>> coming up on "washington journal," your calls and comments live and then congressional reporter for the messenger stephen neukam freebie the week ahead on capitol hill and the 2024 presidential race and what to watch for ahead of the iowa caucuses with julia manchester of the hills newspaper. also george mason university contributor steven pearlstein on political disruption in congress. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. it is monday, january 8, 2024. the senate convenes at 3:00 eastern today.

congress is facing down a government funding deadline. yesterday democrats and republicans announced a deal that would fun of the government for the rest of fiscal year but that agreement still needs to be passed by congress and signed by the president. we are asking for your thoughts on government spending. what you think should be cut? what should get more funding. phone lines split by political party. democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text (202) 748-8003. please include your name and where you are from. catch up with us on x @cspanwj and facebook.com/c-span. a good monday morning. start calling in. your thoughts on government spending. this is the headline this morning, congressional leaders

announced topline deal on appropriations. the rollcall budgets and associations reporter joins us via zoom this morning. what is in this agreement that was announced yesterday? what are both sides holding up as victories in this deal? guest: thank you for having me. we have a topline agreement which is a big step forward. essentially it includes the spending levels agreed upon last summer during the debt limit negotiation. there were some changes which republicans are saying our wins. they got an additional 16 billion of previous appropriated money which would be covid money and irs enforcement dollars. the democrats are saying that is just money that would've been taken back next year anyway. a debate over that.

essentially we have a deal and that is good news for the appropriations process. host: breakdown defense spending and nondefense spending. guest: the deal includes 880 $6 billion in defense spending and nondefense spending -- about a 300% increase from last year and about flat on the nondefense side, and this was hammered out over the summer. obviously we could not elect a majority since then in this process to get to where we are today with a handful of short term stopgap spending measures and the overthrow of speaker mccarthy to negotiate this deal so it is not clear where we would land. essentially we are back where we were over the summer although there are some changes to the package which republicans are happy about, at least speaker

johnson is heralding it as a win. host: had it -- how is this deal going over with the rank and file members. where are the potential avenues where this could be held up? guest: that is a good question. the house freedom caucus once big spending cuts. they are unhappy with this deal. if you look at the coalition that will be needed to pass this legislation, they are not part of it, they have voted against a short term stopgap measure. with such a slight majority on the republican conference, johnson has not a lot of wiggle room to move forward as a leader if it is wide opposition among republicans. it'll be interesting to see where many republicans fall. the usual suspects of the freedom caucus are unhappy about the overall spending levels just

like they were at the time of the deal. host: does this one of those bills that could potentially get more democratic votes in the republican-controlled house then republican votes? what is your prediction? guest: 98% chance, 100% chance, that it will receive more democratic votes. if you look back at the previous resolutions, it is clear house democrats are going to carry this, barring some kind of major shift from what we have seen in the past. i think it is clear democrats will carry this forward. host: in terms of the timeframe, we are looking at a january 19 government funding deadline. the second one hits in early february. will there be enough time to go through the legislative hoops

and get this signed by the president before the deadline, or is it possible they will need another stopgap measure to buy more time for this process to play out? guest: not enough time for them to get done by mid-january. there will be another stopgap spending measure, which will be a little tricky, but with democrats on board it should be able to pass pretty clearly. i will caution that this agreement is an important step, but there is a lot of work to do , including the work of negotiating the bills, which will take four to six weeks to get to the finish line. but also, this agreement is different in which around this time they have an agreement on policy writers, which is what policies are included in the package. there is no agreement at this

point on that topic. that will be another tough negotiation, especially as johnson faces criticism from the freedom caucus. chip roy was saying he will wait and see -- he is unhappy with the spending level but he says let's look and see what we get. that will be a hard negotiation -- this deal allows them to get to work but there's still a lot more work to be done. guest: -- host: this legislation has not been crafted yet. it is a big deal. $1.6 trillion. anything else jump out in what has been released in the last 24 hours? guest: the bigger point of going back to last summer and thinking

about where we ended up now, there was a lot of work done by both chambers and at the end of the day we landed similarly to where we thought we would land after the debt limit agreement was announced. there were some changes to the package than what we would've expected coming out of the debt limit, but overall if you take a step back and look wider, the spending levels are essentially what was agreed to last summer. host: you can see his work at rollcall.com. thanks for getting up early with us on the washington journal. guest: thanks for having me. host: now we put to our viewers. government spending, what should we cut, what should get more funding? guest: numbers are on your screen. we will start with bill and alabama. caller: good morning.

please allow me the time to vent my thoughts. let's start with the fbi, cia, capitol police, educational department, department of education. i could go on. the list is endless. they are wasting our money. also to quote margaret thatcher, when socialists run out of other people's money, what you got, you've got nothing. host: that is bill and alabama. james in maryland. what do you think on government spending? what should be cut? caller: i think education should get more funding. we have our main competition

with china and you see how more educated their people are and you start to wonder how hours are going to be and we should cut defense spending when it comes to giving money to other countries because it always seems to be that it comes back to haunt the united states. they gave money to south american countries, and those south american countries. we did the same thing before isis came. we gave money to the country overseas, not syria. we gave money to them and the money for those rebels for the fighters, and somehow ended up in the hands of isis. every time we give money to someone else to fight some other war. host: does it concern you this

deal has more spending for defense the domestic priorities? caller: i served the military. i know we have a stockpile of vehicles and all kinds of other things -- we create more than we use and we sell it back. when i was in iraq we left so much material and so many things over there we threw it away because it was cheaper to leave it that it back. we do not meet all of that stuff in the first place. host: william in florida. you are next. caller: thanks for taking my call. i think they should lower the funding for the fbi until they get it straight and get him fired, christopher wray. i think mr. trump is missing a sure bet if he does not get tall

see gabbard or joe manchin as a running bait. -- does not get tulsi gabbard or joe manchin as running mate. host: we will talk more about 2020 for later in the program. this deal the headline talks about, congress reaches a $1.6 trillion deal on spending levels. washington times noting the pact is critical to avoiding a government shutdown and it keeps in line with last year's deal. speaker johnson sending out a letter to his house republican colleagues, this is what he d to say in that letter. "while these spending levels will not satisfy everyone and they do not cut as much spending as many of us wod like, this deal does provide us a path to move the process forward, reprioritize spending within the top line towards conservative objectives instead of last year's schumer pelosi omnibus,

and fight for the important policy writers included in our house fiscal 2024 bill." that is part of the statement from speaker johnson. it was democratic leader hakeem jeffries and chuck schumer sending out their statement yesterday. here is what they had to say. "the framework agreement will enable the approiators to address many challenges america faces at home and abroad and allow us to keep the investment for hard-working american family secured by the legislative achievements of president biden and congressional democrats and we would make clear to speaker mike johnson democrats would not support including poison pill policy changes in any of the 12 appropriations bills put before the congress." those statements going out about this agreement, an agreement among congressional leaders now needs to be translated into legislation and passed by the house and senate and signed by the president.

a ways to go, but this agreement is a big first step. your thoughts on government spending in general. what should be cut and given more funding? democrats (202) 748-8000 top republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. line for democrats, thanks for waiting. caller: i wanted to bring up the fact that my daughter had researched and she had come up with figures on the house of representatives and she said it was $35,000 a year. someone like me that is 76 and on social security and paid it in all my life and work two jobs to raise my kids. they have cut us, cut food stamps for the poor. i do not get food stamps, but

they have cut the amount of money they give to senior citizens way down to almost nothing. i hope they are proud of themselves for what they do because they do this to us every time they get in office. maybe next election may be we will have a democratic house of representatives again. i hope so. host: linda, the members of congress about giving themselves a $35,000 a year raise, i want to be clear on that. members can vote on their own salaries, that apply to congress, but it is not been $35,000 a year, just to put that out there. host: what did they get -- caller: what did they get? i know they got a big raise. host: pay adjusted in 2022, the last time, i will find out that number. they do not do it very often

because they get a lot of hate for it when they do. i will get that number as we go to ed in ocean city, maryland. good morning. caller: ocean city, new jersey. the president, and all presidents spend billions of dollars flying around the country and the world, taxpayers pay for it. the national endowment of arts and humanities could get their money from private sources. the u.s. house does not need that many members. i am an absolute pacifist. i would do away with the whole military budget. there is your budget cutting. host: how many members do you think the house should have? caller: it might come out to about 250? they do not need 435. i am in philadelphia a lot, i'm from delaware.

in the philadelphia area, suburbs, those members of the house are not all that overwhelmed with what they do. host: thanks for the call from ocean city, new jersey. not an adjustment in 2022 for member salary. the most recent pay adjustment was january 2009. since then the compensation has been $174,000 a year. the only exception includes the speaker of the house, pay $223,000 a year, and the president pro tem of the senate and the majority and minority leaders in the house and senate, $193,000 a year. congressional research service, a great place to go for all of your congressional and legislative research needs. this is howard in indiana, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning.

i was on universal health care, the single-payer health care system. number two, i would have spaceports -- i would have space force so america takes the lead in dominating the next frontier. so the resources in our solar system can be used to benefit humankind. the last thing would be reparations for african americans. there is analysis that shows a minimum $14 trillion is necessary to establish justice related to african-americans. those would be my three objectives. host: $14 trillion over how long for reparations? caller: it would have to be done in such a way so as not to adversely impact inflation and

unemployment or employment. we want to be sure we bolster full employment and price stability. we do not want to adversely impact that. it would have to be done with study and analysis. there is a book called "from here to equality" published a few years ago were a professor at duke university did in exhaustive study of economics and late all this out. it should be timed so that the funding can accrue along with economic expansion and that is why expanding into the solar system would provide that economic activity so it would be a peaceful growth that would establish justice for african-americans, establish health care for all americans, and provide an abundance for all

of earth. we are not just limiting our resources to a single planet but we are expanding opportunity. that is my thought about this. host: that is howard in indiana. stanley virginia. this is alan. independent. caller: i was just listening to people: on the question about what should be cut. if we just go back and look at these continuing resolutions, what does the taxpayer get? we get more spending and the deficit keeps going higher. why can't we just freeze it where it is so these guys can get together and work something out? this overspending, we just continue to do that and we achieve nothing. neither side will be of anything. when you make a deal, the deficit keeps going higher, which tells me neither side is doing anything.

host: a continuing resolution does freeze it where it is and keeps it at the current funding level for a certain amount of time. they can make changes to a continuing resolution, but in general a continuing resolution says we will continue with the funding levels that are currently there. they are doing that. they often do it for a short term to buy themselves more time to finish the appropriations process, but there have been times where there been many months continuing resolutions where they freeze at. caller: i understand that. then the question is if that is the case, why does the deficit keep going higher and higher? if we are spending the same amount of money during these continuing resolutions because that is all we hear, continuing resolutions, that is the same amount we intend to spend, but

at the same time the deficit goes up. there is a problem. someone is not telling the truth. which is it? host: the debt is going up because continuing resolutions are based on a budget that has a budget deficit that is spending more than we are bringing in. caller: it gets back to spending . why are we spending more than what is coming in? why is it necessary to keep spending and use this budget to could down -- this budget to put down a balance? this could be worked out if they sat together and used common sense. the american people are getting stuck for these guys playing these games with these numbers. i thought i would make that point. this thing could be fixed. you could take smart guys and fix it. it is so political and so corrupt. they just do the spending yet

the deficit goes up. that is my point. thanks for taking the call. host: this is jerry in kentucky. independent. good morning. caller: i think allport said earmarks should be cut, start from the bottom of the pyramid and built up. i was military in 1969. now i'm a registered independent. i've been a democrat, i've been a republican. i think it is time for a big-time change. we are in a big hole. i'm a veteran. i am a retired bureaucrat. retired from the government. it is fixed but i have a good

income. host: what did you do for the government? caller: i started out as a nursing assistant and served at hospitals and started out in nursing by ended up with housekeeping and when i retired i was transportation driver. after i got to my peak in nursing i cannot continue what i loved, so i had to go back to wg where i made more money. host: to rory in rancho santa margarita out in california, good morning. caller: good morning. my statement is about the border. they get all of these processing deals coming in. they should close the border and make -- when they catch people enter throw them out of the country they process them. if they ever come back, arrest them immediately or throw them out.

i also think -- one for taking care of people in the other for strictly throwing people out. they try to come across the border and out. i have family in texas and they have said they have some of the national guard confront ins and they will not let them cut state of texas barbed wire. they say no. there is no money coming in. in new york they try to kick veterans out and put illegals in there. there will not be any money for the illegals. they will starve and then they will riot and then people in texas and some other areas will defend themselves with guns. host: we could see a deal this week when it comes to border security, as the wall street journal notes, group of bipartisan senators hopes to release its proposal to tighten

border laws later this week according to one top negotiator, with any deal likely to face an uphill battle, they write "sharply divided congress --" this funding deal that came together among congressional leaders is one that was announced yesterday, the $1.6 billion topline funding as they call it -- $1.6 trillion. then the individual funding bills are written off of that topline number. that will get a lot of debate ahead of this january 19 government funding deadline. after the $1.6 trillion deal came together saying it reflects the funding levels i had negotiated with both parties and signed into law last spring. it rejects cuts to programs that hard-working families count on and provides a path to passing full year funding bills that

deliver the american people and are free of any extreme policies. now congressional republicans must do their job to stop threatening to shut down the government and fulfill their basic responsibility to find national security priorities including the supplemental funding request that would include funding for ukraine and israel and other priorities. the president ending his statement saying it is time for them to act. that is the president of the united states. host: as aided noted the house freedom caucus, conservatives have expressed the most concern about this $1.6 trillion deal. statements from the house freedom caucus, yesterday after this deal was announced, saying it is even worse than we thought, do not believe this been. once you break through the typical washington math, the true total in this deal is close

to $1.7 trillion. saying "this is a total failure." the head of the house freedom caucus, bob good, saying republicans agreed to spending levels that are $69 billion higher than last summer's debt ceiling deal with no significant policy win is nothing but another loss for america. at some point he says having the house majority has to matter. stop funding spending with an open border. this question about one point $6 trillion or $1.7 trillion in this deal, the washington journal -- the wall street journal tries to break this down in today's paper as they take up the story. leadership of the two parties framed this agreement that was announced yesterday on topline nondefense spending differently, with the house speaker mike johnson describing it as totaling $704 billion and democrat saying total fiscal

nondefense spending which includes spending on veterans programs would total $773 billion. the gap in part reflects different ways of treating key features of the deal, which builds on elements of the fiscal responsibility act, last year's law that raise the debt ceiling. the agreement allows congress to maintain funding priorities for the american people and avoid a government shutdown. that is what is being touted by house democrats leaders. that is the wall street journal there. we get more into that as this deal moves through capitol hill. that seems to be the biggest intention right now, the disagreement over domestic spending numbers. kathleen is in chicago. good morning. caller: please let me get this out. two things. i wish you would put up a chart showing how much money is spent

here in this country and how much is going out of this country. this guy in virginia, i understood what he was saying. if you put up two charts that show what you are spending domestic and people foreign come our debt would not be high. when it comes to the senate and the house, those guys only work 90 days a year. they should be put on an hourly salary just like the working people were supposed to be there boss. they want us to make $15 an hour yet a lot of these guys in the house and senate are millionaires and billionaires. why should we be paying our employees more than what we are getting? then they tell us we do not need a salary. they don't even work. if they do not work they should get paid. get that chart out. show what is spent here in

america. maybe people will realize it is not what they are spending on people here, they are messing with our social security in our health care. host: what i can show is the u.s. world -- the u.s. news & world report took a look at foreign aid spending and packaged it in a chart from 2021, these numbers are a couple years old. they look at the top countries receiving foreign aid from the united states in 2021. israel at the top of that list at $3.3 billion, jordan $1.6 billion, afghanistan $1.4 billion. if you be a, sudan, -- ethiopia, sudan, nigeria round out the top 10. economic aid accounted for 87% of all foreign aid obligations. military aid in 2021 accounted

for 12.5% of foreign aid spending. caller: now put up what they spend in america for the taxpayers who make this money so they can give to other people. put up a chart on that. then these people would not be calling in talking about cut this and that. as america people are being jilted all the way around at these are people who work for us. host: i can give you some of those numbers. for medicare and medicaid spending in 2023, fiscal 2023, about $1.7 trillion, social security about $1.4 trillion. defense spending totals about $849 billion. those are some of the biggest budget items in the u.s. budget each year. caller: social security, you take it out of our checks. you're not giving us anything,

you're just giving our money back. thank you for letting me speak this long. people do not understand. we are not running up the deficit, we are not doing this. host: that is kathleen in chicago. this is brad in texas. republican. caller: i would like to say all of the spending increases all the time and it does not seem to benefit america. it only benefits the democratic party. right now there are four heard $51 billion worth of illegals. i see it -- therefore hundred $51 billion worth of illegals. i am buying guns. illegals stole everything that is not tied down. it is criminal what the democrats are doing. they are bringing them in so they vote democrat, they are not americans. i love americans but not

everybody deserves to be an american. host: brat in texas. -- brad in texas. reno. good morning. caller: two points i want to make. when trump was in office, the four years he was in office was $8 trillion, more than the other presidents have done in twice that time. his tax cut he has given to the top 2% is still running. it goes clear through 2025. all of that is going on our debt. every bit of it. from jeff bezos and elon musk to get percent tax cuts. do not think that does not amount to a lot of money. that is going on our deficit. that is the one thing i want to point out. the other thing i want to point

out his back when trump was running with vladimir putin who meant up with him, mike flynn, and jill stein of the green party. people think she is a democrat and she is not. she votes democrat but she is a republican. i just wanted to bring those points up. host: that is carla in nevada. on the tax cuts and jobs act the editorial board of the washington times taking up that legislation, saying the wrong choice in november will cost americans to the tune of $3.4 trillion. the editorial board of the washington times, fan of the tax cuts and jobs act, they say the tax cuts and prosperity that legislation set in motion are starting to vanish. in 2020 businesses were able to invest in the future and deduct 100% of that expense upfront.

as of last week they are allowed to deduct just 40%. it goes away entirely in 2026. businesses are not alone in feeling the pain. income tax cuts championed by former president trump expire at the end of next year, which means filers could see uncle sam's share of their paycheck rise from 12% to 15%, contrary to the tax cuts for the rich trope, the latest relief in the legislation is found in the lower brackets. the only upside of the tax cut expiration is the clear choice it presents in an election season that has been light on policy. one side will restore tax relief and prosperity while the other party needs those automatic tax increases so it can spend more of your money." that is the editorial board of the washington times this morning. sam. line for republicans. go ahead. caller: a big part of what

everybody that is calling in is missing is we do not have a spending problem. we have a revenue problem which goes back to the 1970's. two dudes are responsible. arthur laffer who said too much taxation results in a negative tax flow. the other guy is the two santa claus theories. he argues republicans cannot win elections by suggesting we spend less so what they do is they cut taxes instead. that way democrats are forced to cut social programs and they get the benefits of the tax cuts. that is all it is. we just go back to pre-1976 and start taxing appropriately we would not have these problems. host: that is sam in south carolina. cecil in virginia. you are next. caller: my point is that you cannot just look at what the

actual taxes are taken out but you have to take them to the final destination. we contribute a lot to nato, supporting mainly european countries. this country is full of immigrants. we are talking about who should be able to come into the country. we should also trace that money through contractors. i think it is a huge ponzi scheme. host: this is stacy in virginia. a democrat. caller: good morning. things that we need to cut? we need to stop paying billionaires not to pay taxes. we pay them when they do not pay taxes. that is the first thing we need to do. congress owes $3.5 billion in back taxes, that is current and

former congressmen and senators. they are not paying taxes now and pay later. we need to cut all fending -- we need to cut all funding to israel and any other military complex. i believe they are laundering usaid back to these politicians because if they are making 100s of the $4000 a year, how are they leaving -- if they are making $174,000 a year, how are they leaving office a millionaire? it would take six years if they were not spending a penny of that money to be a millionaire. the citizens united ruling has destroyed this country and now we have foreign countries buying every branch of our government. it is frightening. that is what we need to start. i do not know what the fbi is doing. maybe they are on the payroll. they want to cut funding for americans who are paying taxes.

we can barely afford food. we are struggling. they want to cut any funding. they were willing to shut down the government in order to help americans during covid. they have shut down the government. they would rather shut down the government then help americans, but they want to use our tax money to fund genocide around the world. to steal natural resources from poor countries. we cannot afford it anymore. we cannot afford to pay our congressmen and senators our tax money, and then they take that tax money and send it somewhere else while they are getting monday under the table -- while they are getting money under the table. host: this is fred in cordova, maryland. republican. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. right now in terms of spending,

we are in a cold war with china, russia, north korea, and iran. during the cold war with russia we typically spent 6% of gdp on defense. now we are only spending 3%. if taiwan falls in china can control the semiconductor industry before we start creating our own semiconductors, they could destroy our economy. defense spending has to dramatically increase. the only way to solve the deficit problem is with entitlement reform. all of these other things are small amounts of money compared to that huge amount. that has to be a bipartisan approach which puts it on a sustainable effort. if we do not do anything with entitlements will be in huge trouble and if we do not increase defense spending will be in huge trouble. host: this is mike on facebook

saying cut defense spending until the pentagon can pass an audit and hands-off social security and medicare. on the pentagon passing an audit, this is a story on defense news from november of last year on the pentagon failing its sixth audit attempt. that story at defense news.com. comments from social media. todd saying fund universal health care, alas there is no profit in a healthy society. this is alan, how about tax the corporate's and the super wealthy and make the military more in line with american needs and spend the surplus on the american people. improve infrastructure and education. this is sherry saying stop funding ukraine and illegals. her recommendation. about 15 minutes left in this segment. want to ask you what should be cut from the federal budget and

what you get more funding. democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. gary fletcher, good morning. caller: independent. i have a disagreement with republicans and the democrats. their math is screwed up. the democrats get this information we are spending all this money overseas. you laid out that beautiful chart a few minutes ago. the nice woman from chicago still did not get it. what i am saying is they like these billionaires are getting away with not paying taxes. jeff bezos is worth $250 billion. if they took all of his money, never mind just taxing him, $250 billion is nothing.

we are in a deficit of trillions of dollars. there are 12 zeros after the number one trillion. they are talking tax this guy whose net worth is only $250 billion. taxing them is nothing. if they tax them 7% or 10%, people need to stop talking about taxing billionaires when their main job -- the other thing, as far as cutting spending -- trump spending more money than invited, there is another mathematical problem. trump was in office for eight years and he had to deal with the virus. biden has only been in office for three years. how can you compare the men as far spending when one has been in office for eight and the other only three?

this mathematics is just upsetting me when i hear these people calling in making this big comparison. host: maybe this makes it more clear. we are talking about $1.6 trillion to fund the rest of fiscal 2024. that is $900 billion for military and close to $800 billion for domestic spending. the president in his budget request, this was not approved by congress but this is what the president asked for, asked for foreign aid spending as presidents always do through the state department u.s. agency for international development, usaid. the president asking for a total of $60.4 billion in foreign aid. that is not military aid, that is economic aid. the total request was $60 billion compared to what we were

just talking about, $800 billion for defense and $800 billion for domestic spending. does that help put it in perspective? caller: it does. our problem is we have to buy our friends. the world hates us. the money we are giving to these countries is to put our foot in their door, it is the price we have to pay to have the expansion going. we are not helping them because they like us, we are trying to stay one step ahead of china and losing more and more friends. the reason we are giving these people money is for economic reasons and things like that. it is more of an investment than anything else. trump had a theory, he tried to make nato pay their money. trump is a businessman. he does not like to waste his own money. he went to nato and said to start paying up. when he is talking about building his military stuff,

trump says i have a button on my desk i will push. that statement alone was worth billions of dollars in tanks and stuff. whether you like the guy or not, he does make sense to other crazy people and they cowered to him. sometimes in a position of strength and in business that is how you have to be. like the guy or not he is pretty successful in that area. host: that is gary in north carolina. this is al in tampa, florida. line for democrats. caller: there is no reason to cut the debt at all. eisenhower showed us how to eliminate a debt. he had a debt about the same size we do and he also started the interstate highway program, a huge infrastructure program. how did he solve the problem?

he tax to the rich at 91%. the rich own everything. they own tb, social media, and they are convinced the middle-class we should not tax the rich and that is wrong. that is where the money is, that is where we should be taxing. eisenhower did that. he was a brilliant republican. he tax the rich at 91%. they can only take home nine dollars out of the last hundred dollars of income. host: and your idea of doing that, who counts as the rich? who should get a 91% tax rate? caller: i'm not saying it should be 91%, maybe 70%. it should be the top 1% of the top 10%. someone else will have to come up with that number. all we have to do is do it eisenhower did. tax them. host: ira in upper marlboro,

maryland. independent. good morning. caller: i will be very brief. i am an african with children and grandchildren in this country. let me be brief. why do we have to waste money stop if you do not know, the largest drone strike in the world is in nigeria, north of nigeria. then we find out the u.s. has 29 different military bases on the african continent. africans are not at war with united states. we built this country.

we have nothing against united states. united states has nine different military bases on the continent of africa wasting our resources. the congress and all of these intelligence bodies, work it out , and stopped united states from wasting this money on bases on the african continent. keep the money here, we needed here. we have so many homeless. we need education. where we waste that money on the african continent? we do not need any help from the united states. host: we have bases in germany and japan and south korea as well. you think that is also a waste of money? caller: is a waste of money in the sense that unless we are at war with anybody, if we are not

at war with anybody -- there is no reason to have military bases on the african continent because we are not hostile towards the united states. africans built this country. why should we be hostile to the united states? find out how much we spend on each one of them. host: that is ira in upper marlboro, maryland. mark is in connecticut. thanks for waiting. caller: good morning. i would like to read rate the point he read from "the washington times," where the democrats and joe biden keep saying the tax cuts and jobs act passed by republicans was a tax cut to the rich. you just read it. the biggest cuts came in the lower brackets.

democrats continue to repeat this lie over and over and the american people are buying into that. in fact, the truth is is people who benefited most for the lower brackets. one other point. host: you think the rich in this country should pay more? more than they pay right now? caller: no. i think people should be able to keep the money they make, more of the money they make no matter what bracket they are in. i'm not somebody who believes government should be taking all the money. they waste more money than anything. i believe there should be a flat tax. if you put a bill tomorrow on the floor, let's say 20%, everybody can keep 80% of their money, the republicans will vote for it and the democrats would not because they have plans for your money.

they want to spend our money and decide how much of it we get to keep. i think that is the biggest problem is democrats with this out-of-control spending. we need to get some people with fiscal responsibility in there that will stop all of this wasteful spending they do. host: you think speaker johnson is someone with fiscal responsibility who will stop this spending? caller: i think you would like to. he has a super slim majority. he cannot do a lot but he needs more like-minded people that is going to cut this wasteful spending. that is what elections are for. i think he is the kind of person that would be open to doing something like that. i do not think right now he has the votes to do it. host: that is marked in the constitution state. the buckeye state, jennifer,

independent, good morning. caller: i would like to speak on the race for the house. -- i would like to speak on the raise for the house, it was not a raise, it was a tax-free reimbursement which is a lot more than a raise since it was tax-free, and it was $34,000. aoc, a millionaire, and also matt gaetz, a millionaire, jumped on it really quick. i would also like to say that if they really want to end the immigration problem and the border problem, they would send these people to the wealthy districts. they put them in yankee stadium. all of the stadiums the taxpayers pay for, put them in there, take their phones, do the interviews and as soon as these guys miss their ballgames and all of their millions they are making from us, they take care of it.

it would be ended in 30 days. host: that is jennifer in ohio. this is james north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i think the solution is to not cut spending but to get back the tax cuts that were given to the richest among us under trump and george bush and ronald reagan. during the last four years of the clinton administration they went together and came up with an annual budget surplus that the bush administration immediately squandered and gave us a depression. i think the fate of the country is in the hands of the rich that have corrupted capitalism to the

point where they have monopolies on everything that controls the country. until they give that up and get back that tax base, i think we will not succeed, it will collapse our economy, i think. thank you. host: that is james in north carolina. less than five minutes in this first segment. john up very early in hawaii or a very late. good morning. what are your thoughts on government spending? caller: i think we should be putting more resources into our own homeless veterans stop we send billions to other countries and our people are suffering. it is just a quick statement. give me one minute.

that is all i need to say. something that makes people realize there are people here that have fought for our country. i know there is controversy. we are all immigrants. i am an immigrant, not really, but i guess my family was. we need to put a little bit more , as we say in hawaii, a loja -- aloha into the system which means peace and love. there are people living on the streets that fought for our country. there are people benefiting in other countries because of us. that is what i would like to say. host: thanks for the call. it usually works best if you turn down your television and

talk through your phone but appreciate you being up. what time is it in hawaii? caller: it is to: 50 7 a.m.. i am up early -- it is 2:57 a.m. i am up early. host: this is skipped in washington, d.c.. caller: hello. i think you gave out some of the budget numbers. the american people, as demonstrated in the phone calls are basically very unknowledgeable. they are not very knowledgeable about the budget. you mentioned foreign aid, which a lot of people cite as trading the budget is a very small percentage of the budget. the biggest part of the budget are programs like social security and medicaid, medicare. programs a lot of americans

benefit from. the entitlement programs, as they call them. that is the majority of the budget which does not change. nobody has been able to do anything about that. host: medicare and medicaid at one point $6 trillion a year is the biggest spending line in the federal budget. caller: and you said foreign aid is $60 billion. compared to that, it is a small fraction. that is not the solution. all the people calling and saying if you cut foreign aid, that will do it, no. even the money going to ukraine is a very small percentage of the total federal budget, and even of the military budget. all of the people citing that as the cause of our budget problems , the biggest cause was the tax cut, it did cost the budget $1.5 trillion under trump. most of it did go to the rich. you can cite specifics on that.

it is not true everybody benefited equally from that. most of the tax cuts to favor the rich. you can also look up that under clinton, the budget did have a surplus and that was with a compromise with newt gingrich led house of representatives and the senate. under democratic presidents the budget has been less. under republican presidents the budget has gone up. host: that is skip c. go ahead. caller: i agree with giving the tax money to trump another republican presidents, but for the rich? it ain't going to matter who is

rich because they are going to take it over. and the rich people, the same as the poor, took a workforces. thank you. host:host: the last color in this first segment of the washington journal. stick around, plenty more to talk about this morning including up next we are joined by steve newcomb with the congressional news of the day. that funding deal as we preview the read ahead. and later, george mason interbeing writer steve -- joins us to discuss what he sees as the causes of dysfunction in congress. stick around, we will be right back. ♪ announcer: this week on the c-span networks, the house and senate return from holiday recess for the start of the second session of the 118th congress. both chambers face the first of two government funding deadlines on january 19 and later on

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c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events trip live streams of floor proceedings, campaigns, and more from the world all at six, all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington colonel and live scheduling information for c-span tv networks and c-span radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google light. scan the qr code to download for free today or visit our website. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. announcer: washington journal continues. host: monday when congress is in session we like to take him look at the week ahead on capitol hill.

during us to do just that, steve newcomb, we get off to a bit of an early start yesterday with that funding deal that was announced. take us through how that deal has turned into that announcement package yesterday for actual legislative language to get past the house and senate. how long is that process going to take? guest: the first hurdle was that top line number, figuring out what level they were going to write the spending bill to. that is something going on behind the scene for a couple months now. you have the turmoil of the new speaker which changed of a lot of the plans. also, we've got a couple scenarios here, to different parts of the government will run out of funding. they have until january 19 to

write up the rest of the spending bills and also get them passed through the house and senate. there's going to be differences of opinion between the house and the senate. that seems a bit ambitious. the other option is the continuing resolution, which they've done a number of times already trying to kick the can down the road even further, but now there may be more of a willingness to pass a continuing resolution to keep funding at the same level they are at right now to give them more time to work to pass these bills and it is going to of set conservative's in the house and even in the senate, but there's also the two avenues that was gotten right now. host: the biggest sticking point, the disagreement yesterday to iron out everything between the two sides. guest: it essentially finds out the differences between speaker johnson in the white house and democrats. we saw immediately after the

deal was announced that house conservatives are not happy with this bill, with this agreement. the top number is the same number that was agreed to between former speaker mccarthy in the white house and the debt limit deal. it is not deep enough spending cuts for conservatives for policy changes. the freedom caucus calls it an absolute failure. host: yesterday saying it is even worse than we thought. 5:17 p.m., just an hour and a half or so after the deal came out. guest: you can see this coming and figure johnson admitted this in his letter to his colleagues, saying these are not the cuts that we want, it is not going to please everybody. but the reality is this is a tough spot not just for speaker johnson, but that speaker mccarthy was in as well. he's got a very slim majority in the house, they don't have the

senate and they don't have the white house. they are not going to get everything they want in every negotiation, so this is something we've seen play out a number of times with conservatives very upset with republican leadership. host: it is about $900 million in defense spending. less than $800 million for domestic spending. take us to another deal we've been watching closely, the border deal. what are the expectations, we are seeing new legislation on the border security. >> they worked through much of the holiday. the updates have been incremental. they've been optimistic at points, pessimistic at points that they would be able to reach a deal on policy changes. look, they might reach an agreement, but there's not a great amount of optimism that any deal that leaves the senate between democrats and

republicans would pass a republican house right now. if they can negotiate in earnest and see what that deal comes out to be, there is very little chance that the deal would emerge and be able to make it through the house at all. host: and as part of that deal that has been talked about, border security has also been part of negotiations on additional funding, emergency funding for ukraine, israel, aid packages as well. what is the latest on the emergency funding requests, security requests. >> essentially, the border negotiations are the key that could unlock the additional funding for ukraine, israel. house republicans have said that they will not take up more emergency assistance to ukraine or israel without border policy

changes, so that is where things stand. that is a key hurdle to being able to legislate to get more money to those countries, and that barrier right now is border policy and border changes that have been contentious for literally generations in american politics, being able to bring forward policy changes on american immigration system. host: we are looking at impeachment of the person in charge of the border, alejandra mayorkas. guest: yes, we are going to get our first hearing, something that has been going on for months now. ella hundred mayorkas has been outside of president himself, perhaps the number one biden administration target for house

and senate republicans. he has been the guy who has had a white-hot light on him since the beginning of the ration, and now that we are shifting into an election year, it's very obvious that republicans are gearing up to make immigration a top election year issue. they took a trip to the border over this most recent break, they've been very vocal about their disagreements with the biden administration, so we are going to get this hearing, i reporting shows that they want to move very quickly on this impeachment of our hundred mayorkas and they are obviously also doing their impeachment inquiry to president joe biden. but the thinking the have the curtain is that it would be an easier list that would have more moderates coming around the idea of impeaching and putting mayorkas from his position and it would be an easier list and a quicker job in getting rid of any impeachment articles against the president. host: border security,

impeachment, emergencies. this is what is on the agenda. if you want to talk that any of those issues, phone lines are open for you to do so. stephen newcomb is our guest. the phone numbers to call in, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independent, (202) 748-8002. steve newcomb will be with us until 8:45 a.m. eastern, as folks are calling in. what also you watching? yes: we are watching about the president biden impeachment as well. that sort of continuing the hunter biden saga. you're also going to get charges against the president's son this week for defining the congressional subpoena in the impeachment inquiry. republicans insisted and there subpoena said that the president's son and his lawyers were clear that they would only do a public hearing.

hunter biden even showed up with a capital on the day that that deposition was scheduled, and essentially stood in the backyard of lawmakers and said that he was there ready and willing to testify, but he wouldn't do so in a private setting. we will also be getting that this week. trying to hold the president's son in contempt of congress, i know we are desensitized to a lot of the stuff, but that is quite an escalation of this investigation. host: a call out of greenville, texas, independent. you're on the steve newcomb. caller: good morning. stephen, is it not the primary responsibility of congress to pass a budget each year by may

1, if i'm correct. is that not the case? guest: yes, it is congress' duty and job to pass a budget and this is something that republicans at a macrolevel have been pushing for a systematic change to this point where they could not be a situation where the passing off of this bill every year and pulling everything together. they wanted to pass the budget, they want to pass all these individual spending bills. so that is something systematically that i think speaker mccarthy came into office trying to change. we've seen how tough it is to accomplish, in a house that at this point has a two or three seat majority.

host: in this chart we showed every once in a while, it shows the percentage of appropriations bills enacted by the october 1 deadline, this isn't budget, but actually passing appropriations bills. it hasn't been since 1997, and in the 90's and congress last past their appropriations bills on time, you can see how poorly their percentage has been in recent years. your thoughts on that chart and why you bring up the question. caller: to me it seems really obvious. i mean, your opening statement, stephen, was that they need to get to some kind of a deal here to come up with the top number before they can send it back to appropriations. i thought under the constitution we were supposed to do this in may and to do this every year, come up with that top number, if i'm not mistaken.

mccarthy and biden did come up with a number, but i don't know how we could get into this impasse where the first part of that was done and we were unable to come to terms in the appropriation process which led to this impasse that we've been in for the last six months. it just -- to me, i'm just going off your last segment here where were talking about what we could cut and what we couldn't cut, and of course i couldn't get through to get on the phone on this, but if they don't pass a budget, you want to save some money, stop paying them until they do. because if they can't a here to there oath of office, to adhere to the constitution, the primary

duty, why we are sending them there, if you cannot do the job, why would we pay them? guest: very quickly if i can, why that was thrown off course, why they had to come to the table again, after the mccarthy deal. that initial deal, the debt limit deal and subsequently the continuing resolution working with demographic the government open, that is why kevin mccarthy lost his job as speaker. that is why conservatives joined him -- join with every democrat in the house to remove kevin mccarthy from the speaker's office. that topline agreement with the reason why and the continuing resolution why this entire thing was thrown off course in the first place. and that is the danger of facing

speaker johnson at this point. there is skepticism, i think, that conservatives would ever strategically remove a speaker again, at least in this congress, but we've seen a full on rebellion from the furthest right wing of the republican party on this specific issue. host: massachusetts, this is ryan, line for independent. >> good morning. i've seen your segment on the budget related to congress, and i actually have a solution. why is there no federal voter referendum when it comes to budgets? like there are in the states. i think it to be in constitutional law. number two, why don't they cut more foreign aid, considering even cutting it to zero. number three, why not look at the welfare entitlement states and say hey, let's look into the fraud that is going on from all

the welfare that is going out? this is common sense stuff. it should be mitigated that congressmen should not be able to vote themselves in. a federal budget referendum would do that. thank you. host: a voter referendum on budgets and raises, or the issue of fraud in welfare. guest: let's talk about foreign aid because that is something that is kind of top of mine on capitol hill. we talked about a little bit. the reality is that there is an overwhelming consensus on capitol hill in both parties, definitely amongst house democrats, senate democrats and senate republicans that they need to get aid to ukraine, they need to get aid to israel. but not releasing foreign aid while the american government doesn't have its own spending

priorities obviously figured out at this point, not acting on that foreign aid is a position of some house conservatives, and that is really that faction of lawmakers that is holding up the release of foreign aid. so that at the battle that we are seeing play out right now on capitol hill. host: to colorado, line for democrats, good morning. >> good morning. i'm a democrat, i've been a democrat all my life. i'm trying to figure out what is going on with giving all this money to our enemies or what we call enemies, brooks. -- crooks. we are getting nothing back on it. host: who are the crooks, bob? caller: all these places that they are paying, like iraq and

all these. why are we paying them to fight us? i don't understand it. it makes me sound like a republican. of course, republicans bow down to the democrats whenever the democrats say we want this done, and they let it go. i lived in a town that has got at least 15 people living on the streets. we could be spending it right here but we are sending an overseas to other people. host: on this issue foreign aid, specifically focused on israel and ukraine, there is a caller saying this is a small assessment of what we get back. a lot of our callers saying we could spend that money here in america.

host: what is the argument for foreign aid? guest: i think that number one, some leaders don't see it as a zero-sum game. we could effectively spend on her foreign priorities, domestic priorities the argument for some lawmakers, let's talk about ukraine. protecting ukraine against the russian invasion, lawmakers who are in favor of increased aid see it as one way to keep american soldiers out of a fight. you can arm the ukrainian army without shedding any american blood.

and they also see putin's ambitions in europe and in russia as expansionist and they see the ability to push back against that aggression as a decision that is safeguarding core, key american foreign policy interests, not allowing the russian army to steamroll the ukrainian army and claim land. they see it as an investment in democracy around the world but i don't think anybody is under the illusion that ukraine was some perfect democracy before this invasion. it was at the very least an ally, and the argument for it is

that this is a good investment in a good way to protect american interests abroad without having to shed any american blood. host: jeff in california often tweeted his questions, once to know if you can explain how speaker johnson compromises with senate republicans and immigrants were working together in keep his position. is he going to be the next kevin mccarthy? guest: this is a question that is being talked about. i am personally skeptical given the debacle that the ousting of kevin mccarthy caused. that conservatives would move again to get rid of a speaker. if we go back to that time, it was nearly in month-long

impasse. it is sort of a blur, it could have been longer. for weeks, all we were doing was trying to find a speaker and one speaker candidate would come up and another would go down. one would come up, another would go down. they weren't accomplishing anything. all the while they were barreling toward these headlines, and that impasse is sort of what necessitated continuing resolutions which conservatives were upset about and continuing government funding much at the same level as that right now. so i am skeptical that conservatives would move that faction of house conservatives would move to oust speaker johnson, but that doesn't mean that they can't make his job extremely difficult and muck up progress and make this appropriations process very painful for republican leadership.

>> beheaded the house freedom caucus tweeting in part this yesterday afternoon. at some point having the house majority has to matter. that spending with an open border, how should speaker johnson deleting that. >> again, he is in a really tough spot. a lot of these guys and gals are the ones who threw their support behind making johnson speaker. these are the same people who voted to oust -- largely to oust kevin mccarthy. they wanted to get rid of kevin mccarthy to impose a new speaker. well, this is what they got themselves. they got themselves speaker mike johnson. i think he should read this as a threat again to make this process painful. i think if you read the writing on the wall, speaker mike

johnson can expect any democratic votes to pass any of these spending bills, many of these spending bills going forward and if they were to need any resolution for short-term stopgap bills, to expect any democratic votes, and ultimately again that that partying with democrats is what got mccarthy ousted. host: do you think at this point that if this deal goes to the floor in the next couple weeks, that it gets more democratic vote in the house band republican votes in republican-controlled house of representatives? guest: we've seen it happen before. i don't know specifically, maybe a senate bill or two. i'm skeptical that some of these spending bills, specific appropriations bills would get more democratic support than

republican, but they are certainly going to need the democratic votes. republicans, there's a number of mechanisms they could use to try to stop progress here. one of them is to try to stop the rule, which would allow the bill to even go forward. usually that is something that the majority just as a rule just vote for if you're going to vote against the bill, it will vote against it on the floor. but we've seen republicans vote against the rule to not even allow a bill to get on the floor. aunt democrats as a rule again have decided not to vote for a republican rule going forward. so we will have to see to what extent the speaker is going to need democratic support. >> steve newcomb taking your questions, maryland, independent, thanks for waiting. caller: thank you, thank you for taking my call.

real quick, it seems a sticking point for most americans is the border. there seems to be a lot of blaming, the blame game going on. my question is which branch of government exactly is responsible for fixing for policy? is it the legislative branch, the executive branch? is that the judicial branch? we give comments in the legislative branch blaming the executive branch, sometimes it is a mix of comments about the judicial branch. who is responsible for fixing the border? guest: it is a good question and this is something that is being debated on capitol hill. when republicans went to the border this past weekend, to eagle pass, texas, held a press conference and took a congressional delegation down to

the border, they placed the blame solely on the biden administration, and this is part of the reason they are trying to impeach homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, there election of duty. they have refused -- they claim they have refused to enforce the law. the executive branch points the finger back at the legislative branch at congress and says we are using the tools that we have been given and are navigating a system that is been created through congress to the extent that their executive changes, that that is something that has been -- for example, title 42. the executive branch has been able to use title 42 to expel migrants from the u.s. who are seeking asylum in the country

because of the pandemic. but the executive range, the presidencies of trump and biden, the rule was the same but they utilized it friendly and implemented differently. there's a little bit of truth to the idea that both of them are responsible for governing the southern border. congress passes a law and give the guard rails the authority, and the white house and the executive branch decide exactly how they like to enforce those movies. host: before we get too close to the end, a debriefing this week on what we used to call ufos. what are we expecting to find out? guest: they are uaps now, right? host: unidentified anomalous phenomenon. guest: it is good that you pulled that out. [laughter]

there is a classified briefing, that is where a lot of this uap stuff has been going through. republicans on the committee aunt democrats -- i shouldn't say that, this is a bipartisan issue. there is support on both sides of the aisle for more transparency from the federal government about some of these uap's which supports sensitive because of the military testing and everything else. it is not an issue that i've been following incredibly closely, and i can't remember what they of the week, it was either tuesday or friday that the breathing is this week, but they will be giving a classified briefing from administration officials, and that can lead to a hearing in the future. they already had one or two. host: and maybe we will find out more afterwards.

this is john in georgia, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. yes, to solve the budget problem. if you go to the website, you will see that mandatory spending was just out of control between the year 2019 and 2022. mandatory spending increased by $1 trillion. in 2022, the government collected $4.9 trillion, more than any other year, yet we still were in a deficit of more than $1.5 trillion. in 2023, the government collected 4.4 trillion dollars, the second most of any year ever. yet that only paid for a portion of mandatory spending which was $2.8 trillion. that was not all of it, just the largest portion. interest on debt, military budget, about $1.5 trillion.

everything else that we collect in this country is borrowed money. interest only debt has gone through about $1 trillion this year. i would be the second largest line item in the budget, second behind mandatory spending. if there any appetite in congress to control mandatory spending? guest: there is an appetite, certainly, a bipartisan appetite. republicans have wanted to establish a budget commission, to get leaders together, lawmakers together to try to find a pathway to a balanced budget. will that happen? it hasn't happened in the last however many decades. they are struggling right now to even pass their appropriations bills as they are written right now, and they continue to blow

past funding deadline after funding deadline. updated picture being able to tackle that macrolevel issue of the budget is in some ways obscured by the more immediate issues of passing this legislation to keep the government opened in the immediate term and funded over the next fiscal year. and so that is what they are working on right now, that is the immediate need to get those bills done. julia, are you with us? host: we will give just the last call, thanks for hanging on the line. caller: let me correct a couple of things. biden is the one that brought every single presidential

directive on the border when he came in office. he is the one that has been allowing all these people to come in. in 2021, new york was 8.5 million people. that is exactly the amount of people that he has allowed into that border by dropping all the presidential executive orders in place. right now, we've got the governor of california allowing all these trains operating and everything else. we are going to end up paying for it. they just reported on fox that they've had all these tow trucks lined up where they are keeping all these immigrants, and they are toeing away their cars. who is paying for the cars? guest: look, the idea that the biden administration has done nothing to remove migrants from

the border, it's false. in fiscal year 2022, more people were encountered at the border, 1.4 million people encountered at the border were removed from the u.s., more than any single year in history before, so the president has been criticized on this issue for being too hawkish on the border. and he gets it from the right for having open borders. this is a more complex issue than saying that the white house has just dropped every border initiative and has failed to enact any laws of the southern border. that just wouldn't be true. host: 8.5 million, i haven't heard that one. this is the new york post

setting a syracuse university study saying it has been 3.8 million migrants entering the u.s. since jill biden took office. have you heard a .5 million? -- 8.5 million? guest: no. host: steve newcomb covers the messenger. guest: we cover in-depth congressional coverage. everything that we've been talking about on the show and even more, we will have it. host: thanks so much for your time. guest: appreciate it. host: coming up in about 40 minutes, we are going to be joined by george mason professor and political contribute in writer, talking about dysfunction in congress.

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>> since 1979 in partnership with the cable industry, c-span has provided complete coverage in the halls of congress from house and senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front row seat of how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, interruptions, and completely unfiltered. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. any of the key here is, debates, and other events feature markers they guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on selected videos. this makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided to washington.

scroll through and spend a few minutes on point of interest. >> in the weeks that lie ahead, the famous and influential men and women who occupy those seats have a lot to say. >> beginning saturday, january 13, american history tv will air a 10 part series free to choose featuring milton friedman. mr. friedman coproduced the series with his wife and fellow economist and it first aired on public television in 1980. they also wrote a best-selling companion book with the same name. programs take us to locations important of the u.s. and world economy. the free market principles and limited government intervention in the economy and social policies. other topics include welfare, education, equality, consumer

and worker protections and nation. watch saturdays beginning january 13 on american history tv on c-span2. a healthy democracy doesn't just look like this. it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work, citizens are truly informed. i republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capital to wherever you are. because the opinion that matters most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. announcer: washington journal continues. host: coming up at 8:45 on the east coast, it is our open forum on the washington journal asking for any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about.

this is your time to call in. (202) 748-8000 free democrats. publicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. just so you know, the senate is set to come in at 3:00 p.m. eastern today. you can watch that gavel-to-gavel on c-span two. also at 11:00 a.m. eastern, a discussion on foreign policy, our coverage of that begins at 11:00 a.m., c-span.org and of course, you can watch it here on the free c-span now video at. and one note for tomorrow's coverage, the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit judge will hear oral arguments in the u.s. v. donald j. trump,

that case on whether the former president is immune from prosecution for his alleged role in the attack on the u.s. capital. you can watch or listen live tomorrow morning. c-span3 is where you can go. now, open form, your calls. good morning. caller: they queue for taking my call. i always get a little upset with the lack of common sense in this country and i think a lot of it comes from our government in general. i am a real independent. i voted independent once, i voted for obama both times, i voted for trump last time. i did not vote for biden and they certainly will not do it this time around. when i hear a lot of talk about taxes, the top 5% were there about a 70% of the taxes, so why

shouldn't they get the largest chunk back? the people in the lower brackets like myself, we received tax breaks quite a bit. we need to have something like a flat tax where everyone pays at point-of-sale. i'm sorry you're are paying 20% more but we want free health care, we want our strong military, we want to build the border and have a safe community. the reason people in the establishment hate donald trump is because he got things done, he was a business man. he didn't look at all the other fluff the politicians love to talk about to divide us. i'm 63 years old. rebuttal for 30 years that we could not the oil independent. he got it done in a matter of months. i'm tired of us spending money

in areas that we are just throwing away. social security for people who have not paid in, illegals, hazy people, no. if you paid in the social security, you get some money back, and discussion. we need a businessperson back in the white house. host: is your mind made up for 2024, donald trump again for 20 when he for? caller: i don't like donald trump because i think he is a bit of a divider. i like the trump policies. i don't care if you put mickey mouse in there. i just want his policies back to help americans. i don't care what side you're on. host: is ron desantis that guy on policy ahead of donald trump? caller: absolutely. if i had a magic one, i like tim scott and don't take this the wrong way, i think he needs a little bit more of a backbone. he is a great person.

you know i absolutely love is winsome sears in virginia. i know she was born in jamaica and that she can't be president but i think she could be vice president. she's awesome. i like nikki haley but i think she does a little bit of flip-flopping. it would be nice to have a split ticket. i know i'm all over the place here. but my thing is let's bring a businessperson in here, let's kick some of these ridiculous people out of the government. i mean, some of these people are just absolute knuckleheads. i'm a very simple person, i was a registered nurse. i had a two-year degree in college but i did ok because i live within my means. host: thanks for the call from florida. karen is next to new york, republican. good morning. caller: yes, can you hear me? ok, he said a lot of things i wanted to say.

i know all these chinese people are coming over the border. because the president of china purchased all our land, the military land. he also did it in dakota, and say he is going to put corn in the cornfields. that was baloney. they shouldn't be buying it. that is why china is going to go after taiwan for those chips. host: this is jill out of new orleans. good morning, line for democrats. >> good morning. i'm calling regarding immigration and the numbers of people coming across the border. if days ago you had on a guest that made a statement that made me sit up literally and say

well, somebody else has the same idea that i do. this statement was because republicans constantly say the border is open, if those people who are in countries are wanting to get away from whatever the circumstances are, the people who are called coyotes that transport or guide these people it is not as easy as you think. when people say the border is in it, you, the republicans are encouraging individuals to come to cross the border to enter illegally and then blame the democrats for not doing something about it.

i mean, literally, if you were the host at the time when he made that statement, i said i'm not the only person who thinks that. and i was just surmising it about the number of times you hear republicans say the border is open. host: out of new orleans this morning. it is about 8:50 on the east coast. we will get to your phone calls. about another 25 minutes year. as you are calling in, i want to bring in a national political reporter joining us via zoom this morning to talk about campaign 2024 and the week ahead. julia manchester, good morning. caller: guest: thank you for having me. host: the caucus, it we get from the caucuses. there is a republican primary field stand and where are republican candidates going to make the final pitch you're in

the last seven days? guest: looking at polling, the polling average shows donald trump, a former president with a 33.6% lead on an average of 42 poles over the rest of the republican party, followed by governor desantis and then of course, governor haley in third. desantis and haley are very close in iowa, coming after a lot of momentum from nikki haley, momentum in the polls, momentum in fundraising. what we are seeing in iowa is really sort of reflective of what we are seeing across the country. this race for second place between desantis and haley. but once again, this is donald trump's race to lose. he is not taking any chances here, is crisscrossing iowa, particular the western part of the state where most of the conservative caucus-goers are based, and very much trying to get out the vote. remember, donald trump lost the

iowa caucuses in 2016. this campaign wants to correct that and they also want to put a nail in the coffin for desantis and haley, who after iowa, he can be seen as the presumptive republican nominee. of course, new hampshire is still very much in play, haley pulled executive former president trump, a much more narrow gap. not too much more narrow, but it is more narrow in new hampshire. but right now, all eyes on iowa, and he could really some sleet officially in the primary. host: one place the former president is not going this week at the latest republican debate. what are you watching for in that debate? guest: i'm watching to see the race for second place. this is the first time we will see nikki haley and ron desantis on stage facing off against each other. i'm curious to see how they address the literal elephant in the room, donald trump on the debate stage.

he's very clearly the front runner, how did he respond to this race for second place? what we see nikki haley's -- nikki haley and desantis, and i was a place where ron desantis invested quite a bit of money. he literally put all of his eggs in the iowa basket for nikki haley has gained so much momentum and we see in the campaign falter time and time again. this is going to be a big moment for them and unlike the pastor public and presidential debates we saw in 2023, the first one in 2024 is probably going to get the most eyeballs. in the most eyeballs in iowa caucus-goers on the republican side where remember, this is a population that is tuned in. they are tuned in, they want to hear what the candidates are saying and they could make a difference, the question is how big of a difference? we've never seen a candidate have as big of a lead in iowa as donald trump has.

post: that debate taking place in des moines, 9:00 p.m. eastern on wednesday is when that debate will take place. i want to come back to one of your stories and that tragedy last week in iowa, that i was school shooting. how that event has impacted the race and how the candidates are talking about gun laws and school shootings in the weeks since. guest: unfortunately, this is something that happens quite a bit on the campaign trail where you have these candidates were forced to respond to get another school shooting. this comes amid a very to motorist time for republicans and right-leaning voters when it comes to the issue of gun violence and gun control. of course, the former nra had announcing last week that he was stepping down from the organization. we will see how that impacts that advocacy wing of conservative circles and such. but for republicans, racine

nikki haley and ron desantis sort of respond how you expect them to respond. you are seeing focus on mental health. they don't want to touch the issue of taking firearms away or limiting or restricting firearms in any way. now, in the republican primary that is one thing, but it is going to be interesting to see how this plays any general election, particularly when you have someone like former president -- excuse me, current president biden who has talked quite a bit about gun control, work with republicans in the senate to pass gun-control reform following the uvalde school shooting. democrats obviously have more work to be done on their end, but someone like joe who was vice president when the shooting happened in connecticut, this is a very big issue for him. so i'm curious to see how the republican candidate approach this issue in a very conservative state like iowa to

sort of navy shift on the issue as they go country to country. -- across the country. host: the biden campaign releasing its first paid ads of 2024, zeroing in on january 6. we wanted to come back and get your thoughts on the messaging here. >> i made the preservation of american democracy the central issue of my presidency. i believe in free and fair elections and the right to vote fairly and have your vote counted. but something dangerous happens in america. there is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. all of us are being asked right now what we do to maintain our democracy? history is watching. the world is watching. and most importantly, our children and grandchildren will hold us responsible. the vice president and i have supported voting rights since day one of this administration

and they ask every american to join me in this cause. america is still a place of possibilities, where the power resides with we the people. at our soul, we are the united states of america. there is nothing beyond our capacity. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. host: that from the biden harris campaign. your thoughts on the messaging? guest: the messaging is joe biden trying to create a contract to donald trump over the issue of january 6. we know in 2020, joe biden ran on this democracy issue, really trying to unify the country. this time, he's trying to pull from january 6. a warning that if donald trump were to become president again, joe biden warns that he could take away fundamental freedoms like freedom to an abortion, for example. a freedom to health care. that is what the biden campaign is really trying to tie this

into, but they have to be careful because it is one thing to campaign on these kitchen table issues, but they have to make sure if they are going to campaign on january 6 and democracy, they need to tie it to those issues that are top of voters' minds. host: appreciate the time and insight with "the hill." i'm sure we will see you more on the 2024 campaign trail down the road. guest: thank you. host: back to your phone calls, it is open for them, about 20 minutes left here, turning the phone lines over to you, getting your thoughts. any public policy issue that you want to talk about. oklahoma, thanks for waiting. republican, go ahead. caller: do you have a show that shows what kinds of ills each of the last two presidents signed into law? host: what do you mean? caller: what kind of laws that they signed that affect us now?

that trump and biden signed into law when they had control of congress, when each of them had their first two years of congress? host: the thing that has impacted you the most, what has been the thing that has impacted the most from the trump administration and the biden administration/ caller: i think it is kind of like the spending cuts. it made everything more expensive for us. we are farmers out here and it seemed like everything got more expensive. the feed, the cattle and everything like that got really expensive after the tax cuts. host: did trump administration tax cuts and jobs act, things got more expensive for you. caller: host: host: yeah. and what about in the biden administration? caller: i think that people are taking more profits.

the ceos are taking more profits, upping the prices on everything. eggs went out, and now they are back down. but my cattle feed went way up. it was nine dollars, an increase in oats for the animals, and then it came back down, it came six dollars back down. host: this is bob, amsterdam, ohio. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. i would like to speak a bit about donald trump, borrowed money from kim jong-un and russia and china. he got money from 20 different countries. the republicans are allowing this man to run for office again. is there something wrong with their heads? i don't understand. i can't understand for the life

of me why they would let this man get close to the white house. he is nothing but a grifter. he is going to do nothing but go after everybody -- if he does get back in, he won't pass one law. he is going to go after anybody that went after him. he is going to turn this country into a dictatorship. these people are glad, handing him right back into office. host: as a democrat in the he state of ohio, how likely do you think it is that he will get back into office? i think we lost bob, but we will go to david in georgia, independent, good morning. david, you with us? go ahead, sir. caller: yes, john, i will be brief. i have two points as a independent view of the things i see in washington going on on c-span. when director wray was doing

congressional hearing, he was asked, did the fbi participate in any way? what happened on january 6? he asked, no, they did not. there is news out there that says, special fbi agent dantanuo went out before the january 6 happened and told the congressional leaders of security that there would be no problems, do not worry about january 6. now, that is reported already. that blocked the stolen records. y'all look it up and make up y'all mind. number two is about the 14th amendment, section three. people are saying that it is criminal. well, it is not. it is a civil penalty. it is not criminal, because congress has never passed a criminal law about insurrection.

only the things that lead up to that. the insurrection is an act. it is an overt act. it says, you lose your license to serve in civil affairs. now, there is about 60 congressman that have aided and abetted everything about that insurrection. the act is what they deal with to cause an insurrection. thank you for allowing me to have this time. host: that is david in georgia. this is section three of the 14th amendment, helpful to sibley read it. the person shall be a senator or representative in congress or elector of president and vice president or hold any office civil or military under the united states or any state who

have previously taken an oath as a member of congress or an officer of the united states or member of any state legislature or executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the constitution of the united states, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or cover to the enemies thereof. the congress, made by a vote two thirds of each house to remove such disability. article three of section -- section three of the 14th amendment. this is brenda in pennsylvania, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, john. i want to make four points and i will try to be quick and very thorough. i was glad that you showed the headline that gave an official estimate on the number of immigrants at 3.8 million. host: one of the estimates out there. there are numbers out there, as well. caller: i heard callers say as high as 12 million have come in.

i want to back up woman from louisiana. for the last three years, republicans have been shouting to the world that our borders are wide open. they have been shouting to the world that joe biden is not the actual president. of course, that is going to encourage people to come to the border. the second point i want to make, you missed it this morning, john. one of your callers said that it was not right compared trump's administration with joe biden's. the caller said donald trump was in office for eight years. joe biden has only been in office for one. donald trump, adding $8 trillion to the debt, was not a good comparison. it only seems like donald trump has been in office for eight years. he has only been in office for four. he did add $8 trillion to the

debt, whereas president biden has only added to trillion dollars to our debt. third point, i want to try to explain budget deficits. the third -- the congress sets a budget a year in advance based on the previous years federal income tax revenue. that is what their guideline is. over the course of the year that the federal revenue fluctuates day today. that is why there is such a deficit. here is some of the fluctuations. people retire. workers die in car accidents. workers get sick. they get permanently disabled on the job. all of these daily life conditions affect federal revenue, get the budget has already been spent. that is why there is a deficit. daily changes in circumstances of human beings affect daily

federal income tax revenue, that they off -- they have already set the budget in advance. fourth, social security. i hear people calling and saying, i paid into social security, i deserve it. i tell you what, i guarantee if you are collecting $1000 a month on social concerti -- social security, i guarantee you you did not pay in $1000 a month while you are working. do the math. figure out how much money you would have had to make every month in order to have $1000 taken out of your paycheck. that number is about $10,000. so, it is estimated that within seven years of you collecting social security, you will have collected everything that you have paid in and everything that your employer has played in --

paid in. host: brenda on contributions to the national debt by presidential administration, yes, the numbers are about equal for donald trump and barack obama in terms of total amount contributed. donald trump over a four year period when president, barack obama over a eight year period when resident. george w bush over eight years, $6.1 trillion is the estimated addition to the national debt ring that timeframe. during bill clinton's eight years, $1.4 trillion. during george h.w. bush, $1.5 trillion. the only other president in the trillion range would be ronald reagan over eight years, $1.6 trillion contribution to the national debt during that presidential administration. usa today with a easy chart on that, if you want to take a look at it. this is thomas in or deposit,

alabama, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, yes. i would like to make a statement. the republicans can't say one negative thing about donald trump. the saudi arabians out of $2 billion. yet, these people want to vote for president trump again and make him our leader. i believe they would vote for a ku klux klan man if they felt they could out to president biden -- outdo president biden. host: anderson, indiana, republican, good morning. caller: yeah, i would like to talk a bit about the inside

trading that took place in the white house. when did they allow for inside trading to be allowed in the white house? we have got all of these people, seems like making hundreds of millions of dollars off of this inside trading. i do not understand why they have not investigated it. also, that $100 billion that come up missing from the pentagon. have they ever recovered any of that money? we got so much wasteful spending out here that i do not know if our country can handle too much more of it.

we are seriously going to be in trouble. in the next 10 years, we are going to be $50 trillion in debt. if anybody think about cutting down on this spending because the money is going to run out, sooner or later. host: about five minutes left in open forum. this is rachel, forney, texas. independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i was reading this past weekend exxon mobil made $55 billion in profits. i believe that these companies are keeping the prices up, because they want trump in there because he gives big tax breaks. the labor department put out the jobs came back under obama administration, in fact, he created 8 million more jobs than trump did. and, why are all of these people

coming over here from the border? it is because the republicans keep saying that we are giving them $2200 a month to live on, plus free insurance. so, all of that lies going across is bringing them across here. they keep saying that trump is a better president. he filed bankruptcy six times. hey had an oath that he broke. in order to come you have to have bad management. he is going to ruin this country. it is a joke. host: this is brittany, michigan, independent. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. so nice to talk with you this morning. i specifically wanted to be able to go over how biden looks like he is in serious trouble.

whether you are voting based on the material conditions that have not gotten better for you, or the fact that he has been inconsistent about being able to fulfill campaign promises such as legalizing marijuana, being able to help with student loan debt, which he went the easiest route which would have the -- it would fail, repurcussions behind that. for, even the fact that, here, specifically in michigan, a very big conversation about the fact that if biden does not see the palestinian people as human enough, why would we vote for him? it seems the democratic party could be primary somebody that would actually be worth voting against trump, because if the conditions -- if the outcomes at the end of the day are the same, there will be a genocide, people will continue to lose money. people will continue to suffer. it does not seem like we are voting for two different people. we are just voting for the

oldest dude that doesn't say a swear word out loud. host: did you vote for joe biden in 2020? caller: i did. honestly, i would say that i do not feel comfortable voting for him. there is no way to put my heart of hearts that the disregard of an entire collection of people is somehow worth more than the fact that -- trump is terrible. he is. he absolutely is. there is no way to get around that. but, i can't vote for joe biden in confidence and i would prefer, a long with a bunch of other people, if potentially, the democratic party primary somebody. host: is there somebody would have in mind that you would vote for over joe biden? caller: honestly, if i had to vote for a presidential candidate, i am looking at claudia delacruz. she seems to have more of the,

how do i say it, the consistent points that people who are more progressive are looking for. but otherwise, within the democratic party, it is basically -- you know what, honestly, i would say this is where having debates and that process may come in handy. it would still be complicated. yeah. i can't really say for sure, honestly. i would not want to out loud. [laughter] host: that is brittany in michigan. last caller in open form, this is dennis, memphis, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. you know, good morning, john. i would like to say, everybody is pretty well set in right now, the way they are going to vote, one way or another. i am a democrat, but you know, i who would vote for -- i would vote for a republican. liz cheney.

mitt romney. chris christie. i would vote for them for president any day of the week. this is not about a democrat or republican thing. people need to realize donald trump is not a republican. donald trump is donald trump. y'all have a good day. host: dennis in tennessee. last caller in our open forum. 45 minutes left. in that time, we will be joined by gorge mason professor and politico co-writer stephen pearlstein to discuss the causes of political dysfunction in congress. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> this week on the c-span networks, the house and senate returned from the holiday recess for the start of the second session of the 118th congress. both chambers space the first of two government funding deadlines on january 19 and on heavy where he second two adverse a government shutdown.

tuesday, watch c-span's campaign 2024 live coverage of the iowa caucuses as president or candidates into the final week of campaigning before the first in the nation caucuses. wednesday, the house homeland security committee conducts the first of several hearings into impeachment proceedings against homeland security secretary alejandra mayorkas. watch live on the c-span networks or c-span now, our free, mobile video. head over to c-span.org scheduling information or to watch live or on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this timeline tool makes it easy

to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. ♪ >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. browse through our latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home to core and accessories -- home decor and accessories. every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. ♪ c-span's campaign 2020 four coverage continues with the presidential primaries and caucuses. watch live on the c-span networks at the first ash as the first votes of the country are cast for the upcoming present election, along with candidates beaches and results again with the iowa caucuses on january 15 and the new hampshire primary on

january 23. campaign 2024 on c-span. your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ ♪ >> c-span's studentcam documentary competition is back, celebrant 20 years with this year's name, looking forward while considering the past. we are asking middle and high school students to create a five to six minute video addressing one of these questions. in the next 20 years, what does the most important change would like to see in america? or, over the past 20 years, what has been the most important change in america? as we do each year, we are giving away 100,000 dollars in total prizes with a grand prize of $5,000. every teacher who has dunes participate in this year's competition has the opportunity to share a portion of an additional $50,000. the competition deadline is ryan day, january 19, 2024. for information, visit our

website at studentcam.org. ♪ >> a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work, where citizens are truly informed, a republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capital to wherever you are. because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: c-span viewers are familiar with stephen pearlstein , former washington post columnist, currently at george mason university professor, politico concerti writer. this is the headline of his most recent piece. the root causes of congressional dysfunction, capitol hill has forgotten how to make a deal.

what do you make of the spending deal announced last night with this -- was this a sign of dysfunction or breaking dysfunction? guest: it is a sign of dysfunction. first of all, the fiscal year began in october. once again, they did what they normally did and not have a budget. they did not have appropriations bills. they did the continuing resolution. they had known since fall the continuing resolution would be expiring this month. what did they do in anticipation of that? nothing. they dickered around all fall with non-legislative, political theater, like they have done for the last of the 10 years. again, once again, the only way to avoid going over a cliff is to have the leadership negotiate something behind closed doors, bring it at the last minute to the members and say, take it or leave it. the members have very little

input into it. it undermines regular order. it undermines the process by which congress has historically figured out what the country needs and wants. for to put it differently, what the country needs and is willing to accept. that was a process that involved individual members doing whatever they thought was best for their country, for their district, for themselves. interacting with each other on line by line, on bills and committees, then going to the floor and having the ability to amend that further. that is the way the majority was discovered, for what the country wanted and or was willing to accept. now, it is all from the top. every time they do it from the top, it simply undermines regular order, undermines the

committees, undermines the original numbers. host: governing by crisis, this is a complaint we have heard most vocally on the house floor from the freedom caucus and matt gaetz, in particular. do they have a point? guest: the point is valid, but then what happens is they want the republican conference in the rules committee to bring bills to the house and they do not want to let anybody amend them. if they let anybody amend them, a moderate majority of democrats and republicans would vote to amend them in a way that would make them less palatable. in fact, the freedom caucus wants republican leadership to put their bill on the floor and not allow any amendment to it. they are hypocritical in that respect. host: getting through your piece in politico we are focusing on in these 45 minutes about hostagetaking. what is the difference between hostagetaking and dealmaking? guest: hostagetaking is

connecting things that do not belong with each other. if you say that israel a has to be connected -- israel aid has to be connected to ukraine aid and ukraine aid has to be connected to order security -- these are three difficult issues and separate issues. if you say that they have to be done together, then what you are saying is that the same majority that passes one has to pass all three. it is like a rubik's cube. you have to get all three majorities to line up together, which is very difficult, as you can imagine in today's congress. not just in terms of the polarization of the parties, but on issues like ukraine and israel in particular, and border. the issues do not line up strictly partisan. if you force all three, what you are doing is what we just said. you have to have the deal made by leaders at the last moment,

put before them embers and take it or leave it, you can't change it. if they can do that. it is difficulty line all of these things up. take each issue separately. what is the problem with doing it? the problem in the minority of any one issue do not want to accept the or compromise, so they will use another issue to force their view on the majority that does not want it. host: you argue in your piece the problem of doing it is also of the parties. 30 years ago, parties were largely irrelevant to the legislative process for folks who can't imagine at a time like that. explain. guest: i used to work in the congress. i was what you now call a chief of staff to the united states senator as an improbable -- at an improbable age of 24. in those days, the democratic party went from jim allen of alabama on the right, very conservative, to jim avenue

arrest, the south dakota democrat, who was the most liberal. the republicans went from jake javits, who is almost as liberal as any democrat, to a very conservative firm and. the probably -- the parties could not stand for almost anything, because the difference of opinion was so wide. congress was able to legislate, but almost everything went through on a bipartisan basis. for each issue, there was a different majority.within the committees on the full floor, there were always changing. because each of the pieces meaning each of the members was flexible and could go this way or that way on any given issue and within an issue, on various amendments. this part of the bill, that part of the bill, they did everly. that is how they put together bipartisan majorities.

that is the only way you could get things done was a bipartisan basis, because the entire democratic caucus in the house or senate, or the republican caucus, they did not agree on anything. host: was the mindset of members different back then? was it ok to work with the other side? guest: ok to work with the other side? that is all they did. no one took direction from the party caucus, or the party leaders except for the rare occasion when an issue was a party issue. rare. majority leaders in both houses are like air traffic controllers. they simply scheduled things for votes. they sometimes encourage committees to move ahead and do it faster or slower. maybe at the margin exerted influence, but all the power was in the committees and particular, the committee chairs and subcommittee chairs.

it came up from the bottom. it was not dictated from the top. you did not know in my day what mike mansfield thought about an issue. he did not tell you what he thought, because he tried to keep himself neutral on things. for the very reason that he wanted to be trusted by his full caucus. tip o'neill did not impose his will on the house. he is a great leader of the house of representatives, but he did not pose his will on the house. it would not even occur to him to try to do that, except if the president of his party asked him to do something. then, he might twist some arms. there were rare occasions when leaders did that with civil rights bills, having things to do with foreign affairs and wars. in general, they let things come up from the members. host: to break this fever of dysfunction, what is the first step? guest: the first step is to get

back to regular order. host: how do you do that? the system is designed top down, no incentive from the top to change. guest: the first thing is for a group of people, it could be the freedom caucus or a group of moderates or some combination, to -- it has to be a bipartisan group in the house who would have to be 25 from each party in the senate, 10 or 15 from each party, to say to the leaders, no matter which party is in control here, when things come to the floor, you have to allow an movements. if you do not do that, we will not allow things to come to the floor. because of the tight majorities, you lead our vote. we are not trying to dictate an outcome here. we are trying to dictate a process. if they would open the process up that way to allow bipartisan majorities to emerge on an issue by being able to debate and vote on amendments, it would start to return to regular order.

second thing, nothing comes to the floor unless it has been to committee. don't even bring it to us until then. if they would insist on that, they could insist on getting back to regular order and insist on power being pushed down again to the members. the big question is, why the members put up with this. they actually do have the power and have handed it over to the leaders. i honestly not understand. i have been trying to understand for the last year. i have decided to spend my time in congress. i still do not know why they have handed the power over that they have and had. host: stephen pearlstein our guest, george mason university public affairs professor and could tripping writer at politico -- and contributing writer at politico. taking your phone calls this morning until the end of our program at 10:00 a.m. eastern. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

independents, (202) 748-8002. as folks are calling in, are earmarks a good thing? guest: earmarks to an extent are a good thing -- are good things, because they provide committee chairs and leaders with some carrots, for the absence of them, some sticks, to get members to make the kinds of concessions, political concessions, they need to get something passed. if you set a numeric limit in terms of a percentage of the whole bill or how many can go into any one district, they had some rules on this for a while to make it fair both between the parties but also between the members and among the members. that would be fine. host: do you think members, if everybody had one, would not use

them as political leverage against another member of congress to point out, look at this spending in that district -- they would not use them as a sword in congressional battles? guest: this idea that you have to prevent members, that you have to protect members from political battles, whether they be in primaries or the final, is ridiculous. they have now got to the point where everyone expects to be a little snowflake student. we have to protect our members from tough races. if you don't want a tough race, don't run for congress. if you don't want to make tough decisions, don't run for congress. do what you think is right for the country, the district or itself. they can make ads out of anything. they can make stuff up if they want, and they do. why are you worried about that? just do your job. host: political committees have

a lot of sway in elections. you say they should not be in -- guest: i think your question begs a larger question. too much of the money comes through the top. it answers my question from before, why do people do what the leaders say? why do they give their proxy to the leaders? they control the party money from the special interests. it used to be raising money from your district. nobody raises money from their district anymore, primarily. it all comes from special interests, national groups directed by the leadership down to individual races. that is one of the key sources of the leaders power. if you want to know what the original sin is, that is the original sin. host: my phone lines are full so we will pause here. patricia in california, democrat.

good morning. caller: good morning. what a breath of fresh air. i guess i want to take a historical perspective and try to understand why are we moving away from democracy on both sides? where we want a strong party, a strong party boss and we allow ourselves to be strong-armed. i am so upset that i have no choice other than biden. i am a democrat. i am thinking of registering republican just to participate and picking someone else. what do you think of that? guest: i would like to duck the question -- it is probably a good strategy to temporarily make yourself a republican to vote in the primary. the first question you asked over the phone, why do these guys toe the party line?

they have been convinced by their leaders -- i think this is false, but they have been convinced by their leaders if we just stick together this session, then that will allow us to win an overwhelming majority at the next election. and then, we can take our policy and shove it down the throat of the rest of the country. so, if you just stay together now, we can achieve the 100% victory. well, this is a fantasy. the country is fairly evenly divided. you are never going to achieve that kind of sustainable majority. maybe you might get it to two years, but that is it. so, if you start with the idea that we are going to achieve total victory and we need to stay together for that, then it is rational the way they are behaving.

but, the whole thing is a fantasy because they are never going to achieve total victory, control of the house and send with overwhelming majorities and control of the white house. the last time that happened for more than two years, i can't remember. host: what do you think of the problem solvers caucus? guest: i think they are ineffective. good idea, but they are the people who should be doing what i suggested before, saying we are not taking stands on necessarily the issue, but we are going to take stands on the process. we need to be able to offer amendments. our group needs to be able to offer amendments because we know they will pass. in fact, they do represent the political center of gravity of the country. but, they never -- they are never allowed to offer amendments. they should make a principled stand on this from the start. nothing comes before the house and senate until it comes before committee and until a reasonable number of amendments with broad

support are able to be offered. host: in an age of x, formerly known as twitter, facebook, social media posts, candidates and members of congress having social media personalities, how do you get americans to care about the process? guest: you can't get americans to care about process. you ought to get the members to care about process. host: they will care if americans care. guest: americans never cared about the process. it is not for -- the americans lack representatives. they are supposed to do the job of legislating. it is not for the citizens to do. i will say that the best thing we can do was take those phones away from the members. i will tell you something, during the very first days of this session, i was in the gallery. they were having all of these votes one after the other on speaker. i would look across, they are all on the phone. they are not even talking to each other.

it is like my students at george mason. they come into the classroom and before class -- in the old days, students talked with each other. what a jerk the professor is and how much work we have to do. now, they are just on their phones. sometimes, they are texting with other people in the class. but, the members ought to get off their phones and ignore that stuff. really, they are so overly focused on it. frankly, they are quite afraid of it. they are afraid of partisan moms threatening them -- partisan mobs threatening them, their staff and their families. that is a threat that is used to impose party discipline. host: pensacola, florida, pat. good morning. caller: i have a comment for mr. pearlstein. i agree with you, the ukrainian aid should have been linked with israel aid order.

but, the biden administration, they are the ones that put it out like that. those items should have been broke down individually. number two, where are all of the blue dog democrats? the democratic party has been hijacked by the left, the progressive so much, they never criticize biden for anything. yet, 8 million people left in this country illegally and the democrats do not want to vote for any kind of border control. the third thing is, you are a professor at a fairly elite university. how many of your colleagues are progressive? how many of your colleagues, professors that you know, are liberal, and how many are conservative? i will hang up and let you talk. guest: you are right, biden didn't do the linking initially but did that because that is the way the game is played. he knew he was going to have trouble with ukraine ate with

republicans, so he wanted to link israel aid which republicans generally are in support of. yes, he started it, but he does not have one vote in the house or senate. they could have separated those, and they should have separated those. everyone plays the game that way now, both republican and democrats. have the progressives hijacked democratic party? probably to the extent that i would suggest the freedom caucus and trump has hijacked the republican party. it is not true that democrats would not and will not devote for border controls. as you know now, the president and many democrats want to do that because it is a problem and because it is a political problem for them. it is not actually true.

but, you are right. take a look at the democratic-controlled senate. they have had years to have hearings on this and to come up with a good proposal on border. you may not like their proposal, that could be there starting position for the negotiations. they have not even done anything. they have just ignored the issue because they know the issue will divide their party, so they just do not bring it up. this fixation on party unity. we won't talk about anything that jeopardizes party unity. if you won't talk about anything that jeopardizes party unity, you are not when you talk about anything important. anything that is important and hard to work through is going to divide a party. they do not want to do that because we have to keep the party together to win the next election so we can run the table and impose our policy on a

country that does not want it. we have got to stop that. host: on your job at george mason, any thoughts on claudia gagne's downfall and the congressional hearing that eventually led to that? guest: your caller from pensacola asked me about george mason, the professors being liberal. it is not an elite university, it is the largest state university in virginia. it is not highly selective. it has one of the most conservative law schools and economics departments in the country. they are beyond conservative, they are libertarian. we have a wide range. i am sure if you go to our professors in our african-american studies program, you will find lots of liberals. in general across the country, professors tend to be more liberal than conservative, but they are not radical liberal.

frankly, they accept conservative stte and modernist -- conservative and modernist colleagues easily. host: good morning. caller: good morning. host: what is your question or comment? caller: i just wanted -- i don't really have a question so much. how is the ukraine, so they are not the most mainstream political conversation? how is it that the real issue is not the one that is [indiscernible] host: it is more of a media question for you, i guess and how we are discussing politics. guest: we discussed politics through the same prism they

discuss on the house floor, which is in a highly partisan way. the republicans this and the democrats that. if you start to frame every issue that way, then it excepts the idea that parties activate as a unified group within each chamber. once you accept that, then you get the outcomes that we get. let's talk about the substance of border. when was the last time you actually heard that broken down into seven discrete issues, which -- by the way, many of which are difficult to find a good solution to, and let's talk those through. but, we have been hearing about the republicans wanting border for months now. have you heard much discussion on what are the details of the thing that they want? i have not heard much. i have not seen much. i have not read much.

let's talk about the issues. if we were to talk about the issues rather than the parties and the grievances about this party, let's blame biden -- blaming biden, there were lots of people getting into the country under trump. it is a problem. host: who is the best speaker in your time of watching congress? guest: i am afraid --nancy pelosi was a great speaker, but she was a great speaker at a time where parties acted in unified fashion. she helped undermine regular order as much as anybody else, but she was more effective at doing the top-down thing then republican speakers have been since her. host: who was the best speaker at trying to institute a system like what you are talking about? guest: hit was great. host: why? guest: if you went to tipp and

said, i want this outcome, he would say, do not talk to me. host: did you know him? guest: i did, because i was a chief of staff within -- we did not call it those days, but we were chief of staff to a member of congress from massachusetts. he was from massachusetts. in those days, the delegations were very tight. i said that parties -- delegations were very tight. state delegations, particularly in the house, not so much in the senate. in the house, they were bipartisan delegations, but they protected each other. they worked very well together. so, that is my -- going back to the mid-1970's and early 1980's. host: about 15 minutes left with stephen pearlstein. the column we are having this discussion about is the root causes of discretion all -- of

congressional dysfunction. capitol hill has forgotten how to make a deal, the impotence for this discussion, what a time to have this discussion. two miller place, new york, line for democrats. this is anthony. caller: thank you, gentlemen. i appreciate professor pearlstein's honesty, as well as intellectual integrity. he is getting to the crux of many of the issues. alexander fraser tyler said that most democracies only last approximately 200 years because of the abuse is of power -- abuses of power and the loose, fiscal policies lead to the collapse. it would appear what we have is a government that is monopolistic by its designs at this late stage whether the corporations are calling the shots and the taxpayers have been left out of the loop, where

the decisions being made behind closed doors and secrecy. they basically -- 350 million people population, only $34 trillion in unaccountable debt and yet, we seem to have a military for higher that is marching all over the world to slaughter innocents. where is this discipline was the -- where is this diplomacy? young men are having, being led to die and kill other people. host: what was your question, anthony? caller: my question is, donald trump holdback that curtain in that day of rally, the troops against him as one man. any man is supposed to rise to the presidency of the united states, try to help us do the right things. yet, they thought this guy whether it was russia, russia, russia. had they not done all of that, nancy pelosi ripping up speeches behind his back, his presidency

would have come and gone. it is lingering now in a way that we are so divided as a country. i see the corporations, the congress, they are monday -- money laundering. host: got your point. stephen pearlstein. guest: there are times when corporations called the tunes, but those issues are fairly limited and tend to be below the political radar. this is not a problem of corporations being the puppeteers here. these, this is a different problem. this is all kinds of special interests and ideological faction who are calling the tunes. if you want to talk about tax breaks for corporations, yeah,

corporations have undue influence. corporations, to the degree they care about, for example, the border -- they are actually for a lot more legal immigration and corporations are for legalizing those who have been here a long time and are there employees. they want to keep them here. corporations have had no effect on that issue, frankly. so, big corporations have limited power and that is not what is driving the congressional dysfunction. host: did donald trump represent something fundamentally different to this dysfunctional system? guest: yes, he did, but he got co-opted by the right wing of the republican party to a degree that he said, well, i am not only going to join those guys, i am going to lead those guys. he was a democrat at one point, but he was a fairly moderate,

let's get practical guy when he first was running. but, he decided that his best interest was to be a right-wing populist. he was right about that. he has good political instincts. host: memphis, tennessee, good morning. ben, are you with us? we will go to samuel, south pasadena, california. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. host: what is your question or comment? caller: my comment is this. i have one comment to say. who is running this country? i know what is not joe biden running the country. somebody else behind him is running the country. they are telegraphing messages to him, what to talk about. when he comes to marine to to get into the helicopter, there is always press there.

why don't he take questions from them? i don't want him to talk politics. i want him to say, how is your corvette? where do you have it repaired at i want him to talk about without looking at a teleprompter. guest: samuel, the answer to the question of who is running this country is pretty obvious. nobody. that is the problem. host: richard, missouri, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i have got a deal here. the guy about congress, the riot they had in washington, d.c., my senator and the guy from california got up there and delay the vote long enough for the mob to get there to do away with --they found the boats and destroyed them. what would have happened to the country then?

it was a big conspiracy. that was the reason for the mob, to get them votes but they did not get them. they looked through the papers to see what was there. host: the third anniversary of january 6. guest: i can assure you, sir, it never occurred to one member of that mob that there were actual pieces of paper somewhere in a box that they needed to go and get. i am sure not one of them understood the paper process of the electoral college well enough and congress' opening the ballots. i am sure not one of them knew. they were just trying to intimidate the members of congress to voting in a certain way. host: george mason university professor of public affairs, are you optimistic about the generation coming up?

their view about politics, their ability to change this system we have been talking about? guest: no. host: why? guest: they spend too much time on social media. when my students tell me, i get my news from social media, i tell them, no you don't. you don't get news at all. news is something that comes from professionals who know how to gather it and organize it and prioritize it in a certain way. it needs to be curated by people who spend their professional lives doing that. what you get on social media is not curated. it is not checked. it is not professionally gathered, for the most part. so, i do not have a lot of confidence because you can't have a democracy unless you have citizens who will start from a

factual base together about what is going on in the world. host: what do you try to leave those students without the end of the semester? guest: i tried to leave them with a better understanding of exactly what we have been talking about. what are the real reasons, and how the system could work better, which is a system that used to work quite well. i understand that we can't go back to the 1970's or 1950's. technology is different. the world is different. but, there are some lessons there. we could come up with updated versions of regular order that push power back down to the members and give them incentives to figure out what the country ones and needs -- wants and needs. host: new mexico, republican, good morning. caller: how are you, can you hear me? host: yes ma'am. caller: first of all, i

appreciate the professors unbiased view. i think both sides are totally horrible and highly incompetent. i feel like they have -- they never have any solutions, they just offer lipservice. i think the people need to be more involved in a think we should get to vote on major decisions, since they use our taxpayer dollars. my question for the professor is, do you think that they are even working for the people anymore? i feel like they just keep the people against each other like dogs shaking their tails back and forth and back and forth. meanwhile, nothing ever gets accomplished. guest: i think they do not -- they think they are working for the country, or they pretend they are working for the country, for they have convinced themselves, probably, they are working for the country by working for their party. therefore, i am going to do whatever is good for my party. that is wrong.

what is good for your party is not good for the country, but that is the way they justify it. the other party is bad, the other party is evil, the other party has been taken over by radical french. therefore, what is good for my party is good for my country and that is why i am working for the country. host: the country has brought up the idea of, let's have more referendum. let's have the voters have a say in these big pieces of legislation that comes down, can we fix it that way? guest: no, that is actually part of the problem. because of the internet, which has decentered mediated politics -- i will talk about that in a minute. there is too much involvement directly from citizens, particularly certain types of citizens. citizens who care too much about things, who are two ideological, who have too much time to harass their members of congress. we have a representative

democracy. we elect people and tell them, you figure out how to do it. you phone up on the issues. you talk to each other. we need to get the power back to the members, not the leadership and not to the people. the powers get to go to the members. they have got to do their job. it is not -- we suffer from too much democracy. people are probably smarter and more knowledgeable today and more informed than they ever have been, but they are not securely well-informed and knowledgeable still. we would not expect them to be. it is not their job. this, these are somewhat complicated issues. it is not their job to bone up on them. they can look at the consequences of what the congress and the president does, and they can decide i like this guy's behavior or this guy's program or i like the results of

this initiative better than this one. that is what their job is. it is not to have opinions on everything. host: the root causes of congressional dysfunction, the columnist. stephen pearlstein has been our guest. we appreciate your time on "washington journal." guest: thank you for having me. host: we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. in the meantime, have a great monday. ♪ [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. 2024] >> here's our live coverage today on c-span. at 11:00 a.m. eastern, the

discussion on the republican party's foreign policy agenda. we'll hear from victoria coats, former national security advisor during the trump administration. 12:30 p.m. eastern, president biden holds a campaign event in charleston, south carolina, speaking at the mother emanuel a.m.e. church, the site of a 2015 racially motivated shooting that left nine church goers dead. and at 5:00 p.m. eastern, homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas briefs reporters. the u.s. senate is back today at 3:00 p.m. eastern for their first vote of the year. lawmakers are expected to vote later today at 5:30 eastern to advance president biden's nomination of john kasan to be u.s. district court judge for southern texas. he's supported by both of his home state republican senators, john cornyn and ted cruz. and the house returns tuesday at 6:30 p.m. ear. members will vote to establish a quorum to begin work in the second session of the 118th

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