Appropriate role for congress is to consider what is that right ecisio combination between leadership, management and resources and nt lik makee a responsible decision. Not rush to judgment like the democrats did last wednesday and then play politics with what is a national tragedy. I think its samehameful that they did that and hopefully cooler heads will prevail and well gton make responsible decisions. Ye theres aar piece in the priva Washington Times about the privatization of amtrak. Yo should that u happen . Ing of i would like to see amtrak privatized. I dont know that were there yet. You have to go back to theiv beginning of amtrak. The reason we have amtrak is in ics of p 1970 private rail service was completely failing. The financial model, the economics of private rail Service Given the interstate highway system and the growth of airlines, by 1970 the private b rail system was collapsing. It was a bailout. Amtrak was a bailout. F the act that Congress Passed and nixon signed into law in 1970 and in 1971 we saw the birth of have amtrak. Some have suggested it was intended to be a temporary bailout. It turned out to be amtrak which is wildly popular for those who use it. For those who dont in my district in florida, they still dont understand why taxpayers subsidize this. Understand, amtrak operates at a loss of nearly 300 million a year. This year amtrak a forprofit 00 mil corporation supported by theli government, will operate at a nearly 300 million loss and congress will step in with taxpayer taxpayerin taxpayer taxpayer taxpayer taxpayer dollars and cover that loss. Would we be better off finding arow. Privatization solution . Yes. We are a ways from that. If congress stepped out tomorrow, the system would collapse like we awe insaw in 1970. Representative david jolly, head. Republican of florida, joining us. Tony from california thanks for waiting. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I just want to let him know that i know that amtrak is quasi government. Heever said that politics theresit is politics in everything. Well, hes playing politics now. Its so disheartening to listen to elected officials come on here and say things that cant t be done. Think he said the president he doesnt want the president to think its Christmas Day and veryth that congress is not doing. Everything but congress is not o doing everything and i dont know how some of these officials get in office and stuff and go in congress and do absolutely nothing just to oppose the president. W that y you can smile, you can laugh all you want to, its okay because ot doi the American People know that you guys are noty doing anything for this country. Youre not doing anything to move this country forward. Thank you. I appreciate your conviction. Let me share with you this. L about in congress the president elected office, politics, it is each all about a contest of ideas. We each subscribe to our own is a fi ideas. This is a contest of ideas. But it is not a fight against each other. Its aits a fight for what we believe is right for the future of our country. We all get concerned about the gridlock and the debate and the in am acrimony, i do. Our fundounders established this inefficient system of collection making. The process can be discouraging. I understand that and i share that concern that you have. But i would share this with you. My reference to the president but listen, hes the president of the United States. He has the authorityel of the white house. We disagree on a lot of things but he deserves our respect. But how do we pay for the projects . Thats not a political question. How do we pay for our National Priorities . Some people would suggest more taxes are okay. Thats how we fund projects. We simply dont have the ationa revenue. When this president took office in 2008, our National Debt was at 10 trillion. 008, w so in 220 years of our republic, 1789 to 2008, we accumulated 10 trillion in debt. Wit when thish president leaves office 8 years later with the co lessens of the congress as well theres blame on both sides of this, when he leaves office 8 d the years later we will be at 20 trillion. In 8 years we will have doubled the amount of debt that it took injec 220 years to accumulate. My comments are m trying to inject responsibility into the decisions we make. I just got elected a year ago. I have no interest in having a nal political career serving in a body that continues to accumulate National Debt at the be t rate werehe doing and ultimately compromise what i believe would be the National Security of the United States if we see an economic collapse. Her i appreciate your concern. He this is how the process works. We challenge each other with ideas whent were in the congress. We challenge the president s ideas. Its okay. Its important that we keep it civil. What did you do before you r for were elected . I worked for my predecessor for a number of years. He was the chairman of the appropriations committee. He served in my district. When i left his staff i had a fo private law practice and and advocacy practice. I started off as a Small Business person. I got to learn what it means to sign the front of a check not the back of a check, how to go months without paying yourself i so you can keep your employees employed, what regulations mean i had to a Small Business. I never intended to run for this office. It wasnt something i had in my plan. Providence sometimes prevails and theres a greater plan. Fair to say you were a eprese lobbiest . I certainly was. What type of industry . I represented a number of industries. I represented colleges and universities, a couple of Small Businesses in my district thatnt supplied counter ied devices to lobb the military as well as a number of nonprofits. People like to talk about the lobbying term and i talk about my pri advocacy and theva importance of advocacy and i stand by my private sector career every day. You know, mark lunsford, some of the viewers might recall he lost his daughter jessica to a sexual predator. He built a coalition of what are p called surviving parents to advocate before congress and theority to white house for greater penalties but also to give the r Marshall Service to go after ab. Skonders from the sex offender registry. He shared with me the way Congress Works is we pass a lot of laws. On passe mark had been very successful in getting this legislation passed ding but then we dont fund the activity. So hevice needed help getting funding for the Marshal Service mark, to get these guys and he wasnt able to get it done. I said to mark, im going to help you. Over the next self years we got 50 to 60 million to go after these bad guys. Right you can call it lobbying if you o want and thats fine. I stand by it. S but itsho advocacy for the right the am reason. Its important. Peop it shows the direct engagement of the American People with kay their elected officials. Heres oak city oklahoma up next. Hello. Caller yes, hello. Good morning. Caller sorry, i got the chokies this morning. My question for representative jolly is i was under the impression that the stimulus ructur package provided funding for infrastructure and then there was the infamous joke about it not being all shovel ready. My questionam is what happenedtr to that money . Thats a great question. Lets talk about the amtrak issue. The lastac caller suggested that there are politics involved in this. Theres not. Enin if we gog su back to the independenthis deba caller earlier this morning who suggested we need better management, thats at the heart wa of this debate. In this stimulus bill 3 billion was provided to amtrak specifically for the northeast corridor to implement new technologies. That was in 2009. To be having a debate in 2015 about why positive train controla mana is notge implemented throughout the northeast corridor thats not a funding debate. Thats a management debate. Its okay to hold people ee accountable. Its hard. We all balance it. I serve on a commiter to the define veterans affairs. We have incredible people that rful serve on the front lines of healthcare and benefits in the v. A. In my district we have wonderful people working at the v. A. But was there a failure of leadership in washington at the department . Certainly there was. When it comes to resources, the v. A. Receives virtually everything they ask for and yet continue to fail our veterans. Ership thats a management issue. As congress, i try to work with ut at the leadership recognizing the y leadership of the v. A. But at the same time we do have an oversight authority. So in any business, any tween th organization, theres that natural tension between the board of directors and the president or ceo. Suffic how do you give sufficient confidence in your leadership i thin but at the same time provide ership sufficient toversight . I think washingtons failures hat we are more defined by leadership roblem than by resources and the thin suggestion that we just keep throwing money at problems like in the stimulus, i think thats republ the wrong direction. Thats why frankly, i consider myself a republican. I dont think the answer is always in more spending. Is up i think its in management and efficiency. Buffalo new york chris is repr up next. Caller yes, thank you very my much mr. Jolly or representative jolly. Good morning. If th caller my comment is that if this country wanted to show basically the world how really powerful it once was, thats all it would have to do is raise taxes and it would scare the hell out of the rest of the world. Everybody knows we have not raised taxes since president bush was in office. Every other tax that was raised was due to a Program Going up. Ver in my opinion, the worst line that was ever spoken in government was Ronald Reagan e saying, i am from the government and i am here to help. Ernmen why woult d we elect republicans who are against government to run government . I appreciate that phone call. Let me share with you a little bit. Im a Less Government ative. Conservative but im not a no government conservative, particularly in the areas of is sa safety fenets. E gove there are times that theres a safety net that only the government can provide. Theres not a private sector th model when you come to certain in safety net programs. So thats why i support investing in Early Childhood th education and department of labor programs thatn dealou with ntify a dropoff retention and invest in our youth. Courses im trying to identify a way that we can make ged courses for adult dropouts more accessible infr and affordable. There is a role for government s th but i believe its limited. Ax infrastructure is one of those areas, thats true. Esn heres the real issuet when it comes to taxes. First of all, i dont agree withaxed and the notion that we need to raise taxes. I think were overtaxed as it is. I believe that president obama put a tax package through that did include some tax increases on the wealthy. E true d i will tell you this, its important to remember where the true drivers of the deficit are coming and every time we talk tional about how can we find more moneys crushi for transportation or education or our National Priorities, we have to talk about what is really crushing our debt and that is mandatory spending. Social security, medicare medicaid, interest on the debt. Onsumed if you go back to around 1960, of our those programs consumed only on h about 30 of our federal budget, meaning we had 70 of our tax. Dollars to then decide how do we prioritize those on infrastructure and education andtoday, so forth defense homeland security. That was 1960. Today medicare, medicaid, interest on the debt Social Security, thats eating up about 70 of our budget. Our think about what the pie chart eli looks like now. That means only aboutad 30 of our taxpayer dollars are actually eligible to address National Priorities. In in my lifetime those four programs will consume 100 . Meaning that every single thing we pay for for the operations of government, v. A. Defense transportation, education, would be debt spending. E talk so i like to use the opportunity any time we talk about concerns to over Discretionary Spending on government activities, we have to talk aboutethe long term reform to our mandatory programs. If we can solve that, if we can come together, republicans democrats, independents, and deb agree to an entitlement package that reforms our debt and those ho programs, we will have plenty ofepresent taxpayer dollars without raising taxes to pay for all the priorities we need. Representative david jolly ofy of f florida our guest. Guest louisiana is up next. Im sorry, john from massachusetts, youre on. Caller yes, sir. I would love to know where the stimulus money went. Id love to see that accounted for line by line. I got a feeling that the unions took full benefit of most of that money. Thank you very much. You thank you for that call. Quickly ill use that as an opportunity to share with you ased legislation that i am cosponsoring and i think is the right thing to do. Ida its called zerobased budgeting. That eac a colleague of mine from florida is leading this. S it is the notion that each year we should start at zero and determine what our priorities are and begin to add up the budget from there as opposed to taking last years budget with ast many failures and inefficientsies that we see within the administration. Ncreas using last years budget and ach ye proposing that we increase it byiated whateverpr that percentage is each year, i think zerobased budgeting would address those arco rub concerns. The Associated Press is looking at senator marco rubios seat. Is this part of your interest . My heart and soul is in the house. I said i ran for office a year ago. This is the first elected office ive served in. I ran for the house to serve in the house to serve my community in the house. To get one of the t things ive realized i do is too many people run for one n office just toot get to the other. I dont know that i have i con interestti in serving in the United States senate. Heres what i dof know. As i continue to focus solely onsenate the house, the state of florida the Third Largest state, has an repr open senate seat that we need to have a remarkably qualified candidate to represent the y home entire state fromto pensacola to jacksonville, to tampa to miami l has toye my hometown of pin el las county. That field has yet to develop. Electi im not making specific plans to run for senate. I love the house. My plan is to run for reelection in the house but i have not ruled out the senate. Im f patient. Everybody gets aflutter theres an open senate seat. They have to consider should i run for that because i got to run for something else. D thats not my approach. I said im going to keep doing my job. Lets get into the summer and well see what the field looks the pe like. If theres a well qualified at cou candidate that im confident can serve the people of florida, i would be happy to get behind them and make sure they get elected to the senate. Have you been approached by anybody to run . Certainlyna yes. Listen our race last year became a national race. T it was a special election. The anchor of the i4 corridor the ho purple district. President obama won it twice and yet as a republican ive won the seat in the house. Ive so there is a question, am i mes able to articulate a republican conservative message that actually appeals to people from rticul all walks of life both sides of the aisle, can i articulate a paren responsible governing message that mainstream understands and all of our communities and parents and teachers and firefighters and department of defense folks appreciate . Perhaps so. I mean, i think that was part ofma had o our message in the special ouse election where i was able as a. Republican to win a seat barack obama had won in the race a for the white house. Florida is a diverse state. On both sides of the aisle i r this think youll see people te considering how to be intellectually honest in running for the senate in a state as e two diverse as ours. Marco rubio planning on rkable running for president. Jeb bush looking at c it. Which do you support . I look forward to having a president from the state of blican florida. Now. Jeb bush brings incredible nex leadership and experience. Marco rubio is the shining star en is of the republican party. If we get to next august and one of those two are accepting the nomination for the president , it will be an exciting time. Which do you favor . I really do like them both. I lean more towards jeb because of his leadership and his experience. I do think we need and some fe of the callers referenced this. I think we need people in every office particularly in the federal government but also state and local, that are experienced, qualified seasoned. Theyve been tried, tested. Theyre measured, and they have the ability to lead. I see that in jeb bush. He has special leadership qualities. Look, Barack Obamat reset that mold. He he came in with a short career in illinois, a very short careermerican in the United States senate and he captured the white house and the imagination of the american also h people and reset the model for what we look for in president s. But you also have to then look at was he qualified to face some of the challenges he did as bateere is b president. Thats something the nationlo can debate long after hes president. Byron fromn. Louisiana, youre on. Caller yes i id like to ask the congressman a question. First id like to make a ne comment. He is smart enough to know that he could cure the Social Security problem in one vote. All you have to do is index the st lik deductions on index the deductions on income to the cost of living and let at wou them go up each year, just like he does his salary. Like t that would cure the Social Security problem. He knows that. He would not admit it. One other thing, id like to aske tax