last night. welch co-sponsored bill to cut wastefulassethe house. legislation co-sponsored by congressman peter welch of vermont to eliminate wasteful federal spending passed the u.s. house today by bipartisan vote 254-173. the bill grants the president a form of line-item veto authority on spending bills that passes constitutional muster. and previous attempts to enact executive line-item veto authority have been struck down by the supreme court as unconstitutional. well, first of all, what -- why do you want to do this? why do you think a line-item veto-type mechanism will be helpful? >> well, first of all, this is a line-item veto where the president can say, cancel out the bridge to nowhere. but then, congress has the opportunity to vote to approve it by a majority vote. not two-thirds. so congress will have the final say, the power of the purse that it is granted in the constitution. the reason i want it, is because it does allow the president to scrub the budget, identify speak

things that he determines or she determines are wasteful, but then congress can, in the light of day, say yes or no, we want to spend that money on that bridge to nowhere, or we don't. so i think the transparency here, putting that specific item on the floor, where each one of us has to say yes or no, we support that spending, is going to be restraining on the one hand, and number two it maintains congressional authority on the power of the purse. but three gives voters specific information about where we stand. so i think that's a good thing. >> so, for people like yourself who are concerned about the increasing debt by the annual budgets, there seems to be consensus that the real problems are the so-called entitlement programs, social security and medicare. this would be discretionary spending. how will it ultimately help in a big way? >> well, it won't help on the health care. when we talk about health care, that is where we're facing enormous cost. i mean, there's a demographic -- the baby boom is 65 -- is now

getting to be 65, and that's going to be happening for years. in the bottom line is that when we have health care in this country, that's going up two and three times the rate of inflation, the rate of profits, the rate of wages, you can't sustain that. and it's not just applied to medicare, it's applied to health care expenses and the entire economy. so the big challenge that we continue to have is trying to bring health care costs down to reasonable levels. >> but this will attack discretionary spending, too? >> this will not deal with health care, that's exactly right. >> but it will attack what you think is wasteful spending and discretionary parts of the budget? >> well it gives an opportunity for us to peel away the bridge to nowhere. i mean that's an example where it gets buried in the budget. as a member of congress you have to vote yes or no basically on the budget. there's a lot of stuff in there you may not like. this gives the president a tool to bring it back to us and then we can peel out some questionable projects. >> okay, so as a member who's concerned about wasteful spending, then what do you think about the compromise bill today,

and the decision that $100 billion will be added to the deficit? >> i don't like that part. i really don't. you know, this is kind of an amazing thing. we do have a fragile economy. and the whole point of the payroll tax reduction was going to put about $1,000 in every person's pocket. let them spend it, stimulate the economy. there's some merit to that. when you have this fragile economy. but the last time that we did it, where we extended for a year, we paid for it. this time, we're not paying for it. and i think that's a mistake. this is going to add -- there's two issues here. one it will add $100 billion to the deficit. and we don't even have in this bill a way to pay for it over ten years. it's just borrowed money. number two, and this is i think the real concern for many folks, the payroll tax funds social security. social security is the most important for most americans. so, we are doing something we've never done before. we're borrowing money from the

social security trust fund. so that is something that makes me a little bit apprehensive. we're borrowing money for a tax cut. we're not finding a way to repay it. it's going to last for ten months but we'll have a $100 billion hole in the social security trust fund. so i think we should be paying for this. >> have you decided whether or not you will vote for it? >> well, i lean no. because of the borrowing of the money. >> will it pass? >> i think it will. i mean, one of the things that, unfortunately, you can do in washington, there seems to be an emerging consensus. you know the republicans passed tax cuts that we didn't pay for. and now the democrats are passing a tax cut that we didn't -- we're not going to pay for. so that's kind of unfortunate confluence of cooperation. >> i have heard a couple callers this morning, and have used the phrase we're worried that we will be like greece some day. is that a serious concern for this country? >> well, it is -- no. we're not greece. i mean we're a very strong $14

trillion plus economy. but we do have to do two things. one, we have to have reform in our tax code to make us more competitive. and also to restore fairness. also one of the big challenges for our country is the income inequality, and the pressure that middle-class families are experiencing, and have been for 20 to 25 years about being able to pay their bills, even when you've got one or two people in the household working. so i think when people make those statements they're expressing something that is real. and that is significant pressure on middle-class families to stay afloat. and what i also hear is a lot of times parents will be talking about their kids, and for the first time parents are apprehensive as to whether their kids are going to be able to do as well as they did. you know, kids are getting out of school with significant debt. the jobs that a lot of our kids get, they don't have health care. and that's one of the very good things about the health care bill. that's been passed.

our kids can stay on our health care until they're 26. when they're getting that first step in to the job market. but there's a lot of, i think, apprehension in this country, among middle-class families, about whether they're going to hang on. >> we took a look at the latest numbers on unemployment, and vermont's doing pretty well compared to the rest of the nation. you're at 5.1% in december versus the national rate which is about 8.3%. what's going on there? >> well, vermonters, two things. one vermonters are hard workers. and a lot of the vermonters that we're talking about have a second job. they really do, because they've got to just find ways to keep things afloat. but secondly, vermont didn't have the boom and it doesn't have the bust. you know, when we had the foreclosure crisis, vermont had the lowest or the second lowest foreclosure rate in the country, and the reason, our banks didn't give out these bogus no-documentation, no-interest loans. our realtors didn't push houses on to people that they couldn't afford. and the average vermonter wanted

to buy a modest house, that would provide good shelter, but they didn't need a mcmansion. so we just never got caught up in the -- in the real estate binge that has caused so much trouble and so much heartache in so many parts of the country. so in that sense, vermont is continuing to do well. we didn't have the big boom and we don't have the big bust. >> so as you know, as a veteran of this program we're going to take calls, tweets, and also e-mails. here's a tweet from freelancer who asks, what about billionaires who avoid paying taxes on cash and offshore banks? use that cash for the payroll tax cut. >> i like that idea. i mean -- see this is one of the things that's a very commonsense approach. and you know, if we pay for this, and the millionaire -- what he just mentioned, hedge fund tax, the millionaire tax, the buffett tax, there's a lot of ways in the tax code where, by simply being fair, you could raise the money and give a break to working families. you know, social security is a tough tax for people. >> we're going to take our first telephone call.

it's from st. louis, and this is douglas, who's a democrat. douglas, good morning, you're on for the congressman. go ahead. >> good morning. i have some solutions for you, and some gripes. number one is, the solution is remove the cap on social security tax. we should be taxed no matter how much you're making. it totally funds the system. i believe the congressional budget office has already scored it, and it will spend -- it will take care of the entire problem. number two, is the fact that, we have a revenue problem. anybody who is anyone can look at bipartisan fact and figures. ken dickerson did an article a couple months ago that shows increase in wages for the lower class for the 99% have remained stagnant for the last 30 years since ronald reagan got in there, and that the income for the richest 1% has skyrocketed

it 275%. for anybody to sit here to argue that's not true i defy you to bring me anything that shows a difference of that. okay? thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you're right the income inequality i mentioned that a little earlier, has just widened. of course this country has always been prosserous because we've had a broadening and expanding middle class. that situation is under assault right now. so you are correct on that. second, raising the cap is a good idea. you know, when social security was established, the cap was set, i'll have this wrong, but you get the idea, it's something like 95% of what the average wages were. it's now down into the range of 80%. if we just brought the cap back up to where historically it has been, that would raise the cap, it wouldn't eliminate it altogether but it would make a significant revenue contribution, simply by going back to what had been the status quo. >> an earlier caller on this subject of the cap suggested

that if you were to do that you also should raise the limitations that retired workers can have an earned inning. >> yeah, well that would be a fair thing to consider. i mean retired workers are working hard, they get social security, they pay taxes on it, and you just have to make the math work. the bottom line, social security has to be secure. and adjustments that we make have to be about social security, not raiding social security. >> after they vote in the house and senate on the tax compromise will be heading home for a president's week holiday and this is on the minds of this viewer who sweets, if tax reform is so important, why isn't congress working on it? you have another vacation coming up. >> well, we do work when we -- when we return home to the district. in fact, one of the best parts of our job is our district work weeks, when we're acting very directly with folks back home. second, the tax reform, you're

right about that, that is a major issue, and what you're seeing in washington is just an ideological batt the tax code. and in fact, as you know, president obama has made several proposals that would essentially ask the higher income folks to pay more -- to pay more. and i think we do have a revenue problem. and it is, in my view, an outrageous situation when you have somebody who runs a hedge fund, and makes literally billions of dollars, and pays a 15% tax rate, whereas somebody who works at a bank in your community or mine, does the same kind of work, they pay 30%, 35%. it just isn't right. bit there's a lot of folks in congress who essentially say that we shouldn't have taxes. it's almost that extreme. and they say any time the government is quote, taking the money, then that's a really bad thing. so you need revenues and you need taxes. >> i want to ask about the

so-called stock fix. the idea here is that if it hadn't been fixed, that the doctors who received medicare payments might see as much as a 27% drop in those payments. however, if you look at the details, this fix extends to december 2012. >> it's no fix. we've been kicking this can down the road for years. this is my sixth year in congress and every single year we've come up with a temporary so-called fix. and essentially what it is is that we've got this -- there was some budget gimmickry that was done several years ago, before i got here, that allowed congress to claim it was getting some savings in medicare. but, the savings would result, if this plan initially went in to effect, and it literally at 27% cut in payments to our local doctors. and that's devastating. it would mean folks who want to get access to a doctor wouldn't have it. so, each year, congress comes up with some temporary plan to try to keep the system afloat. there is no fix. and we have to step back, and as

part of, i think, overall comprehensive look at our budget, have something that's permanent and lasting. >> and that same sentiment expressed by this viewer on twitter, marcus who writes, why can't they do a permanent doc fix? isn't there a way to write the law so you don't have to keep coming back to this is? >> well, there is. it would cost money. it might rault in pressure on premiums. so it's theoretically possible and we should do it. it's our job to do it. but the budget conflicts that we're having is preventing us from getting them to success on that. >> fayetteville, north carolina for the congressman. barry is a republican there and you're on. good morning. >> good morning. how are you? what's bothering me is the way that the people who's running the media keep wanting to frame the issue, and the problem. i'd rather them just not frame it and all and just back off, because it's all -- they're just contaminating it every time they touch it for their own personal goals. every time they just contaminate

it. they goes from left or right or whatever they just contaminate it. it's like money. it's all artificial. there's dials, can you turn it up. you can turn it down. but it's like a farmer and a banker. they can control how much money you make and they can control how much food you can buy, basically, because the farmer he can go out there and bury half his crops and you can call that supply and demand but point is is he's just saying half of you can die. and the banker well he ain't going to sit there and give you a loan. he's going to give you half as much or whatever, or the point is, they're going to come up with a big excuse. all the businessmen, they're all working to the, and it seems that every time, that the, you know, you got all these people calling in for the last 30 years saying i can fix it with this, i can fix it with that and then you get these people they don't try to fix it, they just want to come out here and basically they tell us oh, we're sixing it and we're listening to all your suggestions but really what they're saying is screw you, we're going to do what we want. you're our slaves. we own you. you know, i mean, that's ridiculous. >> thank you.

>> well, if i hear you, you're expressing a lot of frustration a lot of people have with many of our institutions, whether it's the media, whether it's the financial community, or whether it's washington. so you're -- you're speaking for a lot of people with that frustration. you know, as one member of congress, i'm doing my best to try to, you know, move forward each day, work with other people and do the best i can. >> how is that 10% congressional approval rating affected you and the way you do your job? are you seeing an increase in the ferocity of the mail coming in to your office? the e-mail coming in? >> you know, it's interesting, and i really don't. i mean there's a lot of frustration. people express it to me. the thing that vermonters say to me most, susan is, peter, why don't you all get together and get some things done? the frustration i'm hearing from people is our inability to find common ground. you know, the budget's a good example. i think most people know that there's got to be some cuts. and there's got to be some revenues. in washington we're fighting about this as though it's an ideological battle to be won,

rather than a very practical problem to be solved. you know, if anybody had a household budget where there was real tight times, they'd look at every single thing they could cut, and they'd go without, but they also might take a second job. because they'd say you know what? we've got to have some income here. we really want to make sure our son or daughter goes to school. that's going to be tough but we're going to have to get some revenue. so it's both sides much the equation. it's working to the. and there's an immense amount of frustration, i think that's where this disapproval comes from in our inability to just find some common ground. >> okay, well here i am choosing a political tweet to follow that. this comes from two student two who asks representative welch, conservative republicans opposed the doc fix so they can run against medicare and say this broke. >> well, there's some politics in this, there's no question about that. the medicare is really, medicare and social security are two most important programs for senior citizen americans. and, there's a lot of conflict about medicare because of the

cost of health care. we've got to address that. but, that issue has been politicized to some extent for legitimate reasons, because people want to make sure that it's secure. the ryan budget that was passed last year in the house, wasn't signed in the senate, would have basically given people a voucher for medicare, and cut in half about their access to benefits, that's for people 55 and younger. and the republicans in the last campaign demonized democrats who were finding savings in medicare, that didn't cut services, but made it more solvent. so the back and forth on this goes on. >> you've twice referenced the health care spending increases, and in this morning's "wall street journal" opinion page, a different point of view looking at numbers. j.b. klein ki who is described as now a recent aei but prior to that a health care executive, and this is what his chart looks like. if we can put that on screen with our camera about the trends in annual percentage change in

health care spending from 2000 and 2010 you can see that going down. he's saying that the growth of national health expenditures has been declining for a decade, driven by better medical care and consumer choice. he gives an examples of why, suddenly a $5 generic drug might work just as well as a $50 branded one. people are concluding that going out of network for an extra $100 out of their pocket might not be worth it. it also turned out that a nurse practitioner at an urgent care clinic can spot an ear infection for $30 a whole lot faster than an emergency room physician can for $1,000. examples of ways people are finding economies in health care. >> i don't know about his chart. i know health care is incredibly expensive. but some of the things he cites are some of the things that we really need to be doing. in vermont there's an effort to get a single-payer health care system. and the lot of the reason for that is there's some hope that that approach could actually achieve savings and make health care more sustainable. and one of the goals is to allow

the right type of practitioner to be interacting with the patient. and that example of somebody saying nurse practitioner checking your ear as opposed to getting a specialist to do it, that's the kind of system reform that we need in order to bring down cost. >> how would it work? would it be an option for vermonters or would it be for all vermonters? >> well, if we -- >> a single payeruld be for all vermonters. i mean, there's a long way to go but vermont's what the legislature has passed legislation with that as a goal. and what is occurring in vermont is that the hospitals and the doctors are at the table. this is not like a legislatively directed event. our hospitals know that we have to change the way we're delivering care. and the big challenge in vermont is to move away from the fee for service system that encourages volume. and expense, and move into what are called accountable care organizations where basically

you have, as a patient, you have a medical home, and then the appropriate person, the appropriate type of practitioner is going to be interacting with you. we're having real success in chronic diseases. if you have diabetes, you need a lot of interaction with providers. it doesn't always have to be a doctor. >> a question then, where would the role of the insurance companies be? >> that's being worked out. you know, the insurance companies could still manage the accounts. they could still process payments, because there still would have to be reimbursement. but that's a work in progress. the insurance companies, what role they would play would be determined. >> representative for the state of vermont, serves in the agriculture and also on the government reform and oversight committee. before coming to congress he was in the vermont state senate. a lawyer, graduate of holy cross college and uc berkeley. our next caller is v.j.

>> caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm a u.s. marine veteran, going to school on the gi bill right now. it helps me now. it helps thousands of veterans after world war ii. it seems like everybody who rails about government spending being this great evil, have selective amnesia, whether it's the gi bill or social security from the 1930s, or subsidies which help the oil and gas industries. government spending is not always an evil thing. my first point. number two, everybody who is saying we're going to become like greece. their economy is in the crapper right now. germany, who's the strongest economy in europe by far, has a phenomenal health care system that's near universal, has strong unions and strong manufacturing base in the country and incentives for companies to keep it there in the country. i think we should really kind of

step back and listen to our own b.s. and try to figure out what we're doing wrong here. thanks. >> thank you. >> i can't add to that. that was a brilliant comment. thank you for your service. but you make a very, very compelling argument. >> fort thomas, kentucky, is up next. ken is an independent there. ken, you there? we had a bad connection. we're going to move on to clearwater, florida, dan, a republican, you're on. hello, dan. dan, go ahead, please. >> caller: thank you for allowing me in. hello? >> we're listening. >> caller: oh, okay. listen, as far as the social security, okay, taking the money out, without even asking, or, you know, or getting a vote at it from the public, i think we should have legislation that when two parties can't get along, that they send a vote out to the people to decide if it's a good idea or not a good idea. what do you think about that,

welch? >> i don't agree with that. you know, the whole point of representative democracy is for the people of vermont, in my case, to decide who they want to represent them in washington. and then my responsibility, while i serve for my two-year term is to do the best i can to have votes reflect my best judgment about how to represent vermonters. my responsibility, too, by the way, is to reach out to other members of congress, republican and democrat, to try to find some common ground, to find a way to make progress. if i fail to do that in the judgment of vermonters, they get a chance in two years to vote for somebody else. but i don't think we can just send everything back as a referendum if we can't reach agreement here. we have to struggle through it and try to do our best and make decisions. >> james art on twitter is interested in vermont's health care direction. and asks welch what he thinks

that caused tenn care in the single payer in tennessee to fail. >> i don't think tenn was a single payer system. as i understand it, and i'm not as familiar as he probably is, i think that was a broad expansion of health care to lower income people without it being a unified system, and also without there being any sufficient focus on the cost side of health care. you know, in vermont, we had -- we've been working on health care in vermont for a couple of generations. and republicans and democrats have done this. and when we were expanding health care, we had a republican governor, jim douglas, and i was senate president, and the democrats were focused on how do we expand health care to people who don't have it. the governor was focused on how do we control the cost. we discovered we were both right. if we want access, we've got to control costs. so we've always approached health care reform as something

ahead as a goal, access in quality, but in order to achieve that, we had to control cost. >> here's another health care tweet. the viewer wants to know, tell me what triggers the public option in medicare part d. the private sector is price gouging the elderly. >> i'm a strong supporter of the public option and i voted for it. in fact, the public option would have been, i think, a real competition to help bring the prices down, that are being charged by the private health insurance companies. we don't have the public option as a practical matter in the health care bill. if i had a chance to vote for it again, i would. >> do you think it will survive the constitutional review in the supreme court? >> i think the big challenge in the supreme court is the mandate. you cannot have a health care system where everybody's going to be covered. unless all of us help pay for it. so i do believe that there has to be an obligation on all of us

to help pay for it. the supreme court, i don't have confidence in this supreme court. this is the supreme court that by a 5-4 decision prohibited the florida supreme court from doing a recount in the bush v. gore race. this is the supreme court that basically says, a corporation can spend unlimited amounts of money, cast away a hundred years of law and judicial ruling. so what this court will decide, it's anyone's guess. i hope they uphold the bill, but i don't have confidence in this supreme court. >> our last call for you is from virginia. ken is a democrat there. good morning, ken. >> caller: good morning. >> you have a question? >> caller: yes, i do. they talk about the big business and the record profits that they make. and they say if they tax the big business, that they would not create jobs. but they're making record profits now, and they're not making jobs for people.

so what makes it like that, if they give them a tax break, or take money away from them, they're still not going to do it. >> you're right. look, everybody's got to pay their fair share. we've got some major extraordinarily profitable multinational companies that not only pay no taxes, they pay less taxes than your grocery store down the street, or hardware store that you go to pick up some nails. and in some cases, they actually get a rebate from the taxpayers. so that's just not right. and that's one of the reasons a lot of us believe we absolutely have to have a more simplified tax code. you can lower rates. but you'd have everybody paying, including corporations, paying a reasonable tax on the profits that they make. >> so there's been a bipartisan accord reached on this bill. what does your lens say the rest of the year is going to look like? >> well, my hope is that we don't use the fact that it's an election year as an excuse to

not get more work done. and there are some areas where i want to see us make progress. two areas that could be common ground. one is on infrastructure. everybody knows our roads, our bridges, our airports, our rail system, those are deteriorating. we do not have a 21st century infrastructure. whether you're a republican in a democratic district, we need to find common ground to be an investment in our future. the second is energy efficiency. what's the right fuel source, or drilling or not drilling. but whatever kind of fuel you use, if you use less, less heating oil, if you're a business and you can get more mileage with less fuel, that saves money. and 95% of the materials that we use to do energy conservation are manufactured in this country. so we can put people to work, we can save homeowners and businesses money, if we work on energy efficiency.

>> he's with the vote counting team, and the house democratic caucus. i'm just going to ask you as we close here, what's the mood like behind closed doors with democrats right now? >> it's pretty good, actually. i think that all of us are seeing -- president obama's doing better. and the democrats know that our fortunes in terms of taking back the house of representatives i think is tied very much to how president obama does. and he seems to be doing better. clearly it's in the polls. there's an upbeat feeling among the democrats that we're heading in the right direction. >> thanks for being here. have you made that decision on your vote? >> i've got to read all the details, but i really am concerned about borrowing $100 billion from the social security trust fund. adding that to the debt. and then for the first time, literally not fully paying and funding the social security trust fu.