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we welcome republican congressman from pennsylvania, lloyd zucker, for the first time on the "washington journal." he served on the budget committee in the 117th congress, and congressman, let's start by talking budget. the congressional budget office is set to score that nearly $2 trillion build back better act, that social spending bill. at some point this week, we're expecting that scoring. what are you expecting the budget experts over there to say about this legislation? >> i think this bill will end up costing more than the democrats are expecting or saying it will at this point. this will be, again, a massive increase in federal spending. it will increase the federal debt. and it's going to contribute more to inflation. we're already seeing you go to the gas pump, gas prices have increased over 50%. it's going to be the most expensive thanksgiving turkey dinner ever. and americans are feeling this

in their pocketbook everywhere they go to buy goods. we think, i think it's a long policy that continues to massively expand the federal government to increase dependency on the federal government, and to disincentivize work, which is what we have been seeing out of this administration. so it's amazing to me, we just came through an election in virginia, in new jersey, and i'm just amazed at the democrats' response to this election. they're completely misreading the american people. i believe it's like the ship is sinking, and rather than bailing water, they're asking for more water, bring more water in. so this isn't what the people in my district want. this isn't what the american people want. i believe. but i think they're going to try to ram this through. >> i don't know if you were listening to the callers in the last segment, but there was one

caller who said if this very big bill were broken into smaller parts, she thought there were parts she could support. but it's just such a big bill with so many different things wrapped into it, that she wasn't certain about supporting it. i wonder, is there anything that's in this very big bill that you say you don't support that you could support if it was broken into a smaller piece? >> well, they just passed what was called the infrastructure bill, and you know, i believe that infrastructure is a core function of government. i believe that in fact when i was in the pennsylvania state senate, i voted to actually increase the gas tax to provide for more funding for our roads and highways. and unfortunately, what's happened is the democrats in the house, speaker pelosi, have lumped all of these massive spending programs together. you know, again, i have previously supported

infrastructure spending. i would have liked to have done so had this bill been properly paid for. so there are core things that people expect from their government. but we know how it ends. if you look throughout history, every country that has overspent, overpromised, and printed money to pay for those programs, it doesn't end well. at the very least, we're doing this on the backs of our kids and our grandkids. and i ran for congress to insure that every american has their opportunity to live their own american dream. and i want to insure that that's available for our kids and grandkids. you know, the promise in america has always been that every generation can do better than their parents before them, their grandparents before them. and i think with the economic policies that we're seeing advanced from this administration now, that's at risk.

and so i think the american people are very, very concerned about what this will do to our country going forward. >> on the bipartisan infrastructure framework signed into law yesterday, you voted against that bill, as you noted. expected to bring, according to the pennsylvania budget and policy center, an estimated nearly $18 billion in hard infrastructure spending to the keystone state. democrats have said that any republicans who voted against this bill, they shouldn't come to the ribbon cutting ceremony. they shouldn't celebrate when these new projects come to fruition that are funded through this bill. what do you say to that as somebody who voted against this legislation? >> well, again, i think it is a core function of government to provide for infrastructure and it's important to a strong economy. it's a foundation of a strong economy, as a matter of fact. but the problem with this bill, for me, was that only a small percentage of the bill went to our traditional infrastructure.

an outsized portion of the bill went to electric vehicles and other green new deal policies. it was not properly paid for. for instance, the revenue that's coming in from vehicles that are driving on our roads is declining, if you think about vehicles are more fuel efficient than before, and folks are moving to electric vehicles. and so that needs to be fixed. i introduced a bill in congress that would insure, would ask for owners of electric vehicles to pay their fair share for driving on the roads, just as the owner of every other vehicle. something like that should have been included in this bill, and it was not. so the bill wasn't fully paid for. it will increase the debt. there are some good parts of that bill, to your earlier question. but i just couldn't support this massive bill, and i couldn't support the whole package that was tied together here in the house.

>> congressman lloyd smucker, our guest. a first timer here on the "washington journal." though in his third term in congress, representing the 11th district of pennsylvania. and taking your phone calls, with us until the bottom of the hour. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. i want to shift it to vaccine mandates. i know you're leading one of thefthe efforts to oppose the biden administration's effort to impose vaccine mandates or testing on businesses with 100-plus employees. you ran a small business before coming to congress, so what would be the impact of that kind of mandate on the kind of company you ran? >> well, listen, covid has been a real challenge for us to get through. we have had remarkable success with the vaccine. it was developed in record time. it's very effective. i took the vaccine, my family

has taken the vaccine from the time it was first available. i encourage people to speak to their doctors about whether that's the right decision for them. and i think that's where the decision should be made. this is the decision that every individual should make for themselves just as to make all their other health care decisions, with the advice of their doctor and others who they trust. this is not something that should be mandated from the government. and it's not necessary. early on, during covid, we had discussions with a lot of individuals who came to congress to talk with us about what the country was about to go through and how we would combat that, how we would deal with it, and they talked about this idea of herd immunity. early on, you know, fauci and others were saying that herd immunity would be reached when about 70% of the american population either has the

vaccine or has natural immunity due to having contracted covid. and i have heard numbers even less than that when we realize that the earliest fatality rates that we had feared didn't end up being the case, the fatality rate was lower for the virus than what was initially feared. so folks even said even less than 70% could be the right level to achieve herd immunity and we could get back. we're there. and this is the part that i don't understand. we're at well over 70% of the people in at least my state. i don't know the exact number across the country right now, but we're close to that or above that across the country. and so we do not need to have a vaccine mandate. certainly, it's a massive overreach of the federal government. i believe it's unconstitutional. i'm glad that many states,

attorney generals in many states are taking this to court. i hope that it reaches a conclusion quickly in the supreme court. in fact, i have sent a letter with the other republican colleagues, members of congress from my state, to our attorney general asking him to join in. but this is a decision that should be made individually and should not be mandated by the government. >> plenty of calls for you already. we'll start on that line for independents. matt in potomac, maryland. good morning. >> caller: good morning. we just spent an hour talking about bipartisanship, and congressman smucker started with a political shot about rising gas prices. what specific actions have you taken or do you plan to take across the aisle to reduce gas prices in the short term for americans? >> well, thanks. john, you want me to -- >> yes. >> appreciate the call, and you know, that's not a political shot. it's fact.

the fact of the matter is that gas prices are over 50% higher than they were when biden became president. massive impact on the budget of americans across the country, across my district. so that's a fact. and you know, i was a small business owner for years, 25 years, built a company from the time i was 17 to regional leader in construction in south central pennsylvania. i understand sort of the laws of supply and demand. and i think some of the decisions that were made early on by this president, decisions he made in the first week shutting off pipelines, shutting off supply, obviously contributed to higher gas prices. i think the policy is wrong, and then he put in the position of asking opec to increase their production. so how does that make any sense

whatsoever? you cut off supply here, you eliminate jobs here, and then you ask foreign countries, many of which are not always our allies, to increase their production. it just makes no sense whatsoever. so again, it's not a political shot. it's a fact. i agree, i know this is a discussion about bipartisanship. we should all, every individual that votes for a member of congress should expect that their elected official should go to congress and work to do what is right for their constituents, for the people who elected them. shouldn't be there for their own benefit. should be there to do what's right for the country to move the country forward in the right direction. and you know, congress, 435 members in the house, 100 in the senate. i think it truly is a reflection of the american people. i have a lot of respect for

other members of congress. every member of congress worked hard to get elected in their district, to have the honor of representing the people of their district. they bring their own experiences. they bring their own opinions. they bring the values and the needs and experiences of those they represent in the district. so it's a great system, and we should have respect for all of those different backgrounds and experiences that come together. >> is there a democratic member that you're friends with that you have worked together with on legislation with in your three terms? >> oh, absolutely. in fact, i think almost all of the legislation that i have been successful in getting passed or including in another bill has been done on a bipartisan basis. i do think, and so yes, i'm friends with many members of the democrat party as well as the republican party. you know, i was -- people asked

me when i first came to office, and i'm now in my third term so i have been here for five years, but people ask me what surprised me most when i first was elected. the answer truly was the caliber of the people that were elected with me in my class, and i find that true across congress. that was democrats and republicans. and our class, as a matter of fact, there's an orientation, some of that is done on a bipartisan basis, about two weeks of orientation. and our class literally several times throughout the orientation asked everyone else to leave the room, and we just spoke together as incoming members. and we committed at that time, it seems like the good old days now, honestly, but we committed at that time to treat each other with civility, with respect, knowing that we would have vigorous debates and arguments and differences of opinion about

what direction to take the country. but treating each other with ci. we actually signed a document that said we would operate that way. i do think it's very, very sad to see how divided both the country is and also how divided congress is today. it's perhaps i was in the state senate for two terms prior to coming here, so i have been now 13 years in elected political office, and this is by far the most rancor and the most divisiveness i have seen. so i hope we get back to the point where we can work together in a far better way than we are now. >> just about 15 minutes left. we do have a lot of calls. julian in louisiana, republican. go ahead. >> caller: yeah, my question is about inflation. even when you listen to janet yellen and you listen to powell, and i have been trying to listen to him, too, he gives me the impression they don't know the

difference between supply and demand and inflation. inflation is if you print money. supply and demand you can recover from. i'm under the impression that since we had this covid stuff, people are not going and working, they're not producing goods and services to put on the shelves, you know, so people can buy those things. at the same time, i think powell is easing off that quantitative stuff. so we still got printing money and we got supply and demand issues that are contributing to the inflation number. what split would you say, is it 50/50 or 25/75? >> well, you know, i don't know that i have an exact percentage, but i think you identified some of the causes for what we're seeing with inflation. you simply cannot continue to spend more money than we have and print that money, expand the money supply, without having an impact on inflation. so we expected, we predicted, unfortunately, that we would be

seeing not just -- i think the word they use is transitory inflation, that would be here for a little while and then tail off. we predicted that this is something that we're going to see for the next few years, unfortunately, as long as we continue to these policies of massive government spending and expanding the money supply to pay for that. and that's exactly what's happening. we now had over 6% increase in consumer good prices over a year ago. that's the highest inflation that we have seen in about 30 years. we have an entire generation, maybe several generations, that have not lived in an environment where they have -- they have felt like it's a tax on them. they felt like their dollars don't go as far as they did just a little while ago. unfortunately, i believe that's what we're looking at the next

few years as long as we continue these policies. >> monroe township, new jersey. this is norman. line for democrats. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i have what i think is a very simple question. i am 95 years old. i remember when decisions were made for the benefit of the health of the country by scientists. we eliminated so many diseases. and polio was rampant when my children were young, and it is completely wiped out. why are these decisions now made by politics? can't -- can't ride in a car without a seat belt. you get a ticket. you can't jaywalk. why is it now a political

decision when it's for the health of the country, the country was much better off when scientists made these decisions. >> norman, thanks for the question. congressman. >> thank you. i think probably you're referring to covid and our response to covid, and i agree with you. i don't thing this is something, it's unfortunate it has become so politicized. i think in many ways, what we saw in combatting covid in the development of the vaccine in what was absolutely record time was a remarkable achievement of science. and i know there are different opinions about the vaccine, but as i said, i think it's safe, and i think it has allowed us to open. one of the problems we have seen during covid and the policies that both state and federal and local governments have implemented is that people felt like the science wasn't followed. so for instance, in my

community, when covid first started, we were scrambling to insure there would be enough hospital beds for those who had contracted covid and the local hospitals in my community were predicting hundreds of individuals who would be hospitalized due to covid, and so we were talking about opening up new facilities, figuring out where to do that and so on. then i began to notice that never really took place. and the idea of the shutdowns initially was so that our hospitals would not become overwhelmed. and that didn't happen in pennsylvania. in fact, it didn't come close to happening in my community. and yet, the governor in my state shut down all but essential businesses, i should say, to the detriment of individuals who owned those businesses, who had poured their lives into those companies, building those companies,

individuals who had lost their jobs. so i don't think the science was followed in how shutdowns were implemented across the country. we didn't weigh the impact of them compared to the risks of covid. so i think you're right. i think we really need to be focused, follow the science on these things. in some cases with covid, i think we did. in others, not so much. >> laguna woods, california. mike, independent. good morning. >> caller: good morning, gentlemen. i was recently surprised to learn that the u.s. spends three times as much as second place china in the military budget. and i think that basically what we're doing with that money is policing the world. and our recent experience with afghanistan, i think, proves that that's very foolish objective for our quote defense