"washington today" here on c-span radio. i'm steve sculley. the u.s. and nato will seek an end to the combat mission in afghanistan next year. a shift to the role the u.s. is providing in support and training of afghan security forces. that announcement today from defense secretary leon panetta. u.s. military commanders had said they would begin a transition this year toward taking more of an advisory role in afghanistan with its national army and allow the police there to take on a greater responsibility for fighting the insurgency over there. in presidential politics, mitt romney moving on to minnesota. politico saying he was giddy today on the campaign trail as he took aim at former house speaker newt gingrich, who placed a distant second in florida last night for failing to be a true conservative. that's the claim by newt gingrich. meanwhile the former house speaker is back on the campaign trail tomorrow. he will be in nevada, the site of the next round of caucuses taking place in weekend.

news late today from donald trump. he's expected to make what his campaign or his office is calling a major announcement tomorrow in las vegas. the announcement will pertain to the presidential race. so speculation resuming tonight on whether or not donald trump will either endorse somebody in the republican field or in fact run as an independent in the 2012 race. let's begin with our lead story in the ongoing debate about a potential freeze for federal employees for yet another year. the resolution was introduced by congressman sean duffy. he's a republican of wisconsin. it would extend the nonmilitary federal employee pay freeze into its third year, a move that projected could save taxpayers about $26.5 billion. here's how the debate ensued earlier today on capitol hill. we'll begin with crepttive duffy of wisconsin. >> i think it's important that we review the history of federal employee pay freezes. in the last congress, this came up under a democrat-controlled house, democrat-controlled senate, and a democrat

president. they voted for a two-year payroll freeze for federal employees. they rightly excluded our military. i think everyone in this house agrees that our military should get a pay increase. but who they wrongly failed to include in the pay freeze was members of congress. they didn't include members of congress but every other federal worker they did include. so now today, i brought a bill to the floor to extend the pay freeze for one more year. in my bill is the exact same bill as the democrats' bill from two years ago. the only difference is that i've carved in members of congress. every member in this house will have their pay freezed just like every other federal worker. that is the right thing to do. that's what should have been done two years ago but was not done. i was here to listen to the gentleman from maryland, the former majority leader who is outraged that he doesn't have an

opportunity to singly vote for a pay freeze for members of congress. but as a majority leader, he had the opportunity to include members of congress in his bill. republicans didn't have a say, it was a democrat house. democrat senate. democrat president. and members of congress were not included. and now to come here today and be outraged and say that the republicans are disingenuous because we have carved in members of congress doesn't hold water. i think it's important to also look at the facts behind federal employees as they are compared to the private sector. the congressional budget office came out and they've said that federal employees make 16% more on average than the private sector. and at this point, what the democrats are saying is in a very difficult economy, when the private sector, who is really the american taxpayer, the ones who have been forced to take concessions with regard to pay,

the ones who have been asked to work less hours to keep their jobs, my friends across the aisle come to the house floor and say, what we want these american taxpayers to do is to not get a pay raise themselves but to pay for a pay increase for federal workers who already make 16% more than they do. that doesn't make sense. that doesn't make sense. and i hear a lot of conversation from my friends across the aisle about fairness and parity. billion, i think you should start to use the term fairness today. there should be parity between the private sector and the public sector. >> the comments of congressman sean duffy, he's a republican from wisconsin, putting forth a proposal that would freeze federal employee pay until december 31st, 2013. by the way, we want to get your reaction to this here on c-span radio. our listener feet back line is open. 202-626-7962. what are your thoughts about

freeze is the pay, the salary of federal employees for another year as a cost-saving measure to try to reduce the deficit? 202-626-7962. the headline "the hill" newspaper as the house considers this measure to extend the federal pay freeze for one more year, on the other side of the aisle, democratic congressman steny hoyer, who represents a large constituency of federal employees in maryland, here's what he had to say on the house -- i apologize, it's congressman chris val holland is going to be with us tomorrow morning on "washington journal" to talk about this and other issues. we hope you tune in beginning at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. here's what he had to say on the floor earlier in the day. his constituency also includes a large number of federal employees in maryland. >> i think the record should be clear that every year that the congress has frozen federal employee pay, we have also frozen congressional pay.

what we have not done is try to hold federal employee pay hostage to what we do on congressional pay. and we should be very clear that we all on the democratic side support freezing congressional pay in the year 2013, indeed, mr. cummings and i, mr. hoyer and others, have introduced legislation to do just that. it's hr-3858. the democratic leadership asked that we be able to bring that up on the suspension calendar today. we were denied that opportunity. and so i now ask unanimous consent that after we complete debate on this bill we add to today's suspension calendar hr-3858 so that we can vote as a body on freezing congressional pay. >> is there objection to the gentleman's unanimous consent agreement? >> i do object to unanimous consent. >> madam speaker, this illustrates the point exactly. we just heard mr. duffy --

>> the gentleman will sa pend. under the guidelines consistently issued by successive speakers as recorded on page 752 of the house rules manual the chair is constrained not to entertain the gentleman's request unless it has been cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships. >> we have been denied that opportunity by the republican leadership so i want to be clear, we were denied the opportunity today to have an up over down vote on freezing congressional pay. that's what we should do. and the refusal to allow us to do that demonstrates that what we're really seeing is an effort to use congressional pay as a political weapon to punish all federal employees to prevent any cost of living adjustments for federal employees, otherwise we'd be able to bring up that bill separately. now, what we're seeing again is an effort to single out federal employees as scapegoats for the economic problems that they had nothing to do with. they had nothing to company with

the meltdown on wall street. they had nothing to do with the policies of the previous administration that helped bring our economy to this position. and yet what we're seeing today is what we're seeing in states where we have governors in wisconsin, we have governors in ohio, we have other mostly republican governors scapegoating public servants in their states and singling them out for -- >> 30 seconds. >> i thank the gentleman. singling them out as if they were the problem. federal employees have already seen a two-year freeze. that saved $60 billion. and federal employees are willing to do their share. what we should not do is single them out. the president's asked for a .5% cost of living adjust. that still is short of the 1.7% cost of living that they will face. so it's time that we stopped saying to those folks who are out there every day helping keep

our food safe, tracking down, helping track down osama bin laden, other people who have helped protect our borders and do other things that we're going to single them out for unfair treatment as part of the budget. let's take it up as part of the full budget, not single them out the way we're doing here. i thank the speaker, i thank the gentleman. >> that's how some of the debate unfolded on the house floor earlier in the day. congressman chris van hollan, joining us tomorrow morning on "washington journal." the federal government employs 2.5 million civilian workers, 1.7% of the u.s. workforce, that according to the congressional budget office. the government spent an estimated $200 billion to compensate federal civilian employees. the proposal being put forth by congressman sean duffy would extend to nonmilitary federal employees a pay freeze into the third year saving an estimated $26.2 billion. he is supporting the measure,

representative chris van hol len is opposing the measure, we want to know what you think about this idea. 202-626-7962. your thoughts about freezing federal pay salary for the next year, would also impact members of congress as a way to offset the budget deficit. 202-626-7962. this is "washington today." more from the director of the congressional budget office, doug elmendorf, who announced yesterday the government bull run a $1.1 trillion deficit in the next fiscal year. a slight dip but high by any measure. the budget office reporting annual deficits will remain at the $1 trillion range the next several years if the bush era tax cuts are also extended. doug ellen dorff testifying yesterday and back up today taking questions from members of house side including congressman

lloyd dogget, democrat from texas. >> during the short-term if i understand the testimony, it is that if we reduce the short-term deficit too quickly with sudden reductions in expenditures for vital public services, we'll actually retard quick growth in the short-term? >> yes, that's right. reductions in the deficit too quickly, through either tax increases or spending reductions, would retashd the quick recovery and that is consistent with i think the consensus of thinking in the economics profession, consistent with the experience that we're seeing in europe. where countries that are in worse budget shape than we are and forced by inability to borrow to make very drastic changes in policy very quickly, are suffering quick consequences from that. when we wrote an issue brief a

year or so ago about risk of fiscal crisis in the united states, one of the risks that we highlighted was that budget situations tend to deteriorate when economies are already in trouble and that makes it a particularly bad time to then have to implement these changes very quickly. that emphasizes the importance of congress acting before we hit a crisis of that sort. but given the low level of current treasury interest rates our continued ability to borrow, for now at least, money experts believe that, although the changes should not be implemented right away, i want to emphasize that's not an argument against the congress deciding upon what changes in policy to make, given the scale of the changes that will be needed relative to current policies, the more warning that people have, that businesses have. >> state and local governments have, about what policies will be undertaken, the better it will be. so there are real costs to

waiting to decide upon the courses of action. once one has decided there's a more difficult trade-off about the speed. waiting too long has the cost of ending up in fiscal crisis. moving too quickly has the cost of slowing economic recovery. >> pursuing an aggressive austerity program similar to that that the conservative government in the united kingdom has pursued and some of the other european countries is likely to present some of the same type of economic problems for us that it is presenting today to the europeans? >> i think that's right, congressman. i want to be careful not to second-guess the decisions those governments have made. they face a particular set of circumstances and i think in some cases had no choice because of inability to borrow money or fear they would be unable to borrow money in the short-term. i'm not suging they've done the wrong thing, necessarily. we've not studied their choices carefully enough to speak to that, just using that as an example of how that sort of very sharp fiscal contraction does

weigh on economic activity and jobs in the short run. >> as far as encouraging more jobs, though it's not my preferred policy choice, extending the payroll tax cut is one very positive way of encouraging economic growth? >> yes, we think so, congressman. >> thank you very much. >> congressman lloyd dogget is a democrat from texas and he heard the budget and economic outlook as a member of the house budget committee with the cbo director doug elmendorf, who testified before members of the senate yet and met with reporters and on capitol hill meeting with house members today outlining the projections not only in government spending but also a comparison to what the jobless rate is now and what we can expect coming into the summer and fall, a prediction the unemployment rate will actually increase to about 8.5% to 9% by the end of this year. it's 8.5% currently, jumping to 8.9% next year, possibly as high as 9.3%.

this morning on "washington journal" we had a conversation about the economy, the debt and the deficit. senator jim demint is out with a new book called "now or never: saving america from economic collapse." >> let me show you our viewers the cover of your book, "now or never," talking about the economic collapse of this country, saving america from it, "now or never." i just want to read from the first chapter for our viewers here. what washington leaders can't understand is the seemingly invincible united states is rapidly approaching an economic ins berg. basic math tells us we can't keep spending more than we are bringing in indefinitely. so let's go to the news yesterday from the congressional budget office about where we are headed with this nation's deficit. and here is a column put together by ezra kline and worked with one of the think

tank agencies here in washington. he says this. george w. bush's major policies increased the debt by more than $5 trillion during his presidency. obama has increased the debt by less than $1 trillion. they broke it down on policies, by policy, which contributed to the national debt for body the bush administration, then if you looked at the obama administration from 2009 out to 2017, and obama administration would add less. >> i don't know where they get those numbers because i've watched what obama care alone is going to be $1 trillion. but we don't need to put the blame here. the whole point of "now or never" is both parties are to blame. that our country is headed towards an iceberg. and we can point fingers all we want. but the bottom line is it's not about party, it's not about ideology. our country on paper is bankrupt already. the only thing that's propping us up is the euro's in worse

shape and we're able to print money to buy our own debt which we've been doing the last two years. so i think that's what really inspired the tea party movement of a couple of years ago is instinctively, americans know we can't keep spending more than we're bringing in. and the fact that we can't even agree in washington that we need to balance our budget sometime in the next ten years, we had that vote before christmas and practically every democrat in the house and the senate voted against balancing our budget in the next ten years. and if we can't have that shared goal, then we can't have a reasonable debate about how to do it. whether it's to raise taxes or cut spendinging. but the point of "now or never" is i'm saying the politicians in washington, regardless of which party's in charge, are going to bankrupt our country if the american people don't get engaged in the political process this year. because if we stay on this track four more years, we're going to be worse off than greece. because on paper, we already have more debt relative to the

size of our economy than europe does. because europe doesn't have a federal debt like we do, they have individual state debts. we have some of our states in bankruptcy. california's running out of money. most of the state pension plans are going bankrupt. we're spend morgue this year in washington than last year. despite all the hoopla and threats of government shut-down. we've got a spending addiction here. the debt is going to destroy our country. i'm saying throughow out the political labels, we're all americans, it's not about ideolo ideology, it's simple math. >> senator demount joined us this morning, check out our web page at cspan.org, part of our video library. the book is titled "now or never: saving america from economic collapse." coming up in just a couple of minutes, some recordings, dramatic rorpgs in the phone conversation that president

lyndon johnson had with rose kennedy. we'll learn more about these recordings from november 22nd, 1963, coming up later in the program. this is "washington today" on c-span radio. house republicans urging democrats to repeal a major provision of the health care reform law by panning it as an obstacle to long-care right arm. in a series of floor speeches before the repeal vote tonight, a number of republican lawmakers suggesting democrats were hurting the very people they claim to want to help by clinging on to what's been referred to as the class act. republicans saying the obama administration has acknowledged the program does not work and that keeping it on the books merely delays some real reform. let's see how the debate unfolded earlier in the day. we'll begin with representative leonard lance, he is a republican from new jersey. we'll follow that with representative rosa delure, a democrat from connecticut. >> i rise today in support of repealing the class act. in hearings before the energy and commerce committee, my

colleagues and i learn that the class program was a ticking time book fiscally. a new entitlement program that health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius has said is totally unsustainable financially. richard foster, chief ac twaer for centers of medicare and medicaid services wrote in 2009, 36 years of actuarial services lead me to believe this program would collapse in short office and require significant federal subsidies to continue. senate budget committee chair ken conrad has called the class program a ponzi scheme of the first order. to her credit secretary sebelius called for an end to the class program adding there was not a viable class forward for class implementation at this time. madam speaker, we have a serious long-term care problem that is driving patients into bankruptcy and weighing down an year

burdened medicaid program. but before we can develop bipartisan solutions to address this important issue we must first repeal the misguided class program. only then can we begin anew and properly address the long-term health care problem. >> congressman leonard lance from new jersey, now congresswoman rosa delowero. >> i rise in strong opposition to the repeal of the class act. we are at another start to another session of the congress and this majority is following the same playbook as last year. the american people are waiting for this institution to do something, anything, to create jobs and restore our economic prosperity. instead of putting forward ideological bills that have nothing to do with jobs and that are intended to roll back health care and senior care in america. right now, less than 10% of americans over 50 have long-term

health care insurance. even though a large percentage of individuals will need long-term care services at some point. some studies indicate that up to two-thirds of americans that live beyond 65 will need long-term care. the class act, a bipartisan addition to the 2010 health care, seeks to help to provide access to quality, affordable insurance for long-term care. the program must be actuarially sound and legally solvent. why, why would we repeal this bill? it is time for the majority to stop playing games, to get serious about fixing the economy. america needs more jobs, not less health care. i urge my colleagues to stand up for seniors and oppose this repeal and i yield back. >> the repeal of the class act which the house is taking up

tonight, there's an editorial by "the wall street journal" claiming that this legislation will cost upwards of $80 billion a year. you can watch live coverage tonight on c-span television. according to mish can's cornerer, efforts to right its own financial ship could serve as a model for the federal government, as well as other states. that's the comment of governor rick snyder as he told a house committee today. he was noncommittal when pressed by members of the house committee on workforce saying such a move would be divisive and not part of his agenda. he appeared in washington along with connecticut governor dan malloy to discuss opportunities for job creation and touch on a number of efforts during what he has faced in the first year in office as he tries to restructure the tax code in michigan, also to encourage more business development across the state. here's how some of it unfolded on capitol hill. again you're going to hear from governor rick snyder. he is a republican from michigan. and governor dan malloy in

connecticut as he testified on capitol hill on taxes and job creation and the u.s. economy. >> thank you both for being here. i realize, we all realize, this is a difficult time for you. budget season coming up. you're going to be called upon to make very difficult decisions, as we are here in this committee and in this congress. i wanted to revisit a difficult decision that we had to make, governor snyder, which you've addressed a couple of times now. you mentioned in response about the need for best practices in deploying taxpayer dollars and how critically important it is, to make sure it's a wise use of taxpayer dollars. in answering the question earlier you emphasized you support for paying attention to the deficit, making sure we're reducing the deficit. i supported the balanced budget. i voted for it when it was on the house floor and i think that was the right decision. but we do occasionally have to make extraordinarily difficult decisions on allocating federal resources. chuff which was the auto

recovery man. and you have talked about it a couple of times but i just wanted to get your sense in thinking about whether or not was that an appropriate use of taxpayer resources? did this congress do the right thing in promoting the auto recovery plan? >> yeah, as i mentioned, representative, already, that in many respects it wasn't about one individual company, it was actually the entire auto industry that was in jeopardy. and that would have been a major catastrophe for our country. the solution was successful. it's great to see the success of the auto industry. in hindsight you can go back to say there could have been other ways to do it that probably would have been more efficient. i don't waste time on that analysis. it's done. the exciting part we should be proud about is the auto industry is moving ahead and we need to be supportive of that. but that's the point about making sure they have the right skill trades to succeed. so that's where i'm excited to testify here today is they have a major talent question, and to be open workforce development on

its own is not a good enough answer. we need to do a better job of collaborating and connect with them. >> i ask that question once again to ask this question to both of you. a couple of decisions we're going to have to make in short order deal with the extension of unemployment insurance and transportation and infrastructure on a federal highway bill. starting with unemployment insurance, could i ask governor malloy and then governor snyder, how important is that to your individual states, that that gets done, what's your opinion of what we should do, and if it does not get extended, what would be the impact? >> let me begin with the quick answer. if it is not extended, 51 thousand people would be without benefits in the state of connecticut at the end of february. that number will grow to 71,000 by august. it would have an extremely detrimental effect on our state's economy. and it might be a destroying of relationships, of homes, cause

apartments and houses to be lost. i urge you to address this issue as rapidly as you can. i can't imagine being one of those 51,000 people in my state who is on the earn potentially of losing that benefit, the sole benefit that keeps family and home together. and obviously, the lost purchasing power of 51,000 people in my state would be reflected in all aspects of commerce in our state. you know, we have an extraordinarily, for our state, high unemployment number even at 8.2%. even having fallen by over 1% in the past year. but we are making progress. there is a better day ahead of us. but to suddenly cut 51,000 people or 71,000 by august off i think would actually slow the recovery very substantially. >> governor snyder? >> what i would say is i don't

believe it's really appropriate for me to make that call in many respects. on unemployment, on transportation. there's so many good things. you could go individuallily and take one of these things and make a good arguments. the challenge is to prioritize. we need to be like a family where we don't have unlimited resources. the challenge isn't to say they're all good things but what has to get done and what do i have to give on. work together with the administration to come up with a solution. that's what i had to deal with last year. we partnered with the legislature on making tough calls. we made tough cuts to some programs that many respects asked for sacrifice from people, at the same time i'm proud to say we stood firm on medicate reimbursement and actually adding dollars to child services. where the other things we cut good things? they were probably good things but we had to do our job in a difficult circumstance and i encourage everyone to work collectively to make that happen. from capitol hill earlier in the day, two governors, rick

snyder of michigan, dan malloy of connecticut, talking about jobs, the economy, taxes, the auto bailout, unemployment benefits with some of the questions from a member of the house education and workforce economy, congressman jason altmire, democrat from western pennsylvania. you're listening to "washington today" on c-span radio. we welcome our lessers in coast to coast on xm channel 19. we're streamed on the web at cspanradio.org. in some other news today, on wall street, the dow up 83 closing at 12,716. nasdaq was up 34. s&p was up 11. president obama today proposing an expansion of government assistance to homeowners. he's calling for a program that would help lower lending rates for millions of borrowers who have not been able to get out from under burdensome motor ans. the proposal would be financed by a fee on big banks. this was something he