daycare is expensive. I have an imprint i have an infant at home and it costs over 1000 a month to put my baby in daycare. For people like me who live in the state of pennsylvania i was formerly in new jersey it is very hard to live on what we make. Host Bradford Fitch, any thoughts . Guest i can appreciate that the congressof members of and staff getting paid what they do is tough because a lot of people like lori are out there struggling. When they see the programs that portray a lifestyle of members in congress, it gets them angry and i get that. Is, life inh congress is a lot more mundane and boring. With 60, 70hour weeks. They miss a lot of events back home because they cannot be there with their families. That is a pretty frustrating challenge, especially for young parents who are trying to raise kids and are not able to be there for the soccer games or the Little League games or the school plays. Part of the job of Public Service, and that is why they go into it, they have to make those sacrifices and i think i get frustrated when i see these hardworking americans working in the congress and they do get heat up a lot. On aget Death Threats reagan or basis. They do not look for accolades, they do not ask for it. They deserve probably more than they get. But they are dedicated to making the world a better place and making congress as effective as possible. Get electedns who to congress are decent, hardworking Public Servants trying to improve the condition for their constituents. Host time for a couple more calls for our guest. Democrat, from elgin, illinois. He has made a reference to the average congressman, their salary, and how many hours a week the average congressperson might work, which is 70 a week. But from what i know, they are not in session every week, and i am not sure how they balance their work time but for between being in washington is there a way to look at those salaries, how they might look over a 40 hour work week . Is there any restrictions on outside employment, with a lot of elected officials having law degrees. They may have a practice or a family farm that they participate in to generate additional income. We actually calculated out the number of hours that they work, and on average a member of Congress Gets paid out about 52 an hour, making it on the scale with the optometrist. That is basically what you member what you remember Congress Getting paid. We looked at schedules and how they spend their time and when they are not here in session, they are back home. About 30 of the time when they are back home, it is spent on constituent services. 18 will be focused on press activity in the media. 17 on political activity. The members of congress spend all their time raising their money. Granted, 17 of the 60hour work ,eek will add up to a 60 70hour work week. But most of the time they are doing them what you want them to be doing, working out legislative activity when they are in washington. Again of theus additional income as they are able to make it. If a member has a business at can they farm continue to make revenue there . They can. On the other kind of Service Oriented activity, it is hard for them to get an income. A number of physicians elected to congress are quite frustrated by that. They want to be able to continue practicing medicine and deriding and in and having an income from that. They can donate their services. Senator rand paul in the august recess i think went to guatemala to perform i surgery. That is an amazing, dedicated person. During his time off, he is still helping out people. A lot of members do that during time off, but there is little outside income from them. Host new york city is on the line. An independent, paul. First of all, we should note that most americans make vastly less than 100,000 dollars per year. And a lot of them want to send their kids to school, too. The idea that they have to quit their jobs to send their kids to college, perhaps we are living in a little bit of an elitist world. That is the thing i would like to point out. Like tond thing i would point out they have great its, especially where looks like a quid pro quo in many cases. They have really great jobs, multisevenfigure jobs. They do really well after that. Selfservicet of as opposed to Public Service that is involved in this. Guest you are absolutely right. That is an increasing trend happening in congress. Members after they serve and staffers after they serve are going to work as professional applicants, as lobbyists, whether it be for a particular industry, or for a nonprofit. Termld debunk what this lobbyists is. They are not the typical character in a nice suit. They are more average, and they pointedo not as you out, they definitely can command a higher salary once they leave congress. Mary, final call from pennsylvania. What is the name of your town . Caller allentown. I am a medicare recipient, and increase,ting a 1. 7 which is practically nothing. The medicare increase will offset that. So i am wondering, if we are so ofr that we cannot take care ourselves at least a little bit and i do not call it an entitlement because i did pay into it. We are trillions of dollars in debt. Justan we go out and offer this week, billions of dollars to help other countries help with environmental protection. Use hispresident will executive order to add 4. 5 oles,on illegals to our r where they will get the free health care. The rest of us are paying for it through Social Security. Why can you not defined some of these things and take care of your own people . Host a final thought from our guest . Guest mary articulates frustration. Ofdoes look like Members Congress are making a lot more, but keep in mind they are Public Servants. You want to have a Public Service that is responsive to americans. You do not want an elitist. You do not want only the wealthy serving. That comes with a price. , we Bradford Fitch appreciate your time and all your insight and information this morning. Thank you for all of your calls. Congress is in this week, then out for thanksgiving. Look for lots of action here on the hill. The president is back in town. Thank you for weighing in. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] it is a rainy day in washington, d. C. , the freshman 114s photo for the Incoming Congress has been postponed until tomorrow. As orientation continues for new members this week. Will be in session this afternoon. The house in at 2 00. Legislative work at 2 00