working families through tax credits and other incentives, hosted by the bipartisan policy center, 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. coming up on "washington journal," your calls and comments live. hudson institute's michael doran and defense priorities' benjamin friedman discuss the latest in the israel-hamas war. and "wall street journal's" richard rubin discusses congressional efforts to pass a package of tax breaks that would impact businesses and parents. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: "washington joual" for january 26 on capitol hill this week. senators heard from a variety of experts, hearing about concerns

abouthe condition of facilities, concerned about loved ones in long-term care, and more from after the pandemic. we want to hear about your experiences with health care, whether it be assisted living facilities or a nursing home or at-home. you can give usour sense at (202) 748-8000. that is for eastern and central time zes. mountain and pacific time zones (202) 748-8001. ,if you're a caregiver (202) , 748-8002. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. you can also post on facebook and on x. that hearing took place in front of a senate hearing focusing on aging yesterday. you can still find it on c-span.org and not our app, c-span now.

a spotlight on the assisted living industry on thursdays congressional leaders called for transparency. there is an email were consumers can share their experiences with providers. they pondered increasing federal and got -- involvement. it was the first hearing in more than 20 years focusing on assisted living. they talked about safety, staffing, and pricing. this was in response to recent articles in the "washington post." and on their website, a recent story looking at assisted care, looking at residents wandering away unnoticed and dying in the process. it says the federal government does n regulate the nation's roughly 30,000 assisted care

facilities as it does nursing homes. instead, it falls to individual stes, and it requires strong training. the nursing home population is 1.2 million, and assisted ving is approaching that at one million. we will show you portis of this hearing. perhaps you have had experiences with assisted living, caring for a loved one, or a nursing home, and you want to share those. you can call (20 748-8000 for eastern and central time zones. mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. fo caregivers (202) 748-8002. ,you can post on facebook. we already got a response on facebook from sharon,ivg her experience, sayinwh it comes

to experiees there is not enough staff in highurver. many residentsn assisted vi need memoryare, and many are bored. it is expensive and quality overall is not that good. the senators heard from a woman who detailed the conditions of the assisted living facility that she put her husband in who was suffering with dementia. here is a portion of that testimony from yesterday. [video clip] >> pour facility design, lots of tv in the central room, extremely loud, which can easily agitate dementia patients. the was various length of pvc pipe, some longer than a baseball bat. these were weapons in waiting,

and you can guess what happened. there was no quiet area other than the rooms. the hallways in the room blocks were isolated, making it difficulto monitor. i witnessed many incidents with no staff around. i sure one that i feel was important. a woman fell by tripping on a raisedrea on the floor, hard flooring, and nobody saw her fall. i found her bloody d staggering down the hallway. a company knledgeable about dementia care wod not design a facility this way. they would understand that people with dementia and have problems with gait and balance. they were video cameras but they were only used for reviewing incidents after the fact. they were understaffed. too many patientss were assigned to each caregiver. everyorning, the caregivers had to get the patients up and

dressed and out to breakfast. it put additional pressure on staff. they only give residents a shower when necessary, as they were always pressed for time. they need extra time for residents in more advanced stages of dementia, those needing more advced health care and to be fed. they worked getting the advanced stage patits into bed while others were in the main room. every day after lunch, my husbandrgently needed to empty his bowels. i tried to help him several times, but it was difficult for me because i had a broken arm at the time. i cannot find anybody, soy did the best i could. -- so i did the best i could often when i was not there, he soiled himself. i once believed i saved a man's life. i was with my husband in a room off the main activity area and

heard someone crng for help. i ran to the hallway and found an old man on the floor trying to protect himself from being beaten with his own came from another resident. i called for help, quickly moving closer and redirecting the attacker's attention. i kept him busy while calmly calling for assistance, trying not to agitate him. it took several minutes before a staff member finally heard me and came to help. host: more of that testimony on c-span.org and our c-span now app. call in to share experiences like the witness gave her others. we have a line for caregivers (202) 748-8002. ,that is where sean is coming in -- calling in from northern new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i did not expect to get on so quick. host: you are on now. caller: thank you very much. i do not call in much do these kind of programs,ut i have a lot of years of background of

spding a lot of time in nursing homes. my wife and i have spent a lot of time doing nursing home ministry. we took care of my mother-in-la she passed away a a few months ago at 89 years old. she lived with us for a couple of years, on and off, or than that, but the last couple of years. so in this industry, i have seen a lot of issues and problems. i s wondering if you might want to k me a question. host: as far as issues and problems, what have you seen? caller: biggest problem, i believe, is the tremendous cost. people are losing their life vings for people in our faly, number one. one thing i will say, in our country, we have a problem where we do not care for our parents, our grandparents, our elderly, and we are chasing theollar wi rather than sacrificing our

live for tse we should be caring for. host: when you e caring for your own loved one, how did cost impact you? caller: well, because my wife parents plan forheir later years, we were able to pay for partf that care. but at the same time, 24/7, we were the ones there. i am not giving myself a goldstar. we are in situation wheren our culture, nber one, we do not respect and reverence our elderl the government causes more trouble than it does at solving the problem. they nursing homes, one of the biggest problems in nursing homes, not just for me but coming from rn's, a lady that works hospice, 30 years administrator in a nursing home, understaffed, understaffed, understaffed. we have a disintegrating system

where people are -- like that one lady just listen to, it is a really tough situation. again, i am doing my pa and like to help wherever i can. whenever i am in a nursing home, ending time in the nursing home, let me tell you, my dad is in the va hospital right now, he is getting the most top-notch care in that hospital, amazing. i do not say that lightly, and i know there's a lot of problems in v.a. homes. homes, in general. my brother took care of him for about seven years and finally did not do it anymore. god, last summer after all the doctors had written my father off and said he was going to pass away, but god had different plans and my dad is still alive today and is getting top-nch care in the ava home. host: thank you for sharing your experiences. that is why we have this caregiver line. (202) 748-8002.

you can share those experiences, like sean did. welso have lines for eastern and central time zones and mountain and pacific time zones. our next call. caller: my father just recently passed away last monthbut he was in a nursing home r about two and a half years. e same, just like the last caller and the lady that spoke on capitol hill. i mean, it was just the lack of -- they cannot get anyone for eir help. the only time it seemed like he would get assistance, i would have to go up there two, 3, 4 times a week. an whei was around, i would see them hurryin he also suffered from dementia. but in the beginning, when h first got there, it was horrible. they would say, push the button, push the button, we will come. i was in the room with him at

mes just to test their theory and pushed the button, and it would still take 20, 30, 40 minutes because someone was using the restroom. if i was not there to assist him, he would end upoiling himself. same thing all the time. and towards the end, they would say, oh, we tell him to push the button, he cannot remember how to push the button. he cannot even turn the tv on, let alone push the button. and theyay we check on him every so hours, and there were plenty of times where we would get the call, we found her father on the floor so we had to rush him to the hospital, this and that. and then the cost each year. the last year, we had two increases of over $700. they said it was to help give better 401k or for the people

they had there so they could retain them. i could not believehey wrote this in a letter as they -- went up $1400 in one year for his care, nothing special, not an extra ward or more care, just to help fund the 401(k) for the associates that they had. it is just that they are understaffed. it is very expensive. it bleeds families dry. host: that was paul in ashburn, virginia. al in massachusetts, you are next. caller: first off, it is about how much money that you make. if you made big money in life, say a millionaire or something, you are going to get luxury type nursing home where you go to and it will be staffed to t

brim because you'll be paying re, one and a half times, twice as much money. so you will have way more people comingo help you, trash, go to the bathroom, whatever, whatever tivities. it is an example. my aunt broke her hip about three nths ago, four months ago, six weeks that she died. why? because she hardly ever left the bed. nobody came. no operation because she was poverty level, most of her life did not make much money. she hardly ever left the bed. she was left in the bed almost all day long. i ver even got to say goodbye to her because live almos500 miles away in massachuses and she lived in northern maine. but she was just left to die. and here is another story, too,

i am 66 years old. i was born in canada, and my mother and father, both of them were born in the united states. and becau i was born canada, i had to go to the hospital, i was sick six months ago, seven months ago, the social secity sent that i was born in canada, they sent the paperwork to the iurance company -- i had to stay overnight because they did cat scans and m.r.i.'s. i get a paper in the mail a monthater, i aan illegal alien,o now i do not have health care. i am over 66 yea old. and they tell me tha i owe almost $10,000. ok, this is the kind of system we have got.

i have lived here all my life. host: that is al in massachusetts. you can share your experiences. (202) 748-8000 for eastern and central time zones. mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. caregivers (202) 748-8002. ,at the end of last year, gallup did a poll looking at nurng homes, asking americans to grade the quality of care. only 8% of those would say that the quality is excellent -- saying it is good, 33 percent saying satisfactory, 36% saying it is poor, 6% saying it is a failure when it comes to the quality of care. this is a question about thinking for yourself in the future, if you are no longer able to care for yourself, how comfortable would you be in a nursing home. only 15% said they would be

somewhat comfortable, 12 percent saying neither very comfortable or somewhat comfortable, 29% saying somewhat uncomfortable, and 41% saying for themselves, if they had to have that option of being in a nursing he, they would be very uncomfortable with that experience. perhaps you have experiences with nursing homes or assisted care facilities, you want to talk about that. senators took a look in a hearing yesterday about quality care, focusing on assisted care facilities, but you can expand that to nursing homes. this i ellen in florida, a caregiver. thank you for calling. caller i heard that last night, th hearing. my mom is 95, and s is in excellent health because she swam two miles a day herhole entire life. but now she has severe dementia, so she needs literal 24-hour

care. so i am just saying a shout out to what we do, we keep her home anpay individuals to watch her 24 hours a day. she gets eellent care. because in those facilities, as you have heard -- i am also a nurse -- you do not get that kind o care. however, it costs 12 thousand dollars a month, and we cannot even continue to do that. i sold her house a couple years ago, got a good price for it. sai well, good, we will be able to take care of her. it is gone. you go through hundreds of thousands of dollars very quickly and for each eerly person. i do not understand, what is the system to even dthis successfully? host: in your state, are you required to sell assets and things like that, as far as costs are concerned when someone

is in a facility like that? caller: absolutely. they have to have absolutely not a penny left. they he to have not and pen left. even when you sell the house, that does not help because we had to take the hse out of her name first. if you sell it and it is still in the person's name, they are not going to get any help fr thstate. but when you do get help from the state, youetting something like $1300 a month. hover, the cost of the facili is or $1000 a month. in the facility, they get that $130 from the state, but you ill have to come up with thousands and nth. host:hat are the costs you are paying n to have your mom at home versus at you were paying in a facility? caller: excellent question. at home, we are paying $12,000 a month.

we have individualeople coming in, private caregivers, certifie aides, people for overnight. and we pay them directly. about $12,000 a month. host: best to you and your family. ellen telling her story about being a caregiver. senators hearing about situations associated with long-term health care, whether at a assisted facility or perhaps a nursing home. the numbersre there if you want tshare your experiences or comment on it. alabama, ts is from bobby. bob, go ahead. caller: yes, i am hearing the same story here. i am trying to t my volume down here, just a second. i have a sister in assisted living here. and the problem is i am hearing

the same thing over and ov. understaffed, and some people care and some do not. we go there just yesterday, my sister has dementia and has enough to pay assisted living. right no the assisted living cost is around 6000 dollars a month. and you go there -- yesterday, they asked if some of the family members could come and sit with her, some in the morning and some in the evening. well, we all 80 -- i will be 80 this year. my sister is already 81. and the family members have failing health also, so who can go and sit with he you are paying them to do that. some, their attitude, if you ask for assistance, you go in and find your loved one sitting in their urine and feces.

that is not an exaggeration, sir. that is true. she is in assisted living and is supposed to be able to use the bathroom, but nowhe is getting to where she cannot assist. she needs to be in a nursing home, which is actually out the same. so i have a good friend in a nursing home and i was there yesterday, and he was complaing about i heard a gentleman calling, someone saying something about their mother just lying in the bed all day --hey do not have enough staff to g them up. he was complaing, asking, can you see if you can get them to give me a shower, plea, a bath? his mind is good, but he is not able to assist in y way. and i do not know the answer to this. i go in and took some pictures, the bathroom was filthy in the nursing home went to, just really fily.

so i took some pictures of the commode, t condition it looks in, that it was in. but yosay something to them, and then i must say, some of them wl go the extra 10 miles and some won't do the mile. so i think one thing, the people that is running it, they need to have a better check on the people that are supposed to be doing their jobs. i just dnot know the answer. i lookt some of them, go in, some are in a hurry to maybe get to where they catake a break. sometimes odors, it is just a stench, where they have not gotten around changing them and some are waiting to use the bathroom. they push the button. it is a situation i just do not know the answer to, sir. we must find aay. and family members just cannot afford it. if you have anything, you must

get it out of their name. one thing i'm going say and i will be through, when i look at all the people coming into the united states that are having problems and we are giving them moneys, then we should somehow -- the government should help take care of the citizens here, the veterans and the people that are sick. ey are creating ather slum with people d coming from all these countries, i just doot understand what is happening. st: that is bobby in alabama sharing his experience. yo are welcome to do the same. some of you posting social media and sending messages, too. tracy says i have worked in some of these, there are so that are good ones and some i would not put anyone in. michel fm pennsylvania saying this is heartbreaking. i d vice from a doctor when i d to put my father in long-term care, try to find a

ace as close to you as you can, visit as often as you can. mark on facebook saying, i worked in one fo15 years, i hope i die before i am forced to live in one you are at the mercy of the caregivers, adding there are hidden cameras in all rooms/bathroom/shower room. you can comment on facebook, facebook.com/cspan. on x, it is @cspanwj. a poll asked, what are the primary reasons you would not want to be admitted to a nursing home? 70% said they were concerned about the quality of care, 49% saying too expensive, 45% saying they were concerned it would have a negative effect on mental and emotional health, 34% saying they were concerned about a loss of independence. maureen in california, we are

hearing from those about long-term health care, your experiences with it. hello. caller: hello, good morning. i just wanted to let you know that i was iassisted living for three years. and at $5,000 a month. and as i saw my income and my savings dwindling and the care was horrible. now, we were evacuated twice with fires and sent to a facility in connection with the place i was in. the place i was in is nation-wide, so i'm not going to mention the name of it. anyway, we were evacuated to another facility, and we were sleeping on dirty mattresses with one blanket, no heat in the room. we went through that for 28 days

, at $5,000 a month, if you can believe it. and on t of that, the care was really bad. the food was bad. you do not get better in a facility like that. but i decided one day after three years that that was it, because we were locked up also, you know, during covid, cannot see anybody, cannot leave the room. cold food was delivered three times a day. i mean, it was just a nightre, so i checked myself out. and now i am in a nice little apartment, one-bedroom, with my low income now because i got rid of all my savings, and i am so happy. i am so happy. i love where i am in mill valley , and i just wanted to let you know about that experience. and what i have told all my friends who are in their 80's, like i am, the thing is, please save enough money so you can have somebody come to the house. it does not have to be 24/7, but

just somebody that can come in and help you. the only thing i cannot do is clean th house, but i do my own cooking. somebody takes me out for shopping because i cannot drive or anything, but i am the happiest person now. host: maureen, thank you for calling and sharing those experiences. a caregiver in st. louis, missouri, monica. caller: hi, good morning. i am here to probably give some answers more than questions, been in this field for over 20 years. even before the pandemic, i seen that there were some issues going on. they talking about the caregivers and say assisted living, they all a mess. i have worked in a wealthy one charging 15,000 to $20,000, and i have worked in one that charges $5,000. what i do know is the owners, the administrators, they are

making all the money, getting all the bonuses. maybe if they spread some of that money out, you could get staffing. everybody talking about staffing. well, people working somewhere, but they stop working because the pay is not good. congress nee to do some kind of regulations on staffing requirements, federal and state needs to come in and give some staffing requirements and let them know that if they don't get that staffing up -- do what you got to do. give the staffing people some bonuses or whatever, or the dietary people. but it is really ridiculous. almost like the wall street cash cow that is going on. you have these owners, they switching nameafter they get shut down. it is the same person, it is their family members. i am by no means a person that has any issues, i am

african-american, so don't have any issues with race or immigration, but a few -- very few of the owners or even american. i don't know if they can send something around the world and say start a long-term care facility in america and you can become a millionaire. host: given your experience, on average, for those people who work in assisted living or a nursing home, generally, how wellre they paid? caller: i think it is really bad, really bad. they are making the same as some of the people at mcdonald's. mcdonald's and, you know, it is bad. and that is why you don't have the care. i said, 10 years ago, they got paid more decent. thcost of living is going up, and everything is going up. nurses, cna's, owners, administrators. host: monica in missouri giving

her assisted -- her perspective on assisted living and nursing homes, and the issue of staffing came abo that hearing yesterday. there was a back-and-forth between one of the senators and some of the workers abouthe need for more staff in these pe of facilities. here ia portion of that from yestday. [video clip] >> i read we wl need an additional 7 million long-term caregivers of the eldercare facilities. that seems like a shocking estimate to me. hard to imagine how we cou possibly hire millions of addition people per year at these facilities, giving their already existing labor shortages. do you think that estimate is within the reasonabl range? if it is not, how many more workers do we need over the next five to 10 years? >> thank you for the question, senator vance. i have not heard 7 million, i have heard 5 milon. but i wilfollow up and give

you the information i have. we got hit by thpandemic really hard. health care workers left and are never coming back. we have had to recover. assisted ling has recovered pretty well. but we also need to do is to build for the aging -- the workforce is aging out and our seniors are aging, and we're doubling and tripling numbers when we get t2040 and 20. having an tense effort for cruitment and pain, let m share what we're dng, from a recruitment standpoint, we were able to t really creative. we looked at people and said, what do you need, what will help cover your houseld? what do you need with increased wages? you can have the right methodology that allows you to pay minimum wag then wlooked at retaing. as people come into assiste living and stay because they're

so passionate about it, in honor of their pason, we need to create something for them. so from the first interview, we ask them what they envision six months from today and one year from today, three years from today. we want them to envision a future with us and with the assisted living indtry. then we have to meet that need by career mapping. so we have done a lot of that. what we have realized through those terviews and people saying this is my career path is we also need a skill path, to provide them with the resources, whether it is through a nursing grant, through additional education that we immerse -- that we reimburse them for. we have to commit within the space and workforce, but you also need to create a workforce that will be passionate,ake a living wage, have the tools they need, and that will nt to stay. host: more of that hearing is available for you to watch on r website, c-span.org, and our app at c-span now.

ken in -- kim in chicago. caller: thanks so much for letting me speak. i have been ltening to all the commen, and putting much all the comments are legitimate. taken together, i think the ole model should be changed to a more -- to a better model. for instance monica from missouri -- i mean, she hit the nail on the head when she pointed out theact that long-term care now a big business and it now has the hands of very big money people in the business. so nothing good is going to come out of that. ere is no reason that monthly care and housing for an individual person should cost

$6,000 to $12,0 a month, other than the fact th administrato are making very comfortable, high six-figure incomes. same goes with the salespeople who actually convince families to move their loved ones into a facility. they are making six-figure incomes. also, the referral services, like a place likmom and all the rest of them,hey make thousands of dollars in referral fees for referring famils to these long-term care facilities. i think the major problem is that it is a for-profit business and is allowed to be a for-profit business. that is the problem with our overall health care system. and the man who has a father in the v.a. assisted livinggo exam.

he says that place is great. ll, it is not for profit. that is not the purpose of it. the purpose of the facility is to care for the veterans. the person -- the purpose of the facility is not to make a profit for shareholders. that is the whole problem with the long-term care. the other piece of it is attitude in the country towards elderly people. it is very hard to be an elderly senior in america, because you are stigmatized, you are thrown out, you are not respected. you are not valued at all. from every, every facet of society, from the younger generation, probably your own children, your own families, but

also employers, doctors. the list goes on. america is a very hard place to be a senior, and it is disgraceful. so i think two things have to go on. our opinion about old people and seniors in the value and contributions they make to us have to be changed. host: thank you for calling and giving that perspective. our ne call, hello. caller: morning. i would like to thank all of you all that work for c-span. you guys do it every day. thank you. host: go ahead. caller: to answer your question,

for me, $14.50 on the top end, usually $14 an hour. that is my situation. a person and dealing with other ailments. i have always been legally blind, have macular degeneration disease, had it all my life. ound 2013, taking my daughter to school everyy, unfortunely, my ex-wife decided she did not wt to b a parent, so that fell on me. so i would take her to school. although i really could not see, i would ride four miles and then

walk it back. then i wou do the same to get my daughter. so i was doing about 16 miles a day. i was in as good a healtas i could have been. 2013, 2014, it took a turn. host: are you there? caller: the dtors -- the doctorid not take care of me with cellulitis deficiency and with gout, then a torn meniscus, and then there was -- host: chris, i agoing to put you on hold because you are cutting in and out, so i am hoping you can maybedjust your stance to the headset or get

toy songer signal i that is the case -- or get to a ronger signal if that is the case. i want to finish the story, but makehose adjustmen first let's go t mary in virginia, a caregiver. call: good morni. i love this station because it highlights me and keeps me updated on what is goi on. i am a caregiver, and i have been in it for 50 years or more. i love it. every time i want to leave, the lord says goack, because 'm really needed in the area. but i look at the united states, theyeed to go back to the scol sysm to work with chdren to be interested in rsing, doctors, therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists. they need to encourage them more in the area because the elderly people, they have rked, they need the care. and i love it. but the families also need to

put their part in it. they need to assist. everybody wants to run from services. it i hard work. but we need to do things that lp the elderly and put ourselves to the side. on thing, we going to get there and going to need that help. but god put us or to be servants. he did not put us here to look for somebody else to do the serving for us. said you was a servant for him, you will be a servant for somebody. that is all i have to say. america has gone away from god way, and we need to geit back in the school system. that is where it starts. host: that is mary in vginia. lisa from facebook saying my mom was in a residential care facility, three patients, three caregivers, all in a gorgeous home, and the care was exce this one says if the patnt

does not have a family memb that comes regularly and advocates for their person, like in a hospital, they will get subpar care at during the nighthift, it is minimal, woefully underpaid and understa go elsewhere as soon as possible because it is a difficult job. i am working anything to get a paycheck and get out of there. use a walker saying they are inadequately staffed. new york tes looked at assisted livingenters, looked at se of tees some charg for things. they are saying that highly profitable facilities often charge $5,000 a month or more in or on extra fees at every step, racking up bills. 2 for blood pressure ccks, $15 for injections, more for insulin, $93 a month to order medications from a pharmacy not used by facility, facilities charge extra to help residents

get to the shower, bathroom, dining room, to deliver meals to their room, to have staff check-ins for daily assurance, even hping to take their medication. mu more there at "the new york tis" sto, if you want to look at that. from christopher in michigan, talking about your experiences with long-term care facilities. hello. you stted your story and had a lot of things going into it. what was your experience specifically with the care facility then? caller: [which he audio] -- [glitchy audio] host: i apologize, christopher, not getting the best connection to her from sean in ohio. caller: hello, i have been in this industry since 2019. the lady that said she has been

doing it for 20 years, she hit it on the head, iis all about money. itarted off here at $12 an hour and have been here ever since,nd i aup to 5 an hour. that is four years, theyre not really paying as much of anhing. i have seen a lot of people come and and just do not want to workor the slower pay. but the owners, who no one even knows -- i ask people all the time in my business, do you know who the owners are? nobodyven knows who they are. in the house i am in, we have three guys in here, only two staff. en the staff manager wants to step out. i keep putting it off. a lot more work for only two llars more an hour. we do everything, take people to the doctors, to dental, to workshops, dre them, feed them. we do every single thing you could possibly imagine that an individual cannot do for themselves, we do it all.

is li having a child in some ways. i don't want to say people are like tt becae they are adults. but e fact that peop do no want to take on that type of responsibility for such w pay when the owners are making so much money -- this house alone, they are making $1 million. i looked into it, they are making $1 million a year off of the three. we had one go out and only had two people in here, and they pushed really hard to get a third person in here, which there were three of us here at the te but now we're down to just two staff. when i leave, the other lady comes in. people who are not in this industry will not believe this but the peoe who are in this industry wl belie it, i work over 100 hours a week. over 100 hours a week. that is the truth. i have shown people my pay stubs. i say, look at how many hours i put in. the reason why is they do not want to pay.

people wanting caregivers in here, it will not chan anything. oh -- people wanting cameras in here, it will not change anything. i understand wanting cameras. that when they start putting cameras in, even more people ll say they don't want to do that andill quit. it is a skeleton crew now, it is not even possible then. they really need to put some type of regulators in anneed to look at the owners of these businesses.ty need to force them to have some type of base pay right off the bat, lik$20 an hour just to stt off with. think abt what we're doing, we are taki care people who simply cannot takeare of themselves. it is a vital lifeline of what we do, but we are not treated like a nurse in a hospital, not treated like aoctor. ye our responsilities are

almost as muchs there's. if somebody falls here, we have to take care of them. if they get hurt, we he to take ce of them. we're just underpaid, really bad. host: that is sean in cleveland ohio. government accountability office vestigates matters for congress andook a look at the situation for sisted living facilities and the issues and concerns. they did this report in 2018, but here are some things the found, you can findt at what typesf critical incidents they monitor sta agencies, identifying physical, emotion, and sexual abuse is critical incidents. some incidents may indicate harm and eclectic -- neglect■d, sucha mecation errors. there were unexplained dths in three states of ee. they said 26 state medicaid agencies cannot report to gao

the number of crital incidents that occurred at assisted living reasons including inabilit to track incidents providers, lack of collection, lack of a system that could ideified medicaid beneficiaries. much more to that report. it is available online at gagov. we are hearing from you during this time. james ort waington maryland, hello. caller: my sister is rrently in a nursing home in lorain, ohio, and i was looking after her as much as i could, flying up there a staying a week, from february 2001 until september 2023. a lot of these places are corporate-owd, so if it is for profit, that is the main thing they're thinking about

you st better prayhat the good lord t youtay go sound, body, and mind througut your life. if you are not, it is just terrible. my sister has parkinson's disease, and she is totally dependent on the people for eding and for everything. it is one of those things where they need to have an apartment -- a department where the federal government makes -- ta it out of the corpate hands, cause e people, you are paying the money but not getting the care. my sister was ping to stay at homend have caregers come to her for 16 hours, anshe was

paying $4000 a month. the care she was getting was not that much. i think one of the places, they en had felons working for them. it gets on my nerves because when i call her, she tells me how bad things a. as far as owning property,he has id for all of her care until all of h assets are gone. it is nerve-racking on the family, too, if you care about your loved one. the main thing is, please try to stay in the good health. any longevity does not equate out to the quality of life that you can get. host jes the in rt washington, maryland. you brought up some concerns shared by elizabetwarren at that hearing on thursday, in

talkg abouoversight concerns foassisted living facilities. here ipart of her interview with the guest or tness yesterday. [video clip] >> these are serious problems that have been going on for years, but we hear so much less about what is going on in assisted living facilities than we do in other facilities like nursing homes. so why do you think assisted living facilities receive so muchess attention than, s, nursing homes? >> a really interesting question. in the 1970's and 1980's, there were tremendous scandals in the nursing home world, leading congress to pay attention and finally take action. i think that is where we are now, hearing more and more of these stories. report in 1999, one that was mentioned, washington post and times reports, local news reporting from around the

country, over and over, we see these issues are coming up. now is the time to take acti. >> with nursing homes, we put in federal standards, got federal oversight, but assisted living facilities are governed by a patchwork of state laws without needing federal oversight. that means no national standards for assisted living facilities expected. that is pticularly worrisome, because private equity firms and real estate investment firms, reit's, have gone on a buying spree of senior and sisted living facilities. we know how their model works. private equity comes in, strips assets, cuts staff, and sends the quality of care down. so your organization has worked carefully -- hasooked carefully at the data and you have heardrom the residents of these facilits. when private equity comes into

an assisted living facility and cuts jobs, what impact does that have on the residence? >> wkers are the most important component of care in any setting especially rsing homes and assisted living. so that can be devastating. unfortunately, we doot have a lot data directly on assisted livi, have some on senior care, in general, and nursing hos and other care settings. we know when private equit comes in, they often pillage it. >> got it. in other words, more people will suffer when private equity comes in. we need to do more here. at a minimum, the biden administration should require additional reporting of problems at assisted living facilities. that is a priority recommendation from the 2018 gao report. cms making progress on implementing this recommendation. they should finalize it quickly.

this has gone on lonenough without oversight. and congress must look at ways to improve accountability, transparency, and quality of care in assisted living facilities. host: again, more from that hearing available, from the senators who asked the queions and guests who answered them, at c-span.org and c-span now. a few more minutes of your calls, looking at your periences with long-term care facilities. kara in houston, texas, a caregiver. caller: good morning. i am really glad y'all are discussing t situation of assisted living and caregiver shortages, nursing shortages, nursing crises. i was basically thrown into a careging job after family members got sick. hi basically had to learn on the

job - i had t learnn the job, take family tooctor's appointments, to therapy, and learn what i needed to know to help take care of my family. we are not able to put family members in assisted living because when the facility told us that we would still have to provide our own caregivers to watch them 24/7, they don't have the staff. the kind of care that my family needs, the facility cannot provide. at said, whene have brought extra help into the house, regaless of what we were paying them -- i wish pay was the only factor that would impre the quality of care, that is not the case. a lot of times, even if they are paying top dollar for a caregiver, they want to sit around and do not really follow the guidelines.

li if seone cannot be left alone, they willeave them alone in the room. this is alsooing on in nursing homes, in skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. it is really sad. i don't know what the solution is, but we have had situations where family mbers have been given the wrong medication, have not been given medicatio have been denied the use of an ipad in a medical facility if they're disabled. so it is really a huge crises in this country. host: let's hear from robert in cleveland, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been listening to a lot of complaints about assisted living facilities, but my mom is 100 years old and is in

assisted living facility now, and i am completely happy with the care she is being given. they take care of her everyday. i visit her at least once a week, sometimes more. they greet me and know my name, they know her name. i am really pleased about it. it is $5,000 a month. that is about it. if they have to provide any pills, but i make sure her prescriptions are taken care of up, bring that into the facility, give them to the nurses, and everything is taken care of. host: what do you think it is about your facility that sets it apart? caller: well, i don't have any idea how much the caregivers are being paid, so i do not know that it is a pay issue. just that they hire the right kind of people. i have not seen a lot of turnover, see the same people every time i go there.

they'll greet me and say hi. it is a friendly place. they do activities. they have a priest come in because my mother's catholic. they take care of her religious needs, her physical needs. she is mobility-challenged, cannot walk without a walker, but she is completely cognizant, knows what is going on. i take care of the finances, but she wants me to bring in her bank statements and we go over her expenditures. so it is fortunate, and i am so fortunate -- host: is your mom's facility for from you? caller: her home was pretty far from me, but she had a medical emergency and had to go into rehab, which was also located at the same place whe the facility is. when she was finished with rehab, she realized she could not live alone anymore in h home that she bought 64 years

ago. we let her stay in her home as long as possible, until she became a fault problem. she would fall down. she realized it and agreed to go into assisted living without us having to force her in. i think that is a big part of it, too. if she could live alone, so much the better. host: robert, thank youor sharing. jackie in missouri, last call on this topic. caller: good morning. i would like to make a suggestion, if i might. before you place a loved one in a nursing home, look it up online. do research on the home you are putting them in. that is about all i have to say. host: ok, jackie ere in missouri. let's try one more call, judy in florida. you are the last call. caller: good morning to you.

i have a lot of experience in this because we took care of my five brothers and sisters, all shared taking care of my mom for years. i live in florida, they live in north carolina, but i traveled every month and we just did it back and forth to help her. she had dementia. then she became -- she tried to get up and walk one night with her walker and fell and broke her hip, at which time we could no longer take care of her. so we put her in what we thought was a nice place. it was not. she was treated very badly, neglected, even missed meals. because she would not eat and they did not care. it was just a nightmare, and theyook her social security every month. we even tried to get her hair fixed for her.

we did it as often as we could. it was a nightmare. and all her clothes was stolen all the time. i justray my husband and i never have to go to a place like that. and that is about all i have to say. host: did the experience with your mom get you thinking as far as starting to prepare for tt time? caller: yeah, i take care of my husband now who has dementia, at home. we are not really concerned. it is great to hear some stories that people are taken care of, that their parents are great in those places. i have an aunt who died last year at 104 in a beautiful place,ut it was expensive. she was wealthy enough to pay for it. it is all about money. and we really need to get help from our legislators, congress. our loved ones need to be taken care of without everyone going

broke. host: thanks to all who participated today. we will turn to the latest concerning the israel-hamas war and the role of iran and proxy forces. two guests are joining us for that discussion. that's up next and later, the wall street journal's richard rubin on congressional efforts to pass a package of tax breaks that would impact both businesses and parents, low income parents. we will have those discussions when "washington journal" continues. ♪ >> today watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail, weekly round up of c-span campaign covers

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high bar for themselves saying they going to eliminate hamas and ve notchieved that yet. they suffered some of the wot casualties of the war the othe day and there is a larger problem from the united states perspective with escalation in iraq and syria where he was forces are stationed there and are taking fire in the red sea where theooties --hohis and the brits d others are firing at yemen whe thehouthi government is. there is a danger of ealation potentially and even a warith iran which we are trying to avoi i think it's high time the ited states pued harder for a sort of cease-fire but also a different policy in the mide east that would limit ou liabilities and look for the exits. host: same question to you. guest: i think the is really war

effort has gone steadily forward . it's been relatively successful but it's a little bit stalled. in the last month or so, the progress has been harder to show. a lot of that has been because of american policy because of what the kind of policies been just recommended, that the israelis use less force and move to this new stage with of what the israelis are calling the third stage of the warhich is one of targeted strikes rather than full-spectrum military operations. the united states interest is that israel should win and that means defeating hamas which means it can no longer pose a threat to the citizens of israel in the south because the israelis have to repopulate the south which is now depopulated as a result of these attacks.

with rpect to iran, we need to frame this conflict not as a conflict in gaza but as a conflict between the iranian resistance axis and the american alliance in the region. that's what the iranians have openly and publicly defined it and that's how we need to understand it. we shouldn't weaken our ally in order to appease iran and its allies. host: what would the u.s. be doing if that's the ilosophy? guest: we have to deter in and its proxies. then mention the risk of escalation. the iranians he been escalating across the board in for ve different fronts depending how you want to unt it. if we want de-escalation, we have to deter them. host: the idea of iran and targetinthem, what your thinking on that? guest: it's more complicated

than mike and others make it. the iranians have these proxies, hezbollah and houthis and syria but their degree of control over those groups is differen it's limid tickly in the case of e houthis. it's not at all clear the houthi s are aing at the iranians belf on behalf of what they're doing in t red sea or they would id if iran gave them orders that's a more complex story about the people shooting at u.s. courses in iraq and syria. some of that is under the control of the iranians and some isn't. th larger point is, our interest in the middle et would be badly harmed by a war with iran. that's the worst case scenario. if we just bomb them which just might -- which mike might advocateit would make things worse in terms of iranian behavior and weapons and in

terms of their pro groups. we could wind up with a situation where you have t go long if you want the effects which is a full on war. i thi that's an awful idea was important to keep in mind our interest is israel. i think the united stas has a very different interest in terms of gaza. all the death and destruction there which is largely intentional is bad for the united states because we are bankrolling it. i think the israelis would like to see us take on iran and all their friends on their behalf and we should not do that. host: if you want to ask questions, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, independes (202) 748-8002 and if you want to text us, (202) 748-8003 the idea of bombing could that's the policy a advocating for? guest: i'm advocating for deterring thiranians.

they are the ones carrying out a policy of bombing. ey he attacks through the proxies who were under the direct command and control of the iranians. they have attacked us out 130 times since october 7, some 80 times befo that from the beginning of the biden administtion. the united states has not attacked around once. in yemen,, americanwere killed in iraq and one terrorist orchestrated the attacon the saudi ambassador in washington in 21. he kills americans, he orchestrates attacks on american soil, his b now is to provide the houthis with ballistic missiles, drones and cise missiles. why have we not targeted him?

havvery carefully avoid attacking any iranian while the iranians have escalated against us across the region. host: i want to play you a clip from a couple of days ago with john kirby at the white house who talked about the idea of escalation when it comes to iran. let me getour thoughts on it. [video clip] >> if the iranian government is concerned about escalation, an the best thing they could do uld be to cut off the support they give to groups like hamas and hezbollah and these iran baed militia groups in syria. we don't want to see the conflict escalate or see some broader war. we are not looking for a conflict with anybody. we arerying to de-escalate and if the iranians are serious about that and ey want to de-escalate, we would welcome em stopping their support. host: not looking for a war, not looking to escalate. guest: that's a very judicious statement and puts the emphasis where should be, on the uranium escalation that is going on since october 7. guest: i think the iranians are

responsible for givingoney to hamas. they were involved in training the october 7 attack and funding has bled and giving weapons to the houthis. i think they were also operating through proxies because they want to avoid escalation right now, we are in a happy stance where the u.s. government and the iranian governmt want to avoid a full on war. i hope it stays that way. again, the united states has an interest in not getting pulled into a major war in the middle east and we have troops in syria and iraq who were there in the first place to defeat isis. we defeated them a long time ago now they are sticking around kind of taking cover because they are taking fire all the time. it's not clear what the u.s. interest or objective that serves other than picking a fight with iran because we are mad at them. i think for starters we should

get u.s. forces out of those places and if we want to have trouble with iran, let's do it somewhere else that arrange of rockets that the proxies suggest. host: president biden talked to the israeli prime minister, urging a scaled-down of military operations. he didn't want to be in it for a year of war. is it too late to make these kind of statements? guest: no, it's not too little too late, there's 25,000 dead people in gaza and the united states i think has attached itself ineffably to the war effort in gaza by funding the israelis so the reputational harm and so forth is done. a cease-fire or less violence there would be welcome and would limit death and violence and i think the objective of completely defeating hamas as udable as it is, i would like to see no more hamas that's

achievable within a reasonable timeframe and sort of unrealistic. it's time to send some compromises with that organization as noxious as it is. guest: my fundamental disagreement with ben is that, i don't want to put words in his mouth but as i understand the differences, he seems to think if united states restrains itself, withdraws troops, pulls back further from the middle east, that will stabilize the region and protect american interests and that's not what will happen. it's a fundamental misreading of what's going on. we should not frame this as a war in gaza. it's objectivy not a war in gaza. hezbollah is firing on israel and the houthis are firing on israel and the americans in international shipping.

this is not a war for gaza, this is war of the iranian alliance system against the american system. wh ben is calling for will see a war in the middle east with a radiance. that is the problem. guest: they are too weak a country to take over the middle east. i think there is a naral balance of power in the middle east that the uned states doesn't have to manage among the major powers there with israel, iran, saudi arabia, egypt and turkey that will prevent there from being a major war. one country taking over and dominang the oil or something like that so we have to think about what our interests are in the ddle east, not adopt a managerial role. in that regard, look at the last 30 years of u.s. foreign policy in the middle easwhich has been animateby the idea that we can sort of manage the politicsy doing regime change operations and keeping large

forces there, overthrowing the iraqi government. it's been a tragic and horrible mistake that deep stabilize the region. are posture in the middle east over the last few deces has been incredibly destalizing and don't think everything will be hunky-dory as the united states does less. it wilbe better for us and reduce the harms up being inflicted on u.s. forces and serve u.s. interestsetter. host: a conversation with ben friedman and michael durand of the hudson instite docrats li, you are first up, go ahead. call: yes, good morning, can you hear me? host: you're on, go ahead. caller: i would like to hear from been first and the other gentlemen, why is it impossible for them to have the palestinians and the west bank

even -- being given back to the palestinians? have a higay or transportation between the two locations, make a two state solution and have it supervised by the arab countries and the united states and people like qatar to broker peace and ha a security force that's not israel. that's pretty much it. host: mr. friedman. guest:hat's a possible solution certainly. it's been decades and decadesf talking about a two state solution with palestinian sovereignty and gaza andhe west bank and there's been different proposals for a highwaor something connecting two noncontiguous territories. the problem with that is number one, the hamas government in

gazahich the israeli governme has seen as a rson not to move forwa in the two state solution. the problem is theettlements. more broadly, from the united states perspective, is much as we will push on the israelis which we do a little bit, not making our money conditional which might be a good idea but is much as we push on the israelis, to make progress on the two state solion, ty seem entirely unintested at th pointn their politics with the government they have for the next few likely israeli governments or prime minister. from the u.s. perspective, i think we should continue to advocate for a two state solution and continue our policy of opposing the settlements that make it less likely but also be realistic and say that's probably not going to happen anytime soon and we in the meantime should reevaluate the idea we can kind of manage the israeli-palestinian conflict in the broader region. we need to stop pretending our

interests are tied up in what happened in israel and gaza. it's a horrible tragedy but what happens there is i don't think vital to u.s. security. guest: in answer to the callers question, i think a two state solution is completely unrealistic. it's just impossible. i served in administration of george w. bush where we pursued it aggressively. i'll give you one example of what happened. we put pressure on the israelis to get out of gaza and on the understanding that whoever ruled gaza would become a manager of the population would have to be responsive to the needs and concerns of the population. the same rationale informed the clinton administration when it push the israelis to get out of lebanon. in both cases, what happened is

that terrorist groups took over and they have no coern about the welfare of the local population. they built this incredible maze of tunnels in gaza, not a single bomb shelter in gaza but miles and miles of tunnels for terrorist. the money from iran has come in and other countries to build up a terrorist machine and the rockets and missiles follothe israelis when they leave. i does not want a two state solution. their leaders in the last couple of days have reiterated they have no interest in a two state solution. there is no partner there to talk about it. the october 7 attack has move the israeli population much further to the right, people who are stauh advocates of this to -- of the two state solution. the population around gaza was a very left-wing coexistence,

population that believed in coexistence and their opinion has been moved to the ght. it's not possible. the united states should not put its policy behind beautiful ideas that have no chance of success. we should learn by now that we will not get what we want. they will not deliver what we want. host: ohio on a republican line, hi. caller: yes, i want to ask the two guests, do palestinians have a right to exist? ask them why israel is committing crimes against humanity. nobody talks about that. we talk about terrorist. but we do the same thing. israel is committing crimes against humanity and they are silent about it. talk about hamas, give me a break. host: that's jonathan in ohio.

the united nations tuck court stopped short friday of a cease-fire in gaza in a genocide case brought by south africa. guest: i don't agree with the caller that we don't ever hear about these things. i work in this arena and i hear it every d all the time. as you suggest and show us, it's all over the newspers. my concern first and foremost is with the american interests. the big threat to the american interests today is the rise of the iranian military power. i'm not just talking about their nuclear program which is a serious concern. they have developed through drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles a disruptive military capacity that is capable of overwhelming the defenses of all of ourllies

and our bases in the middle east. we are not used to thinking of iran as a military power in this sense. we have -- we could if we put some thought into it, develop an answer to this but we haven't. we are offering our allies in our own bases purely defensive measures against these weapons and as a result, the iranians are getting more and more influenced all over the region. we are in serious danger of losing the region to the iranians so i disagree with been said before that they are too weak to have a hegemonic presence in the region. that's what we need to be concerned about. guest: the israelis are mmitting crimes against humanity in za. i don't think the israelis -- they deny that in a legal sense but i think if their policy. they understand they are doing that and it's in large para campaign of vengean, not just

against hamas but the people who support them. just listen to t israeli ministers including netanyahu e prime minister when they talk about what they are up to and gaza. it's punitive. leaving aside whether you want to call it genocide and what the icj says, it's a sin, a terrible thg that they killed 25,000 palestinians and i thinkbout 9000 children there. i don't think thunited states of america should be paying for that as we do and providing the nitions. i think it would be better if we had a different policy but in the meantime, i think we should at least shift our objectives around the regions of we are not underwriting that and not putting our troops in harm's way -- if you think the iranians

have this great military capability which i think has been overstated. there has been reports of drones and cruise missiles and the iranians are part of that. i think their military power over all is not that impressive but they have a decent missile capability. if you think that's the case, you shouldn't stick u.s. forces into syria and iraq in range of at least their proxies who have various missiles and rockets and mortars they can fire u.s. troops. in service of missions that are largely accomplished in terms of the anti-isis thing. even if you are eager to have some sort of conflict with iran which i'm not, you might want to think about whether we are doing it in the right arena with you ntingents of u.s. forces that are relativy vulnerable there. these different attks on u.s. forces have not killed anyo because of the weapons possessed

by the forces firing at the u. at our troops. they are limited in accuracy and explosive punch. that's teorary good newthat might not last. guest: can i respond to that? i just want to say that i agree with whabeen said about re-posturing. we neeto look at our position throughout the region and understand what the threat is from iran imposter ourselves accordingly. it's absolutely true. i wa to disagree strongly on o points he made. first, his moral condemnation of the israelis i think was complete misplaced. the israeli army is one of the most moral armies in the world. it is operating one of the most difficult environments and hamas in the manner military strategies can't be emphasized enough. a matter military strategy, uses the palestinian

civilians as human shields. it's a barbaric practice in the entire world should be condemning it every day. every palestinian who is killed is killed because of the hamas strategy of putting civilians in front of their terrorist army. i also disagree with the use of the statistics coming out of gaza. we have no idea how many civilians have been killed. the statistics coming out of guys are coming from the health ministry which is controlled by hamas and sometimes they lie and we need to understand that from the beginning. host: mr. friedman? guest: even if you think they are off by a couple of thousand, the overall point holds. i don't think anybody really alleges or belves that there hasn't been a large number of civilians killed by israeli fire. i'm not an international human

rights lawyer. i'm interested in u.s. interest but i would say the way it works in international law is even if somebody is operating through military operations near civilians, that doesn't just grant you the right to kill the civilians. have different targeting practices and there's been good reporting coming primarily out of israel about the targeting practices they've adopted in this war which are incredibly excepting of civilian casualties. it's not just that they are killing them on purpose, it's not that their particular interested in liming civilian damage and are going box two killed fighters. they have opened up the floodgates and that is not how the united states military operates. that is part of the tragedy but

the israelis havadopted policies that make it worse. people can disagree about the wisdomf going into gaza and everything that is happening there in terms of civian casualties. we should consider the possibility that we do not have to be party to it. i feel i am a supporterf israel b that does not mean we have to pay for its wars. host: tom on the virginia republicans line. go ahead. caller i have been wking at the national level counterterrorism. your guests are talking about that threat that iran poses.

they are already a hegemonic power. they control militia throughout the region. theyontrol the universities. from iran we basically exchange hegemon for hegemon. many of our sons and daughters are currently in syria. iranians are the problem. absolute, 1000% deterrent is the only thing that will stop this. i want everybody out there listening to this and i mean that in the most sincere way, these people -- i want you to imagine if on our own border a group of people flew in on paraglider's and murdered 1400

people literally in their beds -- host: we got the point. mr. friedman: i support israel's right toefend itself. we don't have to have an invented scenario to imagine ericans being killed. i supported the war in afghanistan. i am in favor of there being no more hamas. i looki at it from a u.s. perspective and we ha to keep in mind at ournterests are not the same as israel's. they will do what they are goi to do. it is difficult to get them to listen to us particularly on

things that they deem essential to their security. what we have to do is ask how much do we want to be responsible that and how much do we want to consider our relationship with israel as one of unconditional support. the george w. bush adnistration and the reagan administration took a much tougher line on support for isel than any democratic or republican president now does. george p. bush received bones unl he got what he wanted. reagan was tough on t israelis when they were going into lebanon and doing things that he did not suort. our politics have changed in that regardnd i think that they could be a little more nuanced and distanced. mr. doran: every ally in the region in the middle east is watching to see if the united

states is going to support israel against an iranian proxy. if the united states is not going to do that and i'm talking about saudi arabia and others, then they will conclude that the united states will not support them. what they will do is they will hedge toward iran and china. that process is already underway. we saw in the last couple of days the united states has gone to china to ask china to restrain iran -- to engage the iranians to have them restrained. on the principle that china has more influence over tehran than the united states. this is a superpower malpractice . we are going to a rival and saying help us with your ally in the middle east which is working to drive us from the middle east. that sends a message to all of

our allies that if they want help against an iranian threat, they should be going to beijing too. that is the dynamic we need to be looking at. i want to go backo one int that was made out the isrlis in gaza. throughout the 25,000 numr. how many of them were hamas fighters we get the numbers that e health minister throws o and say 25,000 civilians if you see the videos from hamas itself, the israelis say they have killed about 10,000 hamas fighters. let's assume that 25,0 number is accurate. i do not believe it accurate. but let's assumet is. the number of civilians killed drops to 15,00 that is a one to 1.5 ratio. that is extremely low for urban

warfare. all of these claims that these israelis are indiscriminately targeting civilians, it is propaganda. host: newspapers in israel are reporting these claims. i want to respond to one of the callers. there is this thological creature version of iran that existhat were hearing from the caller and in the press. there is no eviden that the iranians have control over hamas. they give the money, yes. but that does not mean they have command and corolling relationship. they give weapons to others, indeed. i don't think they have any control over them. striking iran does not do anything about the motives in

the resea. we have to accept that there is a more nuanced reality and that different actors have their own interests. by the way, states tend to balance power. think that people will roll over and join alliances with iran in the eventhat the united states is left, i think they will continue to oppose them in large part unless they can negotiate and strike the effective balance of power that keeps iran from running a month in the region. host: michael doran joining the conversation. they wertrying to broker a deal, bringing hostages and a cessation of conflict period.

mr. doran: unfortunately it is part of the u.s. effort to do two things. one, to stop the israelis which would leave hamas in power in gaza which means ham wins. they are not in a position politically to sayhat this is what they want to do. they are using the hostage issue which is a wedge issue inside israeli politics to put pressure and arrive at a cease fire that will strengthen hamas. that is the key thing we need to look at. mr. friedman: 9000 hamas fighters or some less number, i think that hamas won. have suffered griously. yond that, the israelis a interested in a cease fire to get theihostages back. do not justhink it is the u.s.

shoving this down their throat. they are different obscles to a ase-fire deal. hamas wants there to be some sort of bridge to an end to the conflict. it is probable or at least possible. the cease fire, at least a large segment of t israeli socie, people related to the hostages and all their friends and supporters are eager for a cease fire. host: bob joins us from illinois on the democrat line. caller: it is true that 70% of women and children are part of the 25,000 that died in gaza. you might as well say go after hamas. hostages are being tortured and

killed. i don't know of is the army or netanyahu who was pushing get hamas. you have to think back eight or nine hours that they did not do anything during that day. i saw on tv where a lady said help me. they said, fight for yourself. maybe they should not give isra money. go to netanyahu if he is the one. mr. doran: i did not hear.

that line was crackling so i only got lite bit. let me make a couple of points. we are not supporting israel as a favor to the israelis. . we are supporting israel t protect our interest in the region. if we ll back support for israel, israel will remain one of the most powerful countries in the region with a four-star military, four-star intelligence, ber superpor and many other assets. if we think that they will not find friends in th international arena who will support them, then we are making a big miste. the friends that they will find if we pull back will be china. that is where all of our allies are going. he says the iranians are a mythical creature. a natural balance will take place in the region if the united statepulls back. that is not true because of

these drones, ballistic missiles and missiles they have develope they have escalation dominance over all of our allies in the region except the israelis. the saudi's will not bow to the irians militily. they try tbalance them politically by turning to us and by turning to china. what we are doing is we are pushing all our allies to china. that is where we need to b worried. mr. friean: going back to what the caller said, the israeli government and the prime minister netanyahu have a real problem because of the aacks and the advance warning that they h and did not act on. arguably, the war is inteelating that little reckoning for -- that

political reckoninfor netanyahu. the chinese are not interested in the job of trying to manage middle eastern politic we should welcome them to it. is noa good job. if wwant to make life difficult for the chinesewe could trick them into doing that. i don't think they are that foolish. what mike said is tr. if we were not present in the middle east, our troop deployments are not protecting israel in a meaningful way. even if we did things differently and gave them less money, which i am not advocating, the israelis would still be a major per in the ddle eas it is not 1967 where thbalance of power was far ls favoble to them. that is not a great argumenfor continuing status quo u. policies and saying israel will be ok. their main problem is not a lack

of military. their main problem is what is going on in gaza. host: tre is a debate on capitol hill to try to pass the presidents supplemental funding bill. i believe nator sanders is saying if that goes forward, there should be conditions. would you agree with that assement? mr. friedman: yes. $14 billion that they came up with as a figure, the biden administration came up with as a figure to give israel has been heldp in the political debate about the government and what it should be attached to whether it is attached cuts -- whether it is tax cuts for ukraine. they have not gotten their money. the idea of making aids to israel were conditional on listening to us is a good idea. beyond that, it is already supposed to be conditional under u.s. law. we have the leahy act that people who commit gross human

rights violations do not get aid. the biden administration has triggered a process on whether or not we make that exception. in order to continue to give the money without getting into problems with the leahy act. . you can argue about whether or not it was really effective. according to u.s. law, aid is conditional. mr. doran: i don't understand why we would throw around a phrase like rose violatis of human rights when we a talking about a democratic ally. when i think gross violations of human rights, i think of th russians and the iranians the populating syria. if they destroyed all of the major cities in syria with the exception of damascus, that is what we are up against. our frontline ally in that fight

is israel, which rgets its enemies in accdance with ternational law and accordance with our dictates. why would we want to go around denigrating our own allies, impugning them moral when we are up against these monsters in russia, iran, syria, hamas and so forth? it is really beyond me. let me just say quickly, they said the israelis are not under serious military threat. i think he is totally wrong there. catastrophically, a policy based on his assumptions will lead to catastrophes. i just got back from israel. israel has been the populated by the attacksn israel. if there is a full scale war, it will do very severe damage in every israeli city, civilians

and israeli military inastructure. the israelis will win that war. there is no doubt in my mind abou that. it will be a very nasty war which on a domesc fnt, the worst war that israel has ever fought. guest: we have a view of israel as being weaker than its enemies and its neighbors that i think has stuck. i don't dispute the fact that ey have had a serious problem with the northern border. again, they have the capability to deal with that. it is not a problem where they did not have enough funds or the military to deal with it. they have a situation with missiles that can hit them near the border. that is a serious security problem. i am not disting that. mr. friedman: israel can hit any

target from the north to the south if it was to go to a full-blown war. the minute that military between iran and its proxies is the thing we should be focused on. host: let's go to friend in alabama, and depended line -- frank in alabama, independent line. caller:x president trump released 5000 taliban fighters in afghanistan at the same te he was drawingorces down to 2500. i was wondering what your peeing on how th was destabilized afghanistan. if hamas took hostages inside the border of rael, would israel still bomb those hostages or those aas in order to get the hostages bac isra is maki more enemies

than they are getting rid of. they are makingenerations of enemies because these kids are exriencing these bombings and they will grow up and become enemies of israel and they will spre their message and honestly if israel wanted to survive, they should be on a hets and minds campaign. we should support the iron dome. nothin els mr. don: purely densive measures do t work. this should be the lesn of tober 7. it should behe lesn of all the experience we have had with the iranians and others in the last couple of years. these drones, missiles and ballistic missiles that the iranns have, they put them together in e same strike package. they teach their proxiesow to do this. they have all of these weapons with different flight patterns. they overwhelm the sensors and the interceptors of defensive systems.

you cannot counter an offense-dominant regime like that with purely defensive measures. it simply does not work. the iranians have figured this out and that is why they are on the march all around the region. i agree with ben that there are severe wknesses that the iranians have. we need to exploit those. you can only exploit them with offensive actions. again, the morality of the israelis, i think americans need to look at mecca and what the united states bombing dido those cities we were fighting isis. we should hold the israelis to the same standard that we held ourselves when we fought isis. that is some ethical standard that no other military in the world is possibly going to hold itself to. mr. friedman: i think that mike

is oversimplifying aut the missiles and the different groups associated. these missiles have been fired at ships in the red sea in the name of protecng gaza. they have one or two hits with a ballistic missile. when they hit things, it is usually with a drone which has almost no explosive power. ey have sunk no ships and they have killed nobody on the sps. they a harassing ships and going around to avoid fire because they don't want to be harassed. it is not like they have very accurate fire. it is more like the opposite. they have fired missiles toward israel. they don't have the range to get there. they have not hit anything. most of the iranian proxy groups have some accurate drones. but an accurate drones, the kind that are available to these people, ve thankfully relatively little expsive punch. we are may b headed towa a

world where there is liberation of extremely accurate and deadly missiles for theseroups. but we're not there yet and that is good news for u.s. forces that are taking fire on these ships in the red sea. mr. friedman: the definition of succs or a threat should not be based on a purely military assessment. if you have a diner and i go in wi a pistol and i shoot six shots into t ceiling, i do not harm a single person in the diner. i just ruined your business. everybody leaves. they are not gonna come back. they will hear when people can go in with impunity and shoot up the place. the last statistic i saw was that 80% of the ships through the suez canal have been shut down by these very inaccurate missiles. one last point.

ben mentioned that they fired a ballistic missile. there are two countries in the world that are developing suace to ship listing missiles. that is iran and china. they debuted the surface to ship ballistic missiles. this is a militia that has these weapons. this iwhat y are concerned with. he chose a more nuanced view. the fact for the united states is that iran is supplying sophisticated weapons to its proxies with impunity. that is what we have to stop. >> there has been an increase in shipping costs that has been

handed off to consumers primarily in china and europe where the shipments are going. it is a few centon the dollar. it is not a big economic effect. the effect on oil prices is nonexistent. it is a problem but it is not a huge problem. bombing the houthis over and over again has done nothing to fix the problem. we have to focus on our own interests. whatever we think about iran, we do not have to think of them as nice people. the united states has not been in the middle ying to manage these disputes, civil wars and interstate disputes. we have tried to manage it for a long time. we can let the iranians be someone else's problem. we have that oion. host: last call fronew york, republican line, lucy, good morning. caller: am not sure how mr.

doran can sit the with a straight face. israel is leveling apartment buildings. they killed three of their o soldiers who had white flags out. they are not a professional force d theyre not acting like a democracy. why is it when we give the hamas numbers according to the defense ministry and when we givehe israel numbers, we take it for grand? i don't know that it is 1400 people. they said th beheaded 40 babies. that was be dunked -- that was debunked. why do we think that israe is telling the trh but not hamas? we can call them freedom fighters. why do we call them terrorists? host: lucy put a lot out there. we are running short on time. mr. doran: is referencing a

different -- lucy is referencing a different reality. in the bush white house when we put the israelis out of gaza, on the theory that they were not occupying gaza, we saw what actually happened there. mr. rubin: hamas being in control ofaza is a terrible disservice to the people of their -- disservice to the people who lived there. most people in gaza would be alive word not for hamas. -- were it not for hamas. host: what are you watching for next and what concerns you most? mr. rubin: there is auestion of what happens after this war ds. if it ends sooner or later, will the raelis hang to it and try to run it as a police state

and wh is the role of the united states? will we be some kind of peacekeeping force? more broadly, i am worried about the united states getting sucked into a widening conflict in the middle east. i am worried about the biden adnistration deciding that these attempts to reestablish terms against the houthis and militias in iraq and sia are effective when they are evidentl faili and escalating to some greater kind of violence against iran and getting sucked into a wider war. mr. doran: the attacks are escalating. we have to have an answer that. if ben wants to pullut of the middle east, we hand them to china. the global energy, global fossil

fuel energy market, hand it to our greatest gbal competitor. if they think that will enhance american power and prestige in europe and the mets of the wod, we e sadly -- and the rest of the world, we are sadly mistaken. host: gentlemen, thank you for the conversation. we will go to open forum. if you want to participate, you can comment on this segment or other segments. it is (202) 748-8000. that is for democrats. (202) 748-8001 four republicans. independent, (202) 748-8002. open forum when "washington journal" continues.

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border security deal being put together in the senate s no chance of passing the house, underscoring that is we, more and more apparent to senators that steve scalise emphasize that if the details that have leaked to e public such as expedited work apartments or enhanced exposure authority would only kick in if it exeded 5000 people per day, it woulnot haveny chance of passing the house. also on capitol hill it was utah senator mitt romney talking about the site up there and the former presidentrole. according to his assessment as far as how that border deal is going, here is mitt romney from yesterday. [video clip] sen. romney: former president trump does not want us to solve the problem at the border. he wants to blame the problem on

biden. it is a shocking development. >> do you think this is what he wants, donald trump? rep. brownley: the border is a very important issue for donald trump and the fact that he will communicate to republican senators and congress people that he does not want us to solve the border problem because he wants and biotin -- because he wants to blame biden for it, is worrying. it is shocking that politics plays a role in this building. the reality is we have a crisis at the border. the american people are suffering as a result of what is happening at the border and someone running for president should try to get the problem solved as opposed to saying,

save that problem. do not solve it. t mtake cdifor solving it later. st: the former president sponded saying that he knows nothg about me or my views. he wilbe leang theenate soon andur coury wilbe a better place. we need a strong bordeand unless we get that, we are better off not making a dea at is om a sial si. we canalk abt thats well calirnia srts us ofwith stephae on t indepdent line. call: goo morning, pedro. i would like to say i agree with mitt romney. foall of the rublicans that are backing donald trump, its really discussing thatot only does he not want to solv the border problem, he wants our economy to crash. he wants everything bad for our country so that he can present

-- he can pretend he is the best one. i don't understand how americans who call themselves patriots support that. how do you support somebody who wants our country to fail just so -- because he can make it better? that is baffling to me. i don't understand how people have that attitude. host: alex in frida, democrats line. caller: i hope you arhaving a good day. i was calling becae of the israel topic. i lived in israel for a year in 2014. the most racist people i have ever met our americans who imgrated to israel as settlers. i also want to say that they are traitors. this is ridiculous that we have so many genocidal people who haveodea about the subject. i amot sayini know more because i live there but i definitely learned a lot. it is a shame to me.

as far as the topic on the border, i need to address the republicans in your audience. the republican has no interest in solving any borr issue. they don't even see it as an issue. the economy america is relying on these immigrants being exploited by business owners. it is insane to me to think that you do not understand how bad inflation is in other countries. the only reason your bread is not $10 per loaf is because employers are exploiting workers and abusing the fact that they are immigrants. host: let's hear from lynda in west virginion the republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wouljust like to say i do not agree with the last caller about the immigrants cong to work in restaurants for cheap. for years immigrants have come

across the border -- hello? host: go ahead. caller: ok. for years immigrants have come back and forth across the border to help ck crops and groups and so forth -- in arizona, florida, texas. i just feel that the democrats want to find everything that they can against not funding the border. i have family that live in texas . grandchildren and children. and they live right near houston. i know what is going on. my granddahter that is a nurse has immigrants in there cussing at her, call her names, have to get security just to help. that happens over and over.

i would like to say one thing about the israeli war. i think that the united states needs to keep helpingsrael. they are our allies and we need to help them. host: let's go to kenneth in michigan, independent line. hello. caller: you identified me as an independent. host: that is the line you called. is tha correct? caller: i am talking. host: you identified as an independent. i want to know if you called on the correct line. caller: that's right. host: go ahead. caller: as soon as anybody calls in, you slap a label on their forehead. the so-called moderator does not know if you are leaning left or right. i think it would do you good.

how do you -- host: how do you identify? caller: i would like to see the moderator -- host: i'm asking you do you lean left or right? caller: i just told you, you slap a label on me. what is your label? host: we will go to ernest in rhode island on the democrat line. hello. caller: thankfor taking my call. have a question. it seems that most of the congressman who supported isrl ha received about $100,000 nually from the israel lobby. how much of the for billion dollars that we are giving israel actually comes back to the caucus tt we are giving politicians in t unite ates? any thoughts on that? henry -- host: henry is up next on the

republicanine. caller: liste, i am for women rights and abortion upo 16 weeks and after that, it is muer. at abo t 49,00young n who wererafted a did n ha a worto say about it and they sent em outo w to ge kied to otect e womenf is cntry and t sayou nnot tch me,ut you can uch thmen. at is proem. host:oug int. pau miesota. caer: hel. the two men that you had on previously talking about the middle east, filter out what people s in a sympathetic way -- in a silistic way based on your pronunciation of the word iran. do they pronounce it i ron or do

ey pronounce it i ran. i listen to the people who say i ron. the man from the hudson institute should be disqualified just because he was foreign policy person in the bush ministration where we went to war based on false information abouteapons of mass destruion. valerie plamwas out it as -- was outed as a cia agent. i was wdering who the legislator i with the beard making the cthroat gesture? is it tim burchett? i see he no long has a..

i beliee is a representative from tennessee. host do you mean the website banne caller: i mn the clipsnder the headingthis iwhat democry look like at is interspersed in the show occaonally ho: gcha. let's goo johnn michan on the independent line caller: i have an observation. i was a bernie sanders supporter . i want to make an observation about donald trump. when he was runng, he claim to know all the besteople according to his -- he put into his cabinet. according to him, most of the

people that were in his cabinet were kicked out because they were according to him, spineless. that imy comment. host:here were two instans yesterday concerning the fmer president and gal matters. usa today pking up the former president's tesmony in the case of carro. they make their final pitches in terms of whether the president will have to pay after the allegaons of sexual assault. he clashed with the gesturing just a few minutes on the witness dan on thursday -- witness stand on thursday. he continues to deny the allegations outside court io the predawn hours. he claims he does noeven know who this woman is or where she came from.

it is anothescam, a political witch hunt. also in washington, dc, the former aide to forr president trump -- it was outside of the courtroom where peter navarro responded. supporters were in the ckground making some stracting noises so you will hear that. ideo clip] >> mr. woodward has already filed the appeal in this case. this is a case, first impression, at i had said from day one is just for the supreme court. it is a case that really asks the important question of whether a senior white house aide can be compelled to testify

by congress. that is where we are. unfortunately, the oppositi behind us will not let this be heard so we will do our best. host:e said more on yesterday. if you are interested, you can go to the website c-span.oror our app. you can participate in open forward. democrats (202) 748-8000. (202) 748-8001, republicans. independent line, (202) 748-8002 . dan from new york on the independent line. caller: i am calling about social security. i'm interested in hr 82 in the house resolutions. i was wondering if there any updates on that. host: we will have to look that up. i don't know if i will be able to. why are you interested?

caller: because i am a retired military. i just recved a letter in the mail on my social security. i worked elsewhere after retirement for 10 years so that i could draw social security. the letter says now that my little social security i get which is $800 per month is going to be cut down to for hundred dollars per month -- for hundred dollars -- $400 per month because of this. host: from new york, independent line. you are on. caller: i want to ask something about gaza. why is the united states not pushing to do the corridor

again? i think something else from the east and the west is closed. it is just from the south, it is not closed. all the weapons have been from the south. they are responsible for this and they are getting toward the corridor. if you close this, then the gaza street will be closed. i am not saying you have to give them food and whatever they want ,, they can build a casino over there. do not let them get weapons. if you let them control the south, the weapons will continue even if we leave the gaza strip.

that is comment. host: let's hear fro deborah in fairfax, virginia on the republican line. caller: i was always a democrat but after what mr. biden has done and the fact that he has blood on his hands from the palestinian children, i can never be a democrat again. it seems like the suation is the tail wagging the dog. he has lt control of israel they don't wa to listen to him anymore but they take our money i am so proud of the yng people who are demonstrating for the cease fire. this is what we experienced in 1969 with people protesting agnst the war. it war my heart to see these people out there. these young people are taking chances. i think it is wonderl. none of our politicians will listen to them, to the people.

i don't even know what to call it. this is incredible that the politicians, because they are getting so much money from aipac , they will not listen to what the constituents want. that is all i have to say. i don't like mr. trump either but i could never vote for mr. biden with the blood on his hand. host: that is deborah in virginia. alabama.com reporting the alabama death row inmate became the first prisoner to die using a new method of execution in the united states, suffocation by nitrogen gas. the 58-year-o was ecuted at the correctional facility. he and hispiritual advis had issu prior to the execution. the eyes of the world are on this. "our prayer is that people will not support this." this case had gone to the supreme court but was

turned back by the justices. one of the people was sotomayor who wrote, "alabama has elected him as its guinea pig to test a new execution never attempted before. the world is watching this court yet again for abama t experiment with a human le." more of thatnline you wt to read that. let's hear from david, democrat line. caller: hi. i was the next caller to speak in the previous section and it ended. i wanted to a michael doran a couple of questions because he kept discrediting claims of human rights abuses by the israeli government and i would like to rect the viewers to a u.s. dartment of state 2022 report on human rights abuses by

the israeli government, including the unlawful and arbitrary killing of palestinian people. i have heard reports that the department of state report that people can google and read this. section one is where it claims that they are arbitrary kiings of palestinian people. this is not in the report that en the police are called in ituatis like that, they do notng there are many thingshat people are saying just to make people here in ameca react. so of these claims like the

beheading of babies debunked. why would theye making claims like that? ju to get people riled u host: one more call from alabama, independent line. caller:hank y, pedro. thk you r c-span. on the border. the border crisis is because of social secury. the democrats and e republics are trying their best to solve the social security problem and they ar doing it witmassive immigration, illegal. you get th in here, you get them to wor they pay soci security but ty did t receive it. they a trying to take ca of social security and i cannot believ that these people who watch this program do not realizthat. host: how did you come to that conclusion? caller: i sat there and watched the foer immration policy advisor for bush and obaman

c-span.org. go t c-span.oryou can find all ofhis. and this man along with a caller, a black man from new jersey that lked about the benefits of social secury, and that is how i have come to it. i know i am right. host: that is rin in alabama finishing this open for. i wanto let you know about an evt you can watch for today post by the bipartisan policy center featuring former house speaker paul ryan and jpmorgan chase ceo jamie diamond. they will discuss ways to create economic security for working families, tax credits and other incentives. hosted by the bipartisan policy center. ve coverage starts at 11:00. you casee that on the main channel c-span, the app, or follow along online at c-span.org. the topic of tax breaks for

businesses and low income families, the effort of legislation that is working through the house and the senate. joining us next to work through what is being proposed, richard rubin will walk us through that and yocansk questions about that too. he will join us next on "wasngton journal." >> when nigel hamilton was a student at cambridge university in great britain, he stayed for a brief time with winston churchill. he also spent hours talking about world war ii after the war with montgomery. these experiences lead to a life as an author about history. he moved to the u.s. in 1988. he is based in massachusetts. books include the bestseller,

"jfk: reckless youth," two volumes on president clinton and a trilogy on fdr. nigel hamilton is nown american citizen. >> nigel hamilton, on th episode of book notes plus, available on the c-span now app or where ever you get your podcasts. >> if you ever miss any coverage, find it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of hearings, debates a other events feature markers that guide y to newsworthy highlight. these points of interest appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on videos. this tool makes it easy to get an idea of what was debated and

decided in washington. spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. >> today watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail, a roundup of campaign coverage providing a one-stop shop to discover where the candidates are traveling across the country and what they are saying to voters. this along with accounts of political reporters, updated poll numbers, data and campaign ads. watch 2020 fork campaign trail -- 2024 campaign trail today at 7:00 eastern, our app or you get your podcasts. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> democracy does not look like this. it looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work. a republican -- our republic can

thrive. get informed straight from the source. c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. from the nation's capital to wherever you are. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by richard rubin. heovers tax policy for the wall street journal. gues thanks for having m ho: a bipartisan effort to get tax breaks to businesses and families. how did we get here? guest: the core of this has been out there for more than a year. it stems from the things that each side wants. for republicans, there are four big business tax breaks, businesses have changed since

2023, some affecting research, capital production and the third is for interest, if you are borrowing. they want to go back to the way some of those things were before. democrats have been wanting to enhance the child tax credit where we had these large tax credits ring 2021. it was fully refundable. $3000 per household. $3600 for young kids. you did not have to have an income to get it. there is the a knowledge meant that they will not get all the way there. the idea was republicans would get the business aspect and democrats would get something, but not the full 21 version of the child tax credit. they could have a meeting of minds and get there. there were talks in late 2022 and they resum in 2023 and now they are here early in 2020 for

and you've got the republican chairmanf the house, the democratic chairman of the senate finance committee who have reached an agreement that has moved through the committee already and now we are waiting to see whether it will get through congress which has had difficulty passing, as wall know. maybe ey can find a y to g this thing over the finishine. host: as >> far as hurdles they have to cross, what would those be? guest: procedurally they will get it through the house as soon as next week. then it will go through the senate. the white house has shown that support for the bill. in terms of you have seen some democrats pass ways and means, their work three that voted against it that said the child tax credit didn't go too far. the bill is unbalanced and gives too much to business. i think you have got some

republicans who have raised concerns about the child tax credit. they go too fain that sense of providing benefits to people and househds that are not working or working a lot, so there is concern about work incentives. we can talk more about that. to look at the big picture, all the bill does is set this up through 2025. it goes retroactively on forward for businesses through 2025. same thing for the child tax credit, then what happens after that? it leads all of that open. there is concerns if you have tax brks set to expire by the end of 2025, when we have trillions of tax breaks scheduled to expire then, that there are coerns about what willappen when the next congress gets to that. host: if you would exain some things as far as these aspects of the legislati when it comes to the child cret. it would do, first of all, we

calculate the refundable cret. guest: the credit is $2000 and eight increases income goes up you have to have at least $2500 in enings to qualify. very low income milies can't get it. that doesn't ange at all in this. currently, it faces in a per child basis. if you have two children, you need more income to get to the fullredit. if you getow under this proposal, you would be facing in for multiple children at one time. it is a faster phase in for multi-child families. the other thing that it does, it increases the maximum amount refundable, you can get back even if you not owe income taxes. right now for 2023, that is $1600 of the $2000 you can get back. if you qualify for the maximum credit, you can on get back $1600 if you are not paying incomeaxes. this wld move it faster toward

the ful$2000. it indes the $2000 cret to inflation starting in 2025, where it is likely to be $2100 that year. in 2017, congress doubled th child tax credit as part of the law president trump signed. they did not set that $2000 credit to indexed for inflation. there is a lot of pieces of the tax code are -- it ian open question about what will happen to that. this starts moving that credit upward where it has been static and lost some of its value from 2017 toow. host: the child tax credit, how does it work? guest: the child tax credit is a up to $2000 per child that you get on you tax credit. remember the state credit, not a deduction, it reduces your tax lls. it ds not reduce the amot of income you are reporting. credit is more valuable than the 000 deduction. the idea is torovide a and if it to households who are raising

ildren as a recognition of the cost of raising children. it is a broadly supported benefit. it goes up relatively far up the income scale. you can get the full credit if you are an individual with an income of $200,000 or a married cole with up to 400,000 dollars. after that, it phases out. it is a broadly enjoyed benefit at has had bipartisan support ov the years. democrats want to make it more like a universal child allowance concept where everody will get it no matter what. they had monthly payments in 2021. they like that structure, as opposed to these lp sum payments people get as part of their tax refund. that is the basic idea of the child tax credit. host: if yoare interested in learning more about these proposals on these tax benefits and you want to ask our guest westerns about it, (202) 748-8000 for democrats.

(202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. on the business side when it comes to those proposals, you talked about this, deductions for whats own as research and it's very mental expenditures. guest: so, before 2017, businesses could deduct those immediately just like you can deduct if you are buying pencils or you are paying wages if you have research expenses,ou can deduct those from your incomas a business immediately. what theongress did was looking for ways to pay for coorate tax cuts. starting in 2022, for domestic research expenses you had to dedu those over five yrs. that means your deductions in 20 are small, which means taxable income is higherhich

means you are payinmore in cash taxes now. for large companies, it was a cash flow problem. you have seen defense contractors in particular, manufacturers have been agitated abouthis because it is hundreds of millions of dollars they are paying tohe treasury in 2022 and 2023. essentially, they will get those deductions over the next few years. it has beean existential problem for smaller comnies. the classic example we have written about our companies that are funded by government gnts. they are small companies funde by government grants. those government grants count as income. they use those grants to pay employees to do research when they now can't deduct those. then, they are basically paying taxes on all of that income a it is the giant, phantom tax bills on phantom incom getting it back eventually is not a great solution for smaller startups.

th have been pressuring congss -- that is one of the business breaks where there the most bipartisan support for changing it. democrats, -- in new hampshire in particur has advocated for going back to the old system. it would be retroactive, back to 2022. host just to highlight, you can expand on these issues, extending allowances for business interest, 100% bonus depreciation, itncreases depreciable business asss. guest: on depreciable assets, for smaller businesses, that makes it more generous. bonudepreciation under the 2017 tax law, they have what we call 100% full expensing. like research expenses, instead of spreading those deductions over the life of an asset -- if you have a machine that is roughly expected to be a 20 year

machine, you would take those ductions over time. you would take those deductions immediately. under the 2017 tax law, to reduce the headline cost of that in part, republicans set that to phase out to 20%. this proposal wod put it back to 100. interest, there is concern -- it is stemming from that decision. there is concern it is encouraging companies to be overleveraged, that if interes deductions were too generous, particularly when paired with full expensing for capital expenses, you can end up subsidizindebt finance investments and so this tightened definition is not worth hitting into the technicalities. 's heightened definition starting in -- they would tighten them even further in recentears. this would go back to that middle ground at thewere at in the past few years.

host: the wall street joual's chard rubin joining ufor this conversation. north carolina, independent line, ahead. caller: i would like to make a comment on the earned tax credit. is a tiny amount for really poor families. it's wholpremise was to lift children out of poverty. it was bad to get those installments because in the real-time of raising children, you have real problemshat need addressing like a flat tire or whatever happens. so, it is sad that really, really poor families do not get anywhere near the $3000 a year. i wa to know what you think the likelihood of continuing the affordable connectivity program, because that is a real help for children in poverty, especially at schools. they use the ipads, you have to have it.

they say, we do not offer those be -- those jet packs where the kids can have, go get the affordable connectivity program. the one thing i would like for, ange the language. instead of saying rh people get tax credits and poor people get welfare, just ll it all tax credit. it is all taxes. host let's put it out there f the guest. guest: i like your last point, that is one of the reasons why the child tax credit is supported so much by both parties, democrats can talk about how it ia benefit for families and replicans can talk about how it is a benefit for the families. republicans li tax breaks, democrats like framing things as tax breaks to get birtisan support. there has been rhetorical backing for the idea of lumping erything into the tax code like this. income support, welfare for families in the tax code in part because it complicates the tax

code but at theame time, if you were to set up a sepate system fort, you would need to know wherehildren are, where parents are, you might want to know how mucthey make, bank account information. the irs has all of that. it raises additional work int the tax system and irs, but it does make it simpler in that respect. i do not know as much about the affordable connectivity progra i'm going to pass on that, unfortunately, for you. the monthly payments, i do not see that happening as part of this agreement. there was a lot of democra who supported that idea of having that monthly income suort for families to yell with those expenses that may come up, as opposed to this giant, lump sum. it is important to realize for a lot of households, middle and lower income households, the tax refund is the single largest financial event of the yea you will see -- retailers wil

entice sal around that. there are a bunch of loan oductshat have existed over time to adnce the tax refund. part of those monly payments was designed t breakp that system and not he inco be as lumpy for low income familie that is less like to happen as part of this dea ho: (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001, independents, (202) 8-8002. a viewern killeen, texas. pedro, hello. caller: how are you doing, mr. pedro? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: ok, the question i have -- i watched the last guest you have on their. i want to ask about the congress attempt on tax bill. what years can you go back if you have a kid that has been

born in that year, but he is not born during that tax year? how do you go back to clean the credits for that kid? guest: i think i understand the question. this deal would start with tax year 2023. tax filing for tax year 2023 opens in three days, on monday. the irs will start accepting returns. because it is for loewen come families who tend to file early are expecting large refunds. there is urgency in trying to get this done. the way this will work, you claim it on your 2023 tax return. the irs will update its systems and you would claim it that way. the is a provision in there that says if, designed to you with a circumstance where people file their returns and then congress changes the law, for the irs to send you additional

payments. the idea is they would do that automaticay the way they did when congress changed on appointment compensation taxation in 2021 after the tax season had started. we will see if that actually happens. it would be dealt with on your 2023 tax return as you file it. it would also apply for 2024 and 2025 when yoapply for those returns. host: how complicated is passing this bill being so close to the opening of tax season? guest: it complicates it. in some ways, we know congress does not function without deadlines. in some ways, it spurs congress along, we have got to get this done for families filing their tax returns now. but, congress is dealing with the appropriations deadline, it is dealing with the defense, foreign aid supplemental deadlines. it is dealing with border debates going on. they have got recess coming up. it is finding a slot in the

congressional calendar, particularly in the senate, where they can spend time on this. it is going to be difficult. host: we have a viewerhat writes in on saying, this is jay sanders, asking what rationale exists for the child tax credit that would not exist aftert expires and the y for is what is admitted wage fraud and abuse? why shouldn't that not go away on its own to not fund new tax code spending? guest: we have not talked about this. this bill is fully paid for, about $79 billion. the revenue raising provision is changes to the employee tention tax credit. the tax edit was something congress created in march 202 during the beginng of the pandemic. it was an incentive for employers, both bunesses and nonprofits to small businesses, toeep workers on payrolls attached ttheir jobs so that they -- when there was disruptions, the could turn the

economy back on somewhat quickly and not have people lose jobs and come back. what happened with that in terms of the tax code --people are filing amended claims for 2020 and 2021. the credit expired in september of 2021, but it is open for retroactive claims essentially through april of 2025. this is the program that has cost three or fourimes then what congress initially expected. the irs thinks there is a lot of fraud and ineligible claims goin on. it would increase penalties for those claims but set a new cutoff date, so instead of april of 2024 for 2020 returns, the irs could not pay out any erc employer retention credit claims that come in after january 31, which is very soon.

as theiewer suggests, there is ncerned -- we have seen the senato from south carolina talk about this most. ok, if this is wasteful, congress should just get rid of it and save $78 billion and find some other way to pay for tax breaks. the argument on the others is, look, ts is the besway to put a deal together whe it fully pays for itsel it is real mon that would not go out the door from the irsf they pass this and set that cutoff date. it is another one of the hurdles that we will be looking for as they go througthis in the senate. host: let's hr from jennifer inonnecticut, independent line. caller: good morning. i was calling with a comment and question. before they can make more tax deals for anybody which is appreciated, when you call the irs, a, either nobody answers the phone or it takes two hours and after talking to somebody when you are trying to pay your taxes with our debt, the problem

is the people keep you one hold and tell you, can you hold for 10 more minutes? they say, we can't locate your return because i am not trained to handle that. after you spend two hours talking to somebody, they still can't tell you. i heard a rumor they lost nine. millionor more tax returns i was wondering if that was actually true. guest: two things on that, one, the irs has gotten a lot of money over the past couple of years to impart improved taxpayer service. the telephone answering times are better than they were in the past. they are still looking to imove them. i think they focus on having people on the lines during tax season, which we are basically entering right now. i am curious of people to -- at people's experiences happen different. in terms of lost tax returns, i

think there were 1099 returns that had gotten destroyed because they had gotten backlogged and they got criticism from congress over that. it was not tax returns they lost. the irs is still dealing with some backlogs. we talked about t employer retention credits. there are about one million of the employer retention credits they are backlogged on. they are more caught up on returns than they were in the pandemic. they are aware of trying to improve their customer service as best they can. it is stors like that they are super sensitiv t ho: stephen, arizona, independent line. caller: yes, one of the things i complain about biden and the democrats, it comes on tv nationally and he says, we are only going to -- we are going to go after the lt. they are going to pay their share. in reality, he will e the same

tax write offs that trump uses and anyone who has made a lot of money. my point is this, i have been retired for five years. i have a small ebay business. since biden got in office, i make less money. that is not biden fault -- biden's fault. the pandemic has something to do with that. i made less money and i got taxed more. i guess i am paying my fair share. i must be one of those people that make over $400,000 a year. it ijust rhetoric that the demoats stillave there, that they are going after the wealthy when they are wealthy and they use the same darn tax write offs and us poor people -- not poor, but middle-class, are paying it, their share for their extra taxes. i know waitresses that now,

their tips are being looked at and audited. that is what the 7000 irs agents tt they hired are doing. the rich are still going to get there tax ite-offs. that is what i have to say. guest: tax season in arizona, to the first point -- host: you recently wrote a story with the headline $6 trillion in taxes, dealing with tax policy. guest: what president biden talked about not raising taxes on people making below $400,000 and raising taxes abovthose levels, he -- it is interesting the caller said he has seen this, congress has not changed much at all in terms of raising taxes on anybody individually. they raised business taxes in 2021, but not on the individual side. we are headed for, if you think

this bill we are talking about today is large, at $80 billion, where we are headed next year at the end of next year's and norma's -- year is enormous. the corporate tax rate stays permanent at the 21%. the tax rate on the individuals, the standard deductionthe child tax credit, the alternative tax, the date tax, the internationatax provisions, all are said expired from their current form at the end of 2025. who knows what is going to happen? it is going to be shaped by the election this fall and whether one side has full control of the other. there are enormous gaps between where the parties say they want to go. we will see what they ultimately do. i expect the 2025 legislatively

will be a busy year for taxes, where you will see loss back and forth, either one party trying to superimpose its will as they did in 2009 when you had a new president coming in with a unified congress, or if we have divided government, it is going to be this ticking clock. if they do not do something, people paycheck withholding i 2026 will goigher and that is not something lawmakers want. st: tom on the republican line. caller: ps, -- yes, i am a cofounde of educational publishing company, a technology company. when they changed section 174 at the end of 2021,t had a serious, negative impact on our business. we had $2.1 milli in software development costs that we cld not deduct.

we could only deduct 10% of that. consequently, it wipes out any profits we had and unless that one section 174 was changed back to the was dashed to the way i wasn't 2021, there are going to be a long people that go out of business. this is a terrible thing that they did. needs tohange as soon poible. guest: when he says seion 174 is the research piece we talked about earlier, that is the x code section that used to allow businesses to immediately deduct search costs, software development costs in his case, and require them to spread it out over five years. for companies that size, $2 million inevenue -- that can be a big hit if you go from deducting all that and expecting to deduct all of that -- part of this was an expectation that congress would fix it. i think a lot of businesses out

theroperated throughout 2022 and 2023 thinking that congress would evtually deal with it. here we are in early 2024 and they have not. there are a lot of businesses outhere that are in the same position he is trying to deal with this. host: brian, massachusetts, republican line for our guest richard rubin of the wall street journal. caller: this may be detailed, mr. run. for people that are engaged in agriltural and timber forestry operations, there i depreciation on my equipment. if i bought a tractor two years ago that has depreciated, would you think that accelerated depreciation would help businesses and family farms? i will take the question off-line. thank you. guest: so -- i do not think anything i say is persol tax advice, is the first thing i

would say. it would depend on your particular circumstances. i do not know the details on agricultural equipment. in general -- section 179 is what pedro talked about before, it is reachable assets for smaller businesses tt congress is looking at increasing the limits on. in general, yes, the more that congress allows accelerated depreciation, that is generally good for businesses. you can write off those costs earlier that will, you are getting those deductions to lower your taxable income. you need look at your particular situation and how large or small your farm is and how it is gog to affect you. host: newersey, roger, independent line. caller yes. are you there? host: you a on, go ahead. caller: i was wonring, i get to social securi, i am a senior citizen.

my insurance is $200 per month. i have my soal security check. do i file taxes on my social security? guest: so, again, not relying for personal tax advice. social security benefits can be partially taxab. th didn't used to be, but as congress was trying to shore up the system it began making some of those benefits taxable. it depends on your iome level. four very low income senior citizens and social security recipients, its not taxable. as you move up a bit in income, some of those benefits a taxable. thirs runs tax account counseling forhe elderly programs and volunteer tax income sites, so there are resources out there to help people navigate those situations

. st: richard rubin writes for the wall stree journal. if you want to see his work, it issj.com guest: thanks for having me. st: another edition of "washington journal" comes our way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. will see you then. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning instute, which is responsible for its captiocontent and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> paul ryan and morgan chase ceo jamie dimon discuss ways to eate economic security for working families through tax credits and other incentives. hosted by the bipartisan policy center, live coverage begins at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now our free mobile video

app or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> c-sis your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including sparklight. >> the greatest town on earth is a place you call home. at sparklight, it is our home to. ght now, we are facing our greatest challenge. that is what sparklight is working around the clock to keep you connected. we are doing our part so it is easier to do yours. ♪ >> spalight supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ >> this weend, c-span's campaign 2024 coverage continues with events in southarolina. on saturday, president biden speaks at the south carolina democratic part's first in the nation dinner and celebration in columbia live at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span.

sunday, former south carolina governor nikki heypeaks to voters at a rally in conway. ve coverage at 5:00 p.m. eastern, also on c-span. both events will stream live on c-span now, our free mobile video app and online at the span.org -- c-span.org. ♪ >> today, what c-span's 2024 campaign trail, a weekly roundup of c-span's campaign coverage, providing a one-stop shop to discover where the candidates are traveling across the country and what they are saying to voters, along with first-hand accounts from political reporters, updated pole number' fundraising data and campaign ads. watch c-span's2024 campaign trail. today at seven a clock eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org or download the podcast on c-span now, our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪

>> president biden announced more that $5 billion in transportation and infrastructure investments. including a $1 billion investment for rebuilding the bridge that connects superior, wisconsin, and duluth, minnesota. this is about 25 minutes. ♪♪ >> hello, hello, hello. ♪♪ have a seat, take it. hello, wisconsin. i got to meet his twins and his wife, and no wonder he is here. tell you what, they are going to keep him here. governor of wisconsin, governor

reverse. tony, stand up. and al, the governor of minnesota, tim walsh. and thanks to the outstanding senator, tammy baldwin of wisconsin. and amy klobuchar from the state of minnesota. if i have all three of them at my side, i don't worry about anything. and two great mayors. the mayor of superior, wionsin, and the mayor of duluthminnesota. stand up, guys. [cheers and applause] lks, i am here today to talk about mething that does not get enough attention. the progress ware making to invest in america and american workers and americ products, to invest in america. that's what we are doing,

br