and anyone else at our table

this morning. we want to welcome back congressman sean duffy, a republic man of wisconsin, here to talk about the 2016 budget debate, the house would like to kick that off and get a conference deal. the deal between the house and the senate on the floor this week. however, there seems to be a hold up. let me read politico's headline to you, sir. gop budget dodges, fights over and title and defense. and rachel bay reports that forget about paul ryan's medicare, privatize zation plan the same with other entitlement reforms and never mind offsetting defense spending increases in almost every instance. sources describe a gop budget deal in which political practicality beats out ideology as republican leaders tack toward the party's center. now that they're in control of both chambers, well, so first off, i think it's impressive that we're actually going to get a deal this early if a deal

comes. this has been decades since we've had this kind of. bicameral us negotiations this early in the process, which i think is absolutely fantastic. listen, this is weakness in the process. we look at ideology, we look at politics, and we see how much we can get done that's going to resolve a lot of the challenges that we face as a country. i mean, america understands we have an $18 trillion debt. i think they want us to fix the problems that we face, not just today, but in the long run. we pay $240 billion a year just in interest on the debt. that's about half the amount we spend on our military spending. so we have to we have to get the budget right. but we also have to understand that you can't get everything that you want and politics come into play and you see you see the struggle between those two happening right now. it can be a little bit messy. politics is it's the sausage making. but in the end, i think we're going to get a deal that's going to work for the american people. the budget blueprint serves as a vision of of the party

republicans now control both the house and the senate. it's not a binding document. does it concern you then that the vision of the republican party looks like not dealing with the drivers of the debt that you were just talking about entitlements will and will in the house? you know, we've dealt with the drivers of our debt, which is entitlements, and you'll see a lot of ads if we look back to paul ryan on the ads that run against him, with him, you know, dumping a lady off on a lady off a cliff. we're not afraid to put out big ideas. what happens in this negotiation in the senate. i think, you know, we have to we have to find out what comes from that negotiation. but again, i do think it's important that we continue to address the drivers. and you're right, we have we have both both both chambers now, again, we have certain problems in the senate. we don't have 60 votes. there's only 54 republicans. we're going to need some democrat buy in and they have a say in part of the process. and so you don't always get everything that you want because in the senate, you don't control

everything. without that 60 vote, majority republicans were able to increase money for the pentagon. the so-called defense hawks won out putting money in the so-called emergency fund for national security concerned. but not offsetting those costs. that's okay with you. well, listen, i there's there is a concern that all of us have about the strength of our military. and if you look around the world, there are rising threats, whether we're looking at what's happening with iran or with isis, china, russia, serious problems that we face in the world. and america has to have a strong military to address those problems. i would prefer that we do have offsets. but as you know, it becomes very challenging to find a pathway forward. whose program are we going to cut? and i think in this negotiation you're seeing people opt for just going for military spending and put it on the american credit card that arguably which you'll come back and regret and say, hey, that's that's part of the problem that we've seen, you know, for decades that puts us

at that $18 trillion debt. but we come back to a fundamental problem whether it's with our military or with even building our infrastructure on roads and bridges. those are, i think, one of the one of the primary roles of our government. but when you include all of these entitlements, all of these programs that sends money to people across the country, all of a sudden, budgets get tight and instead of putting money into the spaces that we actually should as a government like military and infrastructure, we start to have these debates about where the money is going to come from because more money is going out in the entitlement system and we have to have a conversation as a country if we're going to be responsible in our spending, you know, where are the cuts going to come from? where is the reform going to come from? is it smart to get all the reform from our military when we live in a more dangerous world? i don't think that's the answer. i think i think, one, to make sure we have a strong military, especially with all these threats. and so i think we have to look at the entitlement system where you're able to help people out who are in need, making sure they get a hand up to bridge the gap of the hardship that they

find themselves in their life. but we want to make sure we get away from a system that can encourage a lifetime on these programs and encourage people to use them, but then get off the program, which i hope will save the federal government a lot of money. that's a larger conversation that we have to figure out. all right. well, let's get jenny involved. who's up first in lakewood, washington? an independent caller. hi, jenny. you're on the air with congressman sean duffy. go ahead. good morning. i would just like to say that i accessed a wendy's historical financial data excel file and i was looking at the revenue columns. are you there? can you hear me? i can hear you. okay. i was looking at the revenue columns. it goes from the mid 1970s and i revenues corporations used to represent 65 to 67% of our revenues annually, 5% of that of our annual revenues would come

from excise taxes and different smaller taxes. and the remaining about 30%, let's say, would come from small businesses and individuals, and that's directly from omb historical data. then as we came forward from the mid 70, as it did of flip flops that were revenues from corporation are about 12 to 15% at 5% again from excise taxes, etc., and the rest from individual wells and small businesses like is, is that if you look at the actual numbers for revenue loss, you say that entitlements were entitlement driven. well, we've got a flip flop on our income on small businesses and individual wells are more than paying their share. we can afford social security for ourselves. we can afford employment, retirement for ourselves. we can afford medicare. we can afford it all because we are now paying the bulk of the

the revenues are coming. the bulk of the revenues are coming from individuals and small business. okay, jenny. so i think we've got your point, congressman watts. so i haven't seen the data that you are talking with jenny, but i think we have a situation where you're saying, hey, listen, why aren't we raising taxes on businesses? and i think we have to recognize that we don't just live in america and just compete with in america. we are in a global competitive environment. and we've all heard about these inversions where american companies look for a suitor overseas that have a better tax rate and move their headquarters to a different country. that's not what we want to have. that's not what we want to have. we want to have a competitive tax code that encourages businesses to stay in america, to innovate in america and grow in america. and we have to be competitive on the tax side. but i think jenny does bring up a good point when we say, hey, listen, we should actually know what corporations are paying. and when you have a massive tax code that's incredibly difficult to navigate over generations, the powerful interests around

the country have come to washington and carved portions of their profits out of the tax code. so we really don't know what corporations are paying. i think we need to streamline the code, make it far simpler. and so we know what we know what everyone's paying and every income bracket and we know what corporations are paying as well. instead of a complex code that no one can figure out. house and senate republicans, democrats have said they've been left out of this negotiating process over a 2016 budget blueprint. but a deal on the table and the house wants to vote on it thursday. does it include anything to deal with what you're talking about, tax reform across the board or at least corporate tax reform? i know i'm speculating here. i believe that if we do tax reform, it's going to be done in a different major tax reform is going to be done in its own separate package as opposed to being put in the budget process. so and i believe congressman paul ryan, also a good wisconsinite, is working on that as we speak. and the ways and means chairman, we'll go to fitchburg, massachusetts. brian. independent caller go ahead.

yeah, i got a couple questions. one of them i want to show you out there on tv. it says, the china builds military equipment 90% cheaper than us. that's one question. another question i got is last year we lost 10 million people in the country on visas and 40 million in the last five years. why are we let in so many people in this country? and i wonder why nobody's working in any way. these aren't going up. thank you. all right. yes. i mean, on the immigration question, there's a there's a there's there's a tension. some will argue that if you allow those to come in with out documentation or documentation and some of them are low skill workers, you're competing at the at the bottom end of the wage bracket. and that's one of the reasons why wages aren't coming up, because there's such a great supply of low income workers that is happening from a lot of the immigration that's taking place. and that concerns a lot of us. but i'll tell you what, i live in wisconsin and we have a dairy farms and there's a lot of jobs in the farms, but we can't find

enough folks to come in and work the farm. and oftentimes you find people who have immigrated to the country that are willing to do some of the toughest and dirtiest jobs out there that some americans won't do. and, you know, you won't have milk unless you have some of these immigrants perform in some of these tasks. but to to another point we have, i use the trucking industry. we have a lot of haulers that have trucks and have loads and they don't have enough drivers and you can get a cdl, a commercial driver's license in 30 days and get behind the wheel and make anywhere from 40000 to $60000 a year. and they can't find the driver's credit. and so we have to look at what's happening in our culture, where there's people who want to need jobs, but they're not getting connected with the people who have the jobs and better paying jobs. and i think what the answer to that is, i'm not quite sure yet, but it's definitely a problem. hope mills, north carolina, gerald. democratic caller. go ahead, gerald. you're on the air with the congressman. representative duffy c-span america. good morning. how are you all beautiful day.

good morning, gerald. the i've got two questions here, so please allow me to ask. first of all, i believe our budgetary problems is a republican phenomena called starve the beast back when bush took over, bush 43, he became president. we went into two wars. i'll just cut taxes. and we've been in a dive ever since. the second thing is about those. if you allow me those rights that were in baltimore. could you explain the difference between the way that the police handled them and the way they handled the bundy ranch situation where the white guys actually drew guns on the police and nobody got arrested preemptively. millions of dollars and one last thing, america, ya'll look out for our military and godspeed on all their endeavors. you'll have a great day. all right, geraldo, i agree with you on the military, the greatest fighting force the world has ever known. listen. going to, you know, the wars you reference in the in the early 2000. i mean, yeah, it was it was very

costly. and i think we're still trying to address those issues today. i mean, some of the problems that were left to barack obama and some of the problems we face today in iran and with isis and in iraq and afghanistan, they came from an early 2000. so but it in regard to income we've had, we bring in more money today than we ever have in our history. so when people say, well, there's all these tax cuts that are dropping the revenue in the federal government, that's actually not the case. we're hit in historic highs of revenue coming into the federal coffers. and so we don't really have a revenue problem. we have a spending problem. if the reverse would be true, if you really say, listen, the revenues aren't there, we're not we're not taxing enough, which means we're not bringing enough money, not the case. we're bringing in more money than ever in our history. but we still run historic deficits and debts. and that means what's happening on the spending front. and we always talk about the drivers of the debt, which we talked about earlier. you know, listen, on the medicare side, we have we have our baby boomers who are

retiring. modern medicine means people live longer. it's a beautiful thing in health care. costs keep going up. all of that together is putting a ton of pressure on medicare. and unless we get our hands on how we keep the promises to our seniors, but also look to the next generation and what reforms need to happen to make sure the programs are solvent. this thing is going to implode. what are your thoughts on the situation in baltimore about what needs to or what can't? what role congress can play dealing with the tensions economic, racial in inner cities across this country? first of all, i look at what happened to freddie gray and the community has every right to be outraged. i was a former prosecutor making sure that people are treated fairly and justly is important for every law enforcement and every prosecutor in our country. and when they're not, we have to have internal reviews to look at what happened and why it's happening. but beside that, you look at the response and instead of peaceful protests to change the direction of the baltimore police force and change the culture of the community.

you have these violent protests where thugs are coming out and burning and looting and raiding. i don't think i don't think that's the answer. and oftentimes you'll see in congress, people want to throw money at problems. it makes them feel good to spend more money and say, here's more dollars. we not want to be done with this problem. we've done our part well. throwing money at problems is not always resolving the problem. and i look at baltimore, i think just from from my perspective, i'm a wisconsin guy, so i'm an outside observer. i'm, i think are our education has failed. these young kids. and i think our families are failing. and if you're going to have a strong society, a strong community, you have to have good education and good families. and i think we have to take a deeper look and say throwing more money at a broken school system isn't the answer. let's look at reforming the school system. let's look at changing the system to actually make sure it works. but throwing money at a broken is never the answer. it's an easy solution congress can take, but it won't fix the problem in baltimore. and then i think a larger and

deeper conversation is what's happening in a community where there's a fundamental breakdown. families where you don't you don't have moms and dads raising kids. there was a there was we saw a continuing on news loops that the woman who is out there getting, her young son, who was 16 years old and she was what i'm saying, get your get your -- home. that was one mom and it was her only son. but she had six kids and she was raising the six kids by herself, man. and there's that happens a lot in the country. that is tough. i have seven kids and i raise them with my wife and that's tough enough that there's there's great tension there. i think there's great anger there. and we have to look at the deeper roots of these problems. and it's not going to be an easy solution. we can't mandate strong families in congress. we can't do that. we can set up a system that can help support them and have to look at the fundamentals of education. and we've seen people who dig their heels and don't want change to the to the education system, even when it doesn't work. and i think democrats and republicans alike have say, look, listen, we have to address the union problem within the

school system. we have to reform it. and actually make it work for these kids. this is this is not about unions. it's about young kids who need a good education. all right. we'll go back to calls. thomas in fresno, california, republican. hi, thomas. good morning. you're on the. good morning. hey, mr. sean duffy. hey, thomas. how are you? i'm doing well. good, good. hey, i've got a question about the budget control act. does in 11. you know, where we try to it was actually inspired by the president. now he doesn't want to follow that no more. but we have to understand something here where we we the people address these these recourses that we try to follow and we are successful. and then we have nothing but the same actions with. justice murray and ryan's

sticking their heads into this money, then you're trying to outspend the problems. they'll never go away. okay. not in terms of this ad. we talked about this a little earlier, but democrats i mean, republicans want to lift the budget caps, the so-called sequestration when it comes to defense and have done so in this budget deal. it's going to come to the floor this week in the house. yeah. and i guess, first of all, i guess with thomas, i used to do lumberjack sports, one of the best contests we used to have was in fresno, california. so fond of fresno. yeah. listen, we have a great concern on the military front. i mean, again, you see isis we had in fox, we see iran on on a pathway to getting a nuclear weapon, weapon, no matter what the president says. that is the track that they're on, a growing military in china and. you have russia that's, you know, in crimea, it's, you know, they're advancing their old cold war footing, real concerns.

and they have a weaker america with less resources. the military, i think, is begging for a more global conflict. and so there are republicans who have that concern and, yes, those those caps on the military side have been broken to put more dollars in to address that rising threat. a lot of us think in the long run by spending a little more money today in having a stronger american military, we will offset future costs, which would be far greater if if we have less peace in the world. okay. mobile, alabama, daryl, independent, your next. good morning. i don't. good morning. up the i i i really respect your ability. be very, very evenhanded and very, uh, i, i, i, i like that. anyway, i will, sir, disagree with you upon the drivers of the thing that i do not believe it is entitlements are seniors and put a lifetime of work to fund

these to fund these programs. and they have basically been said, well, sorry, you know, you're not. yeah, i understand that they will get more than they put in. however, it is, uh, an insurance program and we, you know, come on, we knew this in the thirties when it was put into place and, and medicare in the sixties. um, all right. well, darryl, let's have the congressman respond to what you said. well, i guess the president would even disagree with you. the president has said the drivers of the debt are the entitlements and republicans have said the same thing. and so we'll talk about, you know, addressing all these small slivers of the budget pie. you can't fix this problem unless you get to the entitlement spending and we're not talking about those seniors are in retirement or seniors who are near the retirement. we're talking about the next generation of retirees making some modifications to make the program stable. and again, it's a hard conversation. i think you have people in

congress that want to tell americans what they want to hear. instead of telling them the truth and telling people the truth is always a hard political conversation. but if we don't have that conversation in the president's ten year budget window, we see interest on the debt alone approaching $1,000,000,000,000. you can build a lot of schools. there's there's there's a lot of roads and bridges that you can build with $1,000,000,000,000 of interest alone that will be paid on this massive debt. and so getting our hands around it and getting a handle on the entitlement is is imperative. and if we don't, the debt's going to eat us up. we'll go to baltimore tom on our line for democrats. hi, tom. good morning. how are you all doing today? hi. i a question about culture of spending versus the culture of saving. i worked for the, uh, correctional department here in baltimore city as a contractor, and, and it seemed like every year we got to the end of the budget year and found that we had extra money and we decided

to spend it on some pretty silly things. and i don't know if this was rampant throughout the government or the contractors, but it just seemed like if we changed that culture, maybe reward the contract or the departments who actually save money every year, maybe we could get a handle on this type. bring up a good point, making sure that we're incentivizing our our agencies to spend less and what they say, you know, give it back to the government as opposed to right now with the incentives for us to spend up to the last cent we give them, and oftentimes at end of the year, you see folks in these agencies buying their new computers and their ipads and the money goes out the door instead of going back to the federal coffers. that is a small part of the problem, but the larger part comes from these and the entitlement system that is growing with the baby boomers and the increased cost of health care. dan ironbridge, wisconsin independent caller yes, good morning. um, i'm calling. i'm calling because i'm wondering when they're going to

finally the law, the drug test, people on food stamps and welfare. um, because the majority of them are drugs or to sell them for drugs selling or food stamps for drugs. and dan, where have you read that? a good majority are doing that? well, it was just an expression, but i know like there is a lot of people that do it and i was just wondering when they're going to pass a law, at least drug test, people on welfare and food stamps. right. well, and i believe this is an issue that governor walker has brought up in the state. and i do think these are state issues that each state on a state by state basis can can look at. i would tell you that listen, if if if you're at home and you're and you're doing drugs, you're not going to really get a job. and you're going to able to get off the social programs. and i think making sure that if if i mean, i know i know people in wisconsin that are working two jobs, they'll work a full time, 40 hour a week job. and then, you know, on friday night and saturday, they go work a second job just to make ends

meet. and they pay taxes and they're okay helping out. they want to help people out, but they want to help people who are also helping themselves, greta. and it's important then that if if folks are on the system and they're not and they're not working to get off because they're doing drugs. i think we have to analyze. what do we do as as american taxpayers to say we're willing to, but we're not willing to subsidize a standard that's never going to get you out of these are out of the out of the hole of entitlements. my one concern, though, is what to do about kids. if you have kids in the home, all of a sudden a drug abusing parent and a lack of food on the table, that hurts the kids in the home and how you split that, i'm not quite sure. well, and tell our viewers, tell that caller in our viewers what percentage of the budget is welfare and these type of payments? it is a smaller percentage, but 1%. yeah. the exact percent. i'm not i can't telegraph that in my head, but even on the reform front, it becomes

challenging with entitlements. we had a conversation in in the farm bill that a year ago, a year and a half ago, where we had said, listen, let's just if you're an able bodied man or woman and you don't have dependent children and you're not working and of sound mind and sound body, we think that you should have to either do one of three things, get a job, go to school to learn a skill, or you get a volunteer, but you just can't be a 33 year old single man. that's tough and tough. and sit on the couch and get food stamps. you got to do something. you would have thought that we were taking food out of the mouths of babies. folks would go to the lowest common denominator. and i think most americans agree that, hey, listen, you can't just sit at home if you are and get these entitlements. you've got to get back into the workforce. but that becomes a harder political conversation because all of a sudden, you know, the other side will throw in you know, babies and kids and that's not what we were talking about. so making sure we have an honest conversation on these topics is really important in congress. crystal lake, illinois. vic is a republican. good morning. morning. how are you doing? hey, vic, i have a question for

you now that and i see something curious going on here, uh, every time you guys want to push the keystone pipeline, you guys neglect to say that the koch brothers own the koch brothers on 1,500,000 acres of tar in canada. i mean, it's just off the table, you guys. i don't know how you can answer that question. not only that, the koch brothers are going to give you $900 million for your 40th republican party, $1 billion for your nominee when when there is one nominee. i, i don't know how you're going to answer it, but i'm still lying. and i'll listen. i don't know. i don't know what parties have, what interests in the energy sector or what democrats have interests and using trains to haul energy as opposed to

pipelines. i just come at it from this way. i think we want american energy independence. north american energy independence. and i'd rather have that oil come from canada than from saudi arabia. and if you're if you're an environmentalist or say, listen, listen, i know that canada has invested billions of dollars. if we don't build the pipeline, we're still taking this energy out of the ground. it's going to happen regardless of what we do. so the question becomes, how are you going to transport it? you can do it by train and truck, which uses more carbon and is more dangerous. or you can build the pipeline that uses less carbon and is safer. i say, let's go to a safe route by sending this energy into american system that makes sure that we don't we don't buy oil and energy from people that don't like us very much. and i think if you see the american energy revolution, what it's done in the world when we've dropped oil prices because of greater supply, all of a sudden it puts some countries that are bad actors in the world, one being russia and and iran is another. it puts them in a tough spot

because in venezuela also, but in a tough spot because they don't have now all of these resources to support their failing economies and they're failing governments. so i look at american energy, not just as an energy play, but a global that affects the ability of bad actors to do bad things in the world. all right, clyde in circleville, new jersey, democrat. hi, clyde. good morning. there's a question i got to ask the congress. i mean, how can you i think this budget change, it's going to be a big fight between the democrats and republicans and another question i got to ask is i think that right in baltimore is a total disgrace. thank you for let me. okay. all right, congressman. yeah. thanks, clyde. you know, listen, there's there's been not a great deal of agreement on how we set up the american budget, because we've come at it from two different premises that the republicans have said. we want to try to balance the

budget within a ten year window. that is our end goal. and the democrats have said, we we don't have an interest in ever balancing the budget. we don't want a budget and a spending plan that will ever bring us to a point where the american budget balances. and when you have two different ideas like that and you try to get a budget that can actually match up between the two parties, it becomes very challenging. but i think most americans would say at some point, at one point in our future, we should try to balance this thing. and that's what we're trying to do, is put out reasonable proposals that will actually get us on that pathway to balance. and listen, you hear people say just tax more, more revenue. again, historic highs in revenue. and i think more taxes mean less productivity, less jobs. and i think a tougher time for america in a global in a global competitive. let's look at a strong, smart tax code, but also a spending that allow us to get to balance house and the senate have passed their own individual budget blueprints for 2016. negotiators were named from both

sides. they've been meeting to come up with a deal between house and senate lawmakers. they have one. however, senator corker has been holding it up because he does not like what he calls gimmicks used by his republican colleagues in this deal, which lawmakers are hoping to get to the house floor by this thursday. democrats, for their part, object to the gop's defense spending hikes, saying they should be matched dollar for dollar, with more domestic spending. democrats also complained that as written, the republican budget would cut health, education and welfare program. so that debate to take place on the house floor later this week, possibly a vote on thursday. we're talking with representative sean duffy, a republican of wisconsin, about that debate and other issues. we'll hear from mike next in newkirk, oklahoma, independent get more eligibility, i might add. yeah, i like to think that i'm kind of fair minded when it comes to this. and yeah, you probably do need

to make some cuts in entitlements. we've got a deficit that's overblown. but the way i see it now, you guys, you republicans, you one vote majority in both houses. so you deserve to control the budget process with that with that power comes responsibility and it doesn't seem like and i've been watching the c-span, i've been watching the hearings. you're not alone. the democrats buy in on that budget process. much. and you said at the beginning of the show, yes, you did want to you did need some democrat buy in. so if you're expecting that, it just seems like you don't cut and pays. you don't cut that just from the rich. you're cutting all programs that help the poor and middle class. it just seems like if you want, you know, a process you have by hand where you guys can actually get something done, get a grand bargain or whatever, you do it. you would kind of a lot of the democrats are part of the process. let's get a response. well, so first off, we do have a

budget that's come out earlier than we've seen in decades, which is positive, which means we're gonna be able to start the appropriation of the spending process earlier than ever and hopefully get it done before the the august recess, which is i think, really positive. we do want democrat buy in. but again, as i've mentioned, we have two fundamental differences in one side. our side wants to actually have a point of balance and democrats never want to bring the budget to balance. and if they did with we've asked for their proposal, how do you actually bring a budget out? the balances in about ten years and 15 years or 20 years and they'll never bring out that proposal. so it's really hard to get the bipartisan buy in that we want it. it's hard to get it because the fundamental views are different. it's also about economic growth and this from one of our viewers on twitter saying military spending is waste, spending on infrastructure and education is an investment with a great return. well, so, listen, i building a strong infrastructure and having

a smart build up that's just not going from year to year, but actually a long term spending proposal is really smart from the american congress. but listen, it affects growth in the world and in america when you have bad actors that feel emboldened to do more bad acts. and there's one force in the world that tamps them down, one force in the world that i help that i think helps breed peace and it's the american people and the american military in at a time with such threats. i can't say that enough with so many threats in the world to think that we are going to cut back our military, to have less capabilities doesn't make sense. i think we want a safe, strong american economy, but we also want a peaceful world in which all actors can plan. and if it's not going to be us, who's going to fill the void that's left by a dilapidated american military? is it going to be china or russia? i think the answer to both of those questions is yes. so i prefer to see america with that strong presence, bringing peace, filling the vacuum, as opposed to the bad actors. and that's really the

conversation we're going to have. and you might go, hey, listen, it doesn't it doesn't it's not an economic driver. but i do think peace is an economic driver. and instability crushes economies. and that's what we're working for here with a stronger american military. the budget deal does not deal with entitlement reform. peg on twitter says raise the cap on social security for a start. so what we've talked about with social security is that's one that is one solution. and by the way, medicare has a crisis earlier than social security. but we've talked about as the next of wealthy young individuals, say mark zuckerberg of facebook, a billionaire, that he pays in to social and will draw that money out when he prior doesn't really need it. we want to look at the top end and and if they've made more money, let them draw a little bit less all the while, those who are paid in in the middle class get to draw their traditional amounts. if you make those shifts in the way social security works, you get the same net outcome and you can actually save social security.

so just a little different way to do it. but the rich will get a little bit less in the draw. let's go back to calls. lewis in fredericksburg, virginia, republican i. hello. morning. we keep we keep hearing infrastructure and it's always roads and schools. but in fact, we need a deeper infrastructure. we need reform of business, government in this is local and state governments also. we need reform of the school system. we do need to educate people without it, without all the bringing the children into it, because we were the guardians of the children. but the children don't have a say in education and they shouldn't have a say. we're adults. so the thing i'm trying to say is you keep talking about infrastructure teacher, we have a moral infrastructure deficit. we neglect this small country towns in this country, we see

people's boarded up houses, boarded up stores and young people standing on the streets waiting for the drug dealers. because this is happening all throughout the country. all you have to do is take a little trip down 95 to myrtle beach and you'll see all these closed places in these small areas. okay, lewis, we'll have the congressman respond. know, listen, you talk about small towns. i'm from one myself. i'm from hayward, wisconsin, a very, very small community in northern wisconsin. and my district is rural. and what you see is it's harder for small businesses to actually start up to expand, grow and create more jobs, not because they competitive environment is that much more difficult, but it's more challenging for small businesses to deal with all the rules and regulations that come from government. and when our government grows, when the rules and regulations grow to be in business, the small guys can't navigate that. if you're a big business, you have the economies of scale to deal with big government. but if you're the small guy, the

rules and regulations have a dramatic impact on you. and if you look at our communities, multinational corporations aren't really moving into central and northern wisconsin. and often hundreds of jobs. it's the small business guys who are who are growing and expanding and fighting every day to stay in business. that employer families. and they're the ones that are under attack by this new massive government growth. and so if we want to support small rural communities, let's make sure we have a limited government that's set up in a way that the small business, small businesses, whether in rural or urban america, can actually go about the business of their small business instead of the business of dealing with government. okay. we'll hear from barbara next in gladwin, pennsylvania. democrat caller hi, barbara. hi there. what hasn't been spoken of yet is the real root of the problem, and that is that citizens united, unlike mitt, it can't campaign contribution allowance. it's a coach brothers spending $900 million. that's bribery. that is not contribution. it is not helping the country.

it's hurting everywhere you go. you can't run for office practically until you're a millionaire. unless you're a millionaire. you have to raise the god awful amounts of money. of course it's going to be bribery in there. you are not going to control that budget until you get that under control. and we get a congress full of good people. the whole senate practically is millionaires. how can the average person have confidence that they're going to deal with their problems? they don't. it's ridiculous that very wealthy people are allowed to buy elections, and that is what is happening. okay. we'll take your point. barbara. question barbara. i am not one of those on the millionaires side, but money in politics is a is a real stress point. and i think barbara brings up a good point. how do you work on getting money out of politics? what i find in this debate, though, is you have one side that says, you know what? oh, there's a there's a a funding source for republicans. let's go after that funding source of money. but don't touch my funding source. and republicans might go. let's go to the democrat funding, but don't touch ours. if you're going get rid of money in politics, you've got to do it

across the board. i've had in the past very competitive races in wisconsin, and i see all outside money flowing. i get all the negative. i would love to see less money in politics. how we do it, i think, is important. but to think that there's only money on one side, if you look at the amount of money that was raised by barack obama, he raised far more money than his republican challengers. and that's doesn't seem to be a problem for those who talk about citizen united. it's just that if republicans might raise money because of citizens united, that's now a problem. if you have to be evenhanded and say, we want to get rid of money in politics, you've got to look at both parties, both sides and where the money comes from. but if you only want to attack one side, i don't think you have credibility to step back and say, okay, let's let let's let the parties have at it. i do want to ask you about your role on the financial, because you're the chair of the investigations and oversight and investigations subcommittee. dodd-frank legislation celebrating five years, marking five years coming out.

what what effort are you going to be making as chair of the subcommittee? what's next when it comes to financial reform? so we look at our reforms for our small community banks and our credit unions trying to get out of some of the regulatory regime that has come from dodd-frank. if you don't have small community banks, credit unions that work in america small towns don't work. they're the that put capital into small businesses and families. and if they're not there, the big wall street banks don't come and fill that small town bank role. so making sure they can function in this environment is important. but on the oversight side, one of the things that have concerned me is a program called operation choke point. it's where the fdic and potentially other regulators have had a program to say, we're going to do certain lines of businesses that are legal in america they've done nothing wrong. but we as a bureaucrat at the fdic, we don't like them. and we're going to actually go after them. so they don't like payday lending, which is short term higher lending. and they've encouraged oftentimes banks to stop banking

payday lending. they've gone after gun dealers and ammunition manufacturers, coin dealers, all of them legal, all of them have done nothing wrong having violated the law. but because of the high ranking bureaucrats at the fdic, including, i would argue, chairman gruenberg, who has sat back implicitly as this has gone on, they've put pressure on banks to stop doing business with these lines of industries and america credit. if you can't bank, you can't be in business. and so it's a very crafty way to put pressure through the banking system on industries that you don't like. but that's not how the system in america works. we we have laws. we the we the legislature decided what's legal and what the parameters are of legally functioning businesses. that's not the role of the fdic. they should make sure our banks are safe and but they shouldn't try to implement policy by pressure on banks. you're investigating this. will you get a piece of legislation on the floor to deal with this? well, it's hard to deal with bad actors when we have when we have lois lerner to point out, when the fdic. it's hard to say.

listen, going to legislate good behavior. i think you have to root out the bad actors. and we want to make sure that we have people who are believe in the mission of of safety and soundness and of the insurance policies that come from the fdic. and if and if they don't believe in that, they got to go. can i ask you as well about the flash crash of 2010? news reports recently that one person was arrested for the flash crash in 2010 where investors lost a lot of money. this one person who was arrested in london recently made a lot of money on that one day. are you going to investigate how one person could have that much influence over the market? i think it's interesting and possibly. but what so, so, so we have operation choke point. we have the fdic we have the the monetary policy league that took place as well. a few years ago. there's there's the regulatory issues that we have to take up. and so i would just point out that on financial services, we have we have capital markets are wall street. we have all the banking from from big to small banks,

insurance, housing, the federal reserve, monetary policy. it's a big space. and we have a very small team and we have to figure out what space is we can get into and fully investigate. and there's so many issues out there, greta, but instead of having, you know, 500 people i have five people on our team that does all this work. so we've got to pick and choose what works. but we will take a look at that. all right. let me get in. ric in jacksonville, florida, independent caller. hi, ric. hey, how are you doing tonight? hi. hey. um, i got answer for one. i got a call in about. oh, testing. um, welfare recipients. we tried that in the state of florida, and i think it was like less than 2% of the people was, uh, didn't pass the drug test. but, um, i want to say, um, you talking about educating the young and the youth. and then the last little presidential election. oh, the republican candidates also, according to the department of education, um, which you say about that. i mean, what's the point is

making sure that you have bureaucrats in washington that are driving policy that affects wisconsin or alabama or louisiana or california or texas. it doesn't make sense. we want to re-empower, greta, our our states and our municipalities to educate the kids the way they see fit. and frankly, you have a democrat party who is unwilling to tackle the union problem with within the school system. if you have a school system that's failing, this is not about the union. this is about the kids. and we have to stand up for kids that getting proper educations and i think we should give people choice to go. listen, if i'm if i if i'm in the inner city and i'm not getting a good education. give them a choice. let them go to another school that works for them. and you have democrats and say, listen, i've got i've got i've got poor kids in the inner city. some of them might be of the might be of immigrant families, maybe legal or illegal. and, you know, if you don't have a good education, you don't have a pathway up into the middle class. and you have folks in the democrat party that say, listen, i'm not going to stand with those kids and give them a

ticket to prosperity, which is a ticket to a better a better educating school. instead, i'm going to buy out to the to to the unions of the schools and sure, those kids, based on their zip code, are stuck in failing schools. that's failing the kids. and listen, if you have schools that fail. let's make sure we have competition. let's let someone else come in and say, listen to the moms and dads of these children. i've got a better way to do it. will educate your kids more effectively. they'll come out and they'll get that ticket up into the middle class. but right now, you see democrats pushing back on that. and i think it's more of a union issue and a money issue as opposed to standing up for kids in america. well, we'll have to leave the conversation there. congressplease welcome united ss representative sean