>> since 1979 in partnership with the cable industry c-span has provide complete coverage of the halls of congress, from the house and senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings and committee meetings. c-span digital front row seat to how issues are debated and decided. with no commentary, no interruptions and complete the unfiltered. c-span, the unfiltered view of government. >> c-span issue unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including media,. >> at mediacom we believe whether you live here or right here, or way out in the middle of anywhere you should have access to fast reliable internet. that's why we are leading the way to take you to 10g.

>> mediacom supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers give you a front-row seat to democracy. >> host: joint chris pappas max stier, president and ceo of the partnership for public service as we continue on talking about aspects of government affected by potential shutdown. mr. stier good morning. >> guest: good morning. >> host: remind people about your organization, the things you do, the point of view you take and how are you are funded? >> guest: thank you so much. the partnership for public service is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization. we are dedicated to a better government and stronger democracy. we believe an effective government is important to ourt safety and well-being as a nation and critical element of our democracy. we support all sorts of programs to ensure all more effective government, getting good talent, making sure it is well led and try to make sure government

distrusted as well as trustworthy. you asked how we are funded. nonprofit world is a challenge in that regard. we have ad double bottom line d then we need the resources to make it happen. we gete our money from philanthropies, traditional foundations come from individuals come from companies and we do work directly for government with fas. much of our leadership development is work we get support from government. >> host: in a general sense when we approach these kinds of potential shutdowns you talked about effective government and trusted government, how do you think the public at large looks at those lenses especially when the idea of a shutdown might happen? >> guest: it's terrible. no better word than that. we have polling data that show the american people expect their government is going to be working for them and a shutdown undermines the trust in those that are leading government and government's ability to deliver on the promises that it owes the

americanit people. we are in very partisan times. there are legitimate differences about which direction our country should go in. and argued idea shutting to come it should be off the table. the proverbial geneva convention should not permit our political leaders to burn the house down in the disputes. we all need to live together and we need ato government that wors well. setting the government down is truly one of the worst things you can possibly do for our country. >> host: in a technical sense we use the term shutdown but exactly what does a mean particularly the differences between say a partial shutdown and a full shutdown and what might occur in this case? >> guest: it's an important question and is a slightly complicated. you said it right, we talk about government shutdown, the reality is that most of the government services will continue. and, in fact, the administration will be doing everything it can

to try to prevent americans from being harmed. if you look at the budget situation, over two-thirds of the budget is mandatory come things like social security and medicare, meaning that the failure to pass an annual appropriation bill does not interfere with the provision of those services from government. even the less than third government funding that is an annual appropriation, there's an exception that permits, in fact, requires government agencies to continueue helping where there s an intimate threat to life or property. that means many, many other services provided by the government will continue. what is striking is those federal employees that are providing the services will be required to work and not be paid during the shutdown. there is no other group of workers in our country that i am aware of that can be required to work and notha get a paycheck

while they are working. but they will be having to do that. that is terrible for theirg at morale, for future recruitment, and all other kinds of things will be interfered with, including issues around the future workforce, so future air-traffic controllers or benefits like those the go to women and children through the department of agriculture the small business loans. lots and lots of other services will be interferedss with, but again the bulk of government services will continue and the american people will not see -- go up in smoke which what would, in fact, happen if all government services ended, our guest with us until 8:30 eddie glaude ask questions about who is impacted, 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans and independents 202-748-8002. for federal workers if you want to give input, 202-748-8003 is

number to call and you can always text us at that number. follow up on the question, i think most people think when they hear federal employee they think people in the building behind us at the capital or at the white house. talk about the civilian aspect of the scope. >> guest: you are so right. actually we have done it again some on this and you if you ask the american people to think about the federal government, to the trusted, the numbers are very, very low. when they think federal government there thinking about those bickering politicians in washington. the truth is 80% plus of the federal civilian workforce is outside of the d.c. metro area. they are doing all kinds of things to serve the public. i talked about some of them earlier. the reality is they are not bickering. they are spending their time by getting stuff done on behalf of the american people. if you have americans see more of that, then there views change very much about whether they trust government and what they

think about the government itself. part of the challenge that our government isn't communicating effectively about what it does and we don't have other critical stakeholders like hollywood in the media frankly that are offering more insight to the public about their civilor serve workforce. a couple of the quick notes. i sit 80% outside of d.c. close to 40% our veterans. in a shutdown context right now, you only have 2 million civil servants who will either be furloughed or required to work without pay but you also have about 2 million uniform service folk who will be in similar situation, although pretty much all of them will be required to continue to work and then again without pay. we are important, there is a study done recently about how many americans could do with a $400 emergency, and almost 40% of our country could not or

would bluntly have to borrow money. the government civil service and the military is in the summer situation, forcing them to work without pay is terrible. and it will result in harm to them, harm to the future of our government and to the services we receive asas a country. it will cost us more to shut the government down than to keep it open. not a smart choice and one that we really should do everything possible to prevent [inaudible conversations] here's a factoid fromsh your research. only 42% said the federal governmentas positive impact on t iountry, about 70% said the federal government is quote wasteful, too bureaucratic, and then corrupt. can you elaborate on that? >> guest: yes, and this is really troubling frankly to have a healthy democracy you need a rule of law. you need to have a candidate and can be an effective government. that includes across the trust

to the american people. as you noted earlier, right now when you say federal government the american people are thinking about the bickering politicians in washington and certainly the news of the day simply reinforces that narrative. our proposition is that american people should see the people who are really helping them and that's the civil servants are spread out across the entire country and, frankly, the entire world. and actually when you probe the views about specific government functions, the numbers are way higher. eventh the irs which i think deserves even more critic, it has a better reputation than the federal government writ large issue is breaking down what you are actually saying from the government, introducing the public to the real people who arein helping tm and then attitudes change substantially but that's not

happening right now. and again thell narrative wearig right now is about who is going to win w or lose rather than how are the american people going to be helped best. the answer to the question is real simple, which is keep the government open, have your disputes about policy directions in the right way but don't burn the house down to make your point. >> host: because you studied these things including previous, shutdowns have those past shutdowns impacted trust and who suffers most politically by the end of it? >> guest: the answer is everyone loses. this is the worst of all possible worlds, and certainly trust income goes down as well. the morale of the federal workforce declines, the interests of people in public service in, especially young people goes down. as i noted earlier it actually cost the american taxpayer more money to shut the government down than to keep it open in

regular order. so it is a lose, lose all the way around. in terms of the political calculus, the forcing i t would note again is it's not a good way of looking at this that at the end of the day our leaders and government should be fundamentally committed to the public good. the question for them should be how to help the american public the most, not who's going to win this battle. at the end of the day the truth is that everybody loses and only winnersly are frankly our enemis abroad. >> again max stier for this conversation, 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans, and independents 202-748-8002. if you are a federal worker give us a call at 202-748-8003. you talked about those public servants and to show our viewers a sense of that research that you have done, when he comes of use federal employees 57% say

the most federal employees are competent at 53% sayom they're doing public service, 52% saying they are hard workers. by a large measure they get positive scores and only when it comes to people thinking that their crops only 30% say that. >> guest: right. i think there really is a dichotomy between the view of a master branch the federal government which gets confused with the bickering politicians g in washington, and then the people are really doing the work of government aen day out in communities across the country. that dichotomy iss really important when you focus the questions on the people in government and you talk about the ones that are serving the public and all kinds of different ways. then you see and much, much more positive view. if you talk to americans about their experience of government services, it's more positive than their broader view about the government itself.

we think this is really a question about ensuring that the public gets the information that it needs to understand its government. this is not to suggest we don't have ways to improve the way our government performs. there are but we really need to focus on the bright spot in order to get better service from our government. this is important work. by and large we don't see lots of questions about the health of the institution of government. we have the political horse races draw all the attention and at the end of the day what's going to matter actually theat most to the american people is the services that they received and the ability of whomever is in charge to manage the government effectively today and invest more of the future. >> host: let's go to calls. this is from vermont, republican line. you were on with max stier.

go ahead. >> caller: yes. i was wondering if you can talk about maybe some of the positives of shutting the government down even thoughlk there may be far and few between. like you, there's provisions in their to provide money to shut down the border, or at least slow it down, which is drug dealers and stuffst coming through, killing hundreds of thousands of americans and it shutting down the border would end of that, think that would be a positive thing. because of people coming through the border are largely criminals, illegal, breaking our laws. and there is 12 million people we did come to this country legally and i don't hear anybody screaming or fighting for them. if the shut down into this, then i mean with that because of them that save lives.

wouldn't they get what they want by shutting the come down and providing more money for the border and closing the board. but stop it because these people come to the border are going to go to welfare office, going to get food stamps and going to be a dream to have -- great honor society. >> guest: right. look, i think the caller has an important perspective. thepo reality is that there area lot of legitimate differences about how we should be pursuing different issues like immigration or ukraine, or whatever it might be. my proposition would be that those disputes are the right form for those are the regular

order of dispute, not shutting the government down. it's a little bitit like i'm trying to think of the right metaphor here. i i mention it's a little bit le you have differences of opinion about how you want to organize a household, and the entries you burn the house down. that's not the answer. you compromise, you negotiate, you go to the polls and see who wins the election. you can decide then on how you organize the household. things like shutting the government down are really hurtful to everybody. i don't think those are appropriate choices for demonstrating differences of policy. the people who get hurt all of us, the american people. as i mentioned it will cost all of us a lot more, billions and billions of dollars more to shut the government down than to keep it open. it will undercut the ability of our government to dealut with future problems and a hurt peope in the here and now.

the answer isd for the political leadership to figure this out without destroying the underlying asset that is all of ours which is our federal government. >> host: chari sherry is n north carolina, democrat's line. >> caller: hello. i am -- mi on? >> host: you are were on. go ahead. >> caller: i couldn't tell. my concern is the projection that show that we spinrite and 79% of all federal revenue for social security and other social programs. the debt projection is that in ten years, 2% of the revenue willll go for total federal revenue will go for interest on the debt. i don't see any effort of just going on with government that

can possibly make that situation tolerable. if you wait ten ten years to solve the problem, that's based on the figures. it's a big issue in my opinion. >> guest: yes, and look i think the question about the sustainability of our expenditures as a country is a very, very real one, and certainly the increase inry interest rate puts more pressure on the budget. this is an issue that is one that is been long-standing and is our general budget as well as healthcare issues on and on and on. once again ibus would say real, really important issue for our political leaders to confront. there are different perspectives on how to address them. the choice of shutting the government down though is a very cool way of addressing it. as i said many times now, if you shut the government down to make that situation worse. you hurt taxpayers.

you create enormous inefficiency in our government. you undermine future productivity. so it is going the wrong direction or if we're going to address our budget issues, we need to make sure we make good choices and prioritized but too shut the government down is, in fact, one of most counterproductive things we coulddo possibly do. >> host: we show this chart earlier, mr. stier, with the longest days of the shut down in 2018ck starting under the 30 four-day shutdown. we we have a viewer off of ask who asks what happens if we had that government shutdown for an entire fiscal year? let's say what happens if it just goes on for several weeks? can you go back to 2018 and compare and contrast what people might see when it comes to the impact on government services and those workers we talked about transitct absolutely. part of the challenge is that the government is going to be doing everything it can to hold

the public harmless. they're going to try to make sure critical services are getting to thee public no matter what. the damage which is substantial and real in many ways is going to be hidden and not visible. there will be certain things were obvious to the general public, things like the national parks being closed. there are going to be issued to get worse over time. things like the air traffic control system where you have the workers will be forced to work again without receiving paychecks while they're working. that is a crazy thing. that's going to have a long-term cost and there and that will be more attrition. there are whole bunch of people who are in queue to be trained as their traffic controllers and all the stuff will be shut down. it's going to be insidious in terms of the harm that's done to

our government's ability to serve the public. the public would begin to see more and more damage the longer it goes on. the federal workforce will be worn down. we saw that the last time in 2018-2019 where frankly you saw tsa security agents who once more were forced to work without being paid, which is craziness. and more and more of them stopped coming to work. think about it, having federal employees go to food banks and then go to work. that's really what you are seeing in 2018, 2019. and presumably if this shutdown happens and goes on for an extended period of time that is going to happen again. there are longer-term harms. research on cancer, all sorts of different things that are important that willf take place once more kind of behind the curtain.

the longer it goes, the more things will break down and more obviously would be to the public. at the same time you have federal employees and the leadership in government trying to do their job of helping people. so there's a tension between trying to reduce the pain but nonetheless the government will be faltering. >> host: this conversation is with max stier, the president and ceo of partnership for public service. let's hear from julie in south carolina, independent line. >> caller: good morning. how are you? can you hear me? >> host: you are fine. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, everyone. you talk about the federal employees and how hard they work and that may be true but i own a business. i go to mytr local post office every week. i spent thousands every year the gene of what i when i walk in? two out of the three clerks on their cell phones. playing games. the federal workers are not concerned because they have job security.

they don't care if it when i was growing up on long island they said get the federal job to do work for thel post office. why? because they take care of their own. i have family who owned business. business. equity to work for the government and this whole thing is out of control. half the people -- unit in? they can complete a full sentence -- >> we are breaking away to keep our over 40 year commitment to live coverage of congress. today the senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote to start work on a short-term spending bill that would avert a government shutdown this coming saturday at midnight. the focus boat is set forn time. now live to the floor of the senate here on c-span2. the chaplain: let us pray. lord and king, you are forever. send your light and truth to guide our senators.