congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> in the next 30 minutes we'll focus on the federal impact of the shutdown. nicole ogrysko is a reporter that deals with federal agencies. remind us how many employees are furloughed, how many are working and not getting paid and how many contractors are being impacted here. >> nicole: so total is 800,000 that are impacted by this particular partial-shutdown, and of,0 that it's 420,000 who are working without pay they're considered accepted employees and then the other 380,000 are home furlough said.

now the contractor issue is interesting because we do not know those numbers have been pretty difficult to honestly come by. i think the professional services counsel they deal with contractors, federal contractors and they have a really vague number of hundreds of thousands of federal contractors are supporting agencies. so that number is hard to quantify. >> john: there's a lot of people who won't be getting paychecks as of tomorrow. whether the shutdown comes up, it talks about back pay. >> nicole: it's not guaranteed but it's virtually likely at this point. that's based on what the past tells us. so in 2013 congress pass legislation guaranteeing back pay for federal employees. same with the earlier shutdown in 2018. federal employees did receive back pay. while it's not guaranteed congress pretty much even time pulls through and passes legislation. >> john: what about the

contractors that we talked about. >> nicole: they arewe not guaranteed back pay. there is legislation out there for low-wage federal contractors so those people in federal cafeteria, janitorial staff, security guards but that is not guaranteed, and actually i don't think we've seen that go through in congress in recent shutdowns anyways. >> john: who's leading that effort and c is that garnering rnsupport? >> nicole: it has multiple cosponsors with dc delegate eleanor homes norton in the house. and chris van hollen, tina smith, mark warner and tim kaine in the senate, and on the house side we typically have the maryland and virginia congressmen who jump on board to that effort. >> john: we'll be joined by one of those congressmen gerry connolly will be here to talk vabout the federal shutdown. special line in this segment for federal workers 202-748-8000

federal workers or 202-748-8001 all others want to focus on you and your stores and impact to you. in terms of the impact with this paycheck being missed yesterday we're starting to see stories about individual federal employees setting up gofundme pages. vin youg talk through that effot and what you've looked through in the terms of ethic to be able to do that. >> nicole: it's complicated because while there are government ethics rules for accepting gifts, and that's pretty much what these gofundme pages are. if you're receiving donations you're receiving a gift. typical guidance will tell you can't accept a gift if it's over 20 colorado, or you can't accept a gift from a hoibted source. so someone or a contract that your agency does business with, and not a prohibited source. in addition ether rules governing specifically the dollar amount within a given

year. so you can't accept gifts worth $50 from one person in a given calendar year. this opens up a ton of ethical questions. these gofundme pagese and there isn't necessarily guidance from the office of government ethics as to how feds should deal with this. >> john: are they working on putting guidance out am. >> nicole: oeg did put out standard guidance before they left. much of that office is furloughed. the guidance was frankly pretty generic. agency ethics officers likely aren't working, they're most likely furloughed. but general counsels should be working. so with federal employees have questions about thimtion, and they want to be proactive they could email their general counsel. >> john: what's a gofundme story you've seen during this story. >> nicole: a lot of them similar, family members with disabilities or serious medical

conditions, one might be a erfederal employee the other mit be a stay at home mom or dad, and just the financial that a government shutdown brings is causing them hardship. >> john: we had a caller in the last segment a federal employs upset up about the trump administration appointees getting a pay bump during the shutdown, can you talk about the status of that and where that stands. >> nicole: it's delayed according to the office of management. they put out a memo to agencies saying we want you to hold off on giving your political appointees a pay raise and they acknowledged the fact that over the last four years congress has actually chosen to freeze pay for political appointees and they've done that with appropriations language, and it seems like that language has been standard. something that lawmakers add in their appropriations bill and it's not controversial. because we don't have appropriations bills and we're in a government shutdown they

didn't do that. so we're in the situation with where political appointees could get a raise at some point. >> john: is this somethingng realized after the fact. >> nicole: its unclear. the optics don't necessarily look right because the president hason chosen to freeze pay for federal employs for the rest of 2019. congress could come back and say otherwise and it looks like they will. at the same time congress will most likely come back and say we want to freeze pay for political appointees. >> john: nicole ogrysko with uso from the federal news network, covers federal agencies we have a special line for federal employees. 202-748-8000 federal workers or 202-748-8001 all others we want to hear your shutdown stories, and your questions how it's impacting youto others can call the 8001 line. >> caller: yes, i have a

concern. everybody's worried about the federal employees not getting a paycheck at this time. pretty much guaranteed they're going to get it when they come back. what is with all the -- when all our manufacturing jobs left detroit and alabama, and all those other places those people didn't have a chance to get ttheir money back. they were out of a job. they lost their homes, and k.everything. and if you don't havee a couple -- 2-3 months saved up in a savings account to pay your mortgage you're not doing something right. even i making less than $20,000 have a savings account that would help me if somethings happened. >> john: how many federal employees have the savings to last missing a paycheck. >> nicole: the national burrow of economic research published a study and updated it recently over the summer and they looked at a particular inpstance of

liquidity shock. so what happens when you're faced with a particular financial hardship and the impact of that might have on your savings. they looked at the 2013 shutdown because they saw that as a good of a group ofle middle-class americans and what that impact might have on them. they found actually, that 8-5 days out from federal employees next paycheck, that they didn't necessarily have the savings in place. they weren't necessarilyav prepared for what might happen when they don't get the paycheck. so i think research tells us that this is an issue, and of course we are hearing stories from federal employees themselves during this shutdown. describing their hardships and the caller makes a good point. this is an issue that not everyone's necessarily prepared to happened. >> john: in terms of the rest of america getting money back from tte federal government can you talk about this ruling, this

changing guidance over irs employees, and why they're going to be going back into work if this shutdown lasts several more weeks. >> nicole: so, the irs recently got permission from the office ofrs management and budget to bring back some irs employees, we're not entirely sure how many will be returning to work to hand out tax refunds to american taxpayers, and i think -- agencies have the ability to recall employees in certain circumstances. particularly if it's considered emergency work. and with it unclear as to how on the shutdown is going to last. the administration has chosen to start bringing more people back. the irs is one example usda agricultural department is another example they announced yesterday they would found a way to pay snap benefits at least for this next month or so. >> john: how are they able to do

this if the people were originally deemed non-essential. how can they be deemed essential all of a sudden. and is there pushback to doing that? >> nicole: that is interesting because ifle you're a federal employees and your furloughed you can't go too far. you need to be prepared to come to work at any time. that could be when the government reopens and when your agency tells you to come back. that's the case for the irs and usda. the employees will be working without pay and that's not necessarily an ideal situation for anyone. >> john: that at "federal news network".com. showing the federal employees per state in our country, there's about 42,700 exoiz with in north carolina. jimmy is in one of them but calling in from raleigh. jimmy go ahead. >> caller: good morning.

i wanted to put democrats and republicans aside. i just don't understand how can you -- to get your agenda acrosa through -- i mean you are using your own people to -- to kicking and screaming because you can't get a wall but why do you use your own people. >> john: do you know any employees in north carolina? that work for the government? >> caller: yes, it just bothers me that this man can have the power to shut down a government just so he can get his own agenda through. >> john: that's jimmy in raleigh, this is jeffrey in new york. >> caller: hello. i'm a former federal employee

and these employees are deemed emergency-essential that are required to work. but the area that i'm concerned with is that the democrats and republicans voted this budget-busting budget, and really, $5 billion is not real money. so, you know, give trump the wall don't give him the wall -- it doesn't matter. but really, they damaged the economy by creating a huge debt overhang and that's going to destroy the economy but they didn't care about that. >> john: jeffrey you say you're a former federal employee did you go through a government the federal service. >> caller: i wasn't deemed emergency-essential but yes i did. i was prepared to come back at a moment's notice. >> john: how did it impact you financially.

>> caller: i was very conservative. i never made a lot of money. butve i -- i went through it fi. but the thing is, federal government employees are paid less. but in exchange they have jobs and state-stability, and it will get to the point -- a lot of them are very talented but it's going to get to the point where those employees they just going to say it's not worth it. it's -- i'm tired of being a pawn. in this political game. >> john: that's jeffrey in new york. nicole ogrysko are people doing that already. are people leaving the federal service because of this. >> nicole: it's probably too soon to say. chris van hollen had a round-table with federal employees and they brought up that very point. if the president is saying the shutdown may go on for months or

years, regardless of whether or not that could happen, it's a concern for them. and you know we heard one of them say well maybe this isn't othe place for me, maybe i need to find a new job. and government already has a recruitment and retention problem, particularly with younger people. the vast majority of federal employees are over that age 35 group. they're having difficulty tracting millennials to work for the agencies and i don't think the government shutdown is particularly making some of these agencies more attractive to them. >> john: that line for federal employees 202-748-8000 federal workers or 202-748-8001 all others we want to hear from you. your shutdown stories and how it's impacting you. one impact we've seen is some federal employees missing this upcoming paycheck, contemplatingifying for unemployment insurance. can they do that and what are the ethics of that. >> nicole: it depends where you work and what state you work.

not where you live but physically where your agencies is located. there appears to be a process to file for unemployment. it depends on again the states as far as how long that process might take. what the benefits might be, how long you would ultimately be paid those benefits. at the end of the day if you're a federal employee at least, not necessarily a contractor but a federal employee you're likely going to be paid. so you might be in a situation where you do ultimately receive unemployment benefits you might have to pay them back. >> john: to james in massachusetts, good morning. >> caller: good morning. my thoughts on this -- and i live in a place where the -- we're alongside of a big national park. we know a lot of people, they're not paid a lot, i don't know how they live on it, it's day-to-day really. it's unfair to use -- mr. trump never spent a day poor in his life. how would he know what it's like

to have to watch every dime that you spend all the time? and then suddenly you don't have those dimes. well he doesn't know, and to use them as a lever to get what you want. and at the same time we could forge zero dollars, make a law cthat says if you hire an illel person, kind of like at a bar, if you let a person underage come in that they don't have sufficient identification that absolutely proves to you they're old enough to drink -- if you serve them, and i know i ran a bar for a while. you get shutdown. well it ought to be something simple as that. . . . citizen, you loseing a your license and may be a mandatory six months in jail. make it severe that nobody will

do it. but the government will not do that. i have suggested it to many senators and representatives. i don't know why they won't do it. but for zero dollars, you could stop every person who hired you legal folks -- who hired under such a severe punishment possibility that they didn't dare to do it. >> host: you started by talking about federal employees that live near a national park and we are seeing stories that have had damage from visitors going into those parks that don't have rangers and trash talking up in the parks. can people help clean up the trash in their unpaid hours can they do that is >> guest: another tricky question here, we spoke with a federal employment ethic

attorney i would find it difficult to have an interior department employee volunteering in their free time to pickpi up trash his message was federal employees shouldn't volunteer in a way that it furthers their mission while they technically can't work at all. at the same time if you are a federal employee and want to volunteer for a nonprofit for your church or school it's completely fine if you make it clear you are acting on your behalf as a member of the public and not as a federal employee who also have a good argument to help pick up trash but i think if you are working for an agency and want to help during the shutdown, that's where it gets tricky. >> host: vanessa in dc, good morning. >> caller: my husband is a federal employee who is per load

in my opinion it's almost like modern-day slavery it's ridiculous to believe luckily for us they work in private industry but while it won't be so difficult it can still be hard. >> host: thanks for the call this morning in terms of how you are dealing with this, how certain are you about those backpay issues and how they will be paid for that work? >> the last time that it happend to us, we were able to get backpay and that doesn't stop how we are going to pay the mortgage. it's still going to get our credit as far as getting backpay

doesn't help us today. >> host: your thoughts on her story?y? >> guest: it's relatable for the 420,000 are working that have to go to work and are not being paid right now. there are two lawsuits that the federal employee union and the other coming directly from the national treasury employees union and federal union and they argue having employees for is a violation of the fair labor standards act and this was an argument they brought forth in 201313 and one. the attorneys are still calculating the damages associated so no one has received payment for the damages that, but i think it is likely that they would rule on their favor again. >> what would be the outcome just more damages being paid

into the injunction to keep that happening? >> guest: employees might double they received backpay but then they might be paid again because of this particular hardship that they dealt with during the shutdown in this particular case. i support orders activity, and i amam a democrat. i don't quite understand why all the focus is on the workers that are displaced at the moment because they are going to get backpay they are going to be remembered for anything like your guests have said. years ago, i may retired

employee and we got backpay but oncece you are a federal worker, you sign up for things like this just like when you sign up for the military or police, you are giving serviceju to the countryo erif people don't want to be a federal worker then they shouldn't be applying to be, but it takes a lot of pride to be a federal worker and so these people that are out and are not essential people that are working, it's not without pay, it's because they love the country and they are applying for this job. >> are the potential shutdowns just a part of the deal? >> guest: >> caller: the potential is if youthere just like are enlisted into the service and to go ahead and applied for a police or fire job you are not going to sit in a fire house if there'firehouse ifthere's potena

fire. holding our president hostage becausbecause he's done more foe country giving manufacturing jobs back in the country, and just one other point i know that this is off-base but when people sneer at him and say mexico is supposed to pay for the wall, inadvertently, mexico is because all those jobs that are coming back into the country, that's is.e it i don't understand why people are using bullet points against him and truly hate our president. >> host: let's go to the line for federal workers in maryland, good morning. >> caller: i have a question about the active duty military

coast guard if they decided to pay them while they are watching the borders and stopping criminals from bringing drugs into the country which i thought was a major issue why there is a want for the wall. it just kind of doesn't go together. >> guest: the coast guard pay. right before the new year they consulted with the office of management and budget and found a way to do it. they are bringing back employees to get tax refunds for the example. the question is whether they will be able to do in the future and that is still unclear. the military is paid on a different schedule than civilian employees that they are usually paid in the middle of the month

and for the end of the month so that question will come up soon and it's still unclear whether the coast guard will be able to find a way to pay for the militaryry workforce. >> guest: the most recent statistics i saw that there was media publicity and 1%. it representative of the tsa workers and they said they couldn't comment as to why the members were potentially calling out because they are actually sick or they are fed up with the situation theytu were not entiry sure. it is important to note tsa workers to a difficult job. i don't enjoy going through the security line at the airport and

that's something they have to deal with every single day. morale has been low in the past. they've made recent progress but they are towards the bottom of about 400 agencies and components on the best places to work so it's a difficult job and having to come to work without pay can't make things any better. >> host: you were talking about the press office to date nationwide they had a minimal impact on january 72019 it was 4.6% versus 3.8 a year ago they say security standards will not be compromised thank you for taking my call today. >> host: what is your comment or question? >> caller: i support donald trump and the republicans into democrats and independents of

the new york stock exchange. they are great necessities that could build this mexican border wall with collaboration of the federal union. >> host: people go to antonio here in dc.re goodod morning. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i do have friends that work in y rious capacities they don't mention the secondary effects like i had a friend in graduate school who was supposed to work on one of these observatories that because of the shutdown the backlog actually ended up setting the position back more

than a couple of years so the effect of the shutdown is often understated and that is not considered. >> host: can you talk through secondary effects?lk >> guest: i saw on twitter federal employees are using the hash tag shut down stories to discredit those unintended consequences of the shutdown, and in the agriculture department employee said he can't get into his greenhouse to water the plants and because of thathat that's a ton of work they've spent treating the plants and other things that might be in the greenhouse that will automatically bultimately y can't get in to their office to

deal with these things for weeks at this point so ultimately when that person does come back to work they will be left to rebuild what was lost in the greenhouse and something you don't necessarily think about, which i think the caller had a good point. >> host: what about the cost debate the cost of the shutdown per day? >> guest: there've been a billions of dollars and an accurate way to describe it, but sure this has a greater impact and if you think about the fact federal employees will likely be paid for work they are not necessarily doing, but his productivity lost. >> host: the federal news network.com. thanks for your time this morning.

>> former linebacker for the tennessee titans and left the nfl for law school after which he worked for an attorney in the obama administration department of housing and urban development that later in private practice. voters in the 16th district

senator harris talked about her