it is it is even less than what paul ryan proposed in his budget. would you agree with the congressman that republicans -- >> i agree with marty that on the discretionary side that significant progress has been made to the sequester and this budget deal. the issues that remain that are the big issues that we continue to kick down the road are on the mandatory spending. they are the ones that we just cannot get our arms around. unless you deal with the entitlements, you can slash discretionary spending another 50%, but you can never really get to what i think we all want and that is a fiscally responsible government today

that does not -- >> you have to deal with long- term entitlement costs and revenue. any real solution will be a combination of the two. >> that has been the real holdup. president obama got hammered. the head of the house republican campaign committee came out instantaneously and slammed him. he was quickly followed by progressives who saw this as another betrayal by the president. on the issue of long-term deficit challenges, medicare, social security, do you see trends in health care spending or with reform that might provide some reason for caution in going too far in medicare?

and how severe is the challenge on social security? >> i think social security is the least complicated of the two. health care is much more difficult. the trends have been down lately. whether that continues, i hope that is the case. that it reflects change in practice that slows that cost down. i am optimistic about that, but not certain. if that is the case, it would help immensely. what you need is to figure out how we deliver our health care in this country without that rapid escalation of costs. >> if you were in congress today and involved in budget discussions, would you be

rushing into the debate over medicare and social security? or would your attitude be, let's give it a little bit more time and see how severe this is? >> i would be trying to deal with them. if i could write my ideal, i would have one bill with more spending for stimulus that is needed in the short term. and which has some long-term modifications to the tax system and the entitlement system. >> we are in agreement, but i would go further. i will credit president obama for really making health care a focal point of the national debate. i disagree with the plan he came up with. the truth of the matter is if you do not get your arms around health care spending in the united states of america where

we are spending 16% of the gdp, where most of our competitors are spending less than 10%. it is eating us. it is not just medicare or medicaid. when you think about the federal employees, the federal government, you the taxpayers are the largest buyers of health care. i think we have to be objective and honest with ourselves and say, despite the fact that we almost spend twice as much as any other society in the world, we cannot argue that we have longer life expectancies, that people in the united states are healthier than the people in switzerland. i believe -- and i started this debate while i was in congress to talk about what americans pay for prescription drugs. relative to what the rest of the

world pays for the exact same drugs. those kinds of studies, that kind of analysis has to be done. it should be done on a bipartisan basis. it cost so much more to have a hip replaced in the united states than it does in germany or anywhere else. we need to get to the bottom of some of these costs and figure out ways. i am not sure what the answer is. you could never really get control of the federal budget until you get your arms around health care. >> there is a lot of agreement on that. that is the area of nonpartisan agreement. the issue the congressman is raising is when you look at the last four or five years, the rate of increase has fallen dramatically and there is a debate as to why that is happening. is it the economy slowing down? is it affects from obamacare? the change in expectations among some of the stakeholders? i do not think anyone has a firm handle on it.

the rate of increase has come down and has helped to contribute to the decline already in the deficit. >> i want to ask both of you and get my colleague into the conversation. is there something about the agreement today on the budget that gives us any hints as to how other pieces of legislation might be handled by this congress? a lot of concern about the defense budget. there is enormous concern about the farm bill and getting that passed. speaker, you are a farmer. a lot of our farmers in minnesota are very concerned about the farm bill.

when you look to washington and the agreement that was reached to have a two-year budget on discretionary spending, does it give you hope or realistic sense that congress is going to be able to move on the farm bill? >> it gives me hope that we will be able to move on to the farm bill. it is a path of success that can be built upon. meeting people's expectations is a very difficult thing. it is especially tough to meet expectations of members in a caucus. it is even more difficult to meet expectations of special interest groups outside the caucus. the farm bill has only a few days left of decision-making. everybody has to tone down their expectations.

this empowerment of murray and ryan, this empowerment of a bipartisan working group, i think it does create a path for us to be -- the defense budget. there are 12 different budget bills that have to be addressed. i think this is an historical agreement, modest as it is. it does not include the big- ticket items, medicare, social security. >> once the appropriators have the top number, i think they

will work out those appropriation bills in a bipartisan fashion. i think the farm bill will pass. >> the farm bill passing comes into some of the things that we have been talking about. you have conservative republicans who are worried about spending and looking to the farm bill to bring some of the spending down. you have democrats that are offended by the magnitude of the s.n.a.p. program, or food stamps. is this scenario where this kind of murray-ryan compromise can work out the differences? or will they return to some of the deadlock? >> i want to strongly agree with marty on this point. it is something that is not understood by most people, once you have the number, once you

have the budget number that the appropriators can work with, once you determine how big the pie is going to be, it gets a lot easier to work out how big each slice is going to be. once you work out how much the ag committee gets to work with, then it becomes a much easier to work out the details of the budget. i agree with both of these gentlemen. once they have a master agreement that they know will pass the house and senate and there is the will of the leadership of the house and senate to pass appropriation bills in regular order, all of this becomes a whole lot easier. it also becomes harder for whichever side of the extremes it gets harder for them to really fire live ammunition at the target because the deal has been struck and we are just arguing how big a slice everybody gets. let me just say this about the

farm bill. and i am a little disappointed in steve's answer. steve should have said, when we have record farm income and we have farmland is selling for $20,000 an acre in northwest iowa, it becomes hard for us to rationalize why we ought to be making these large federal payments to multimillionaire farmers. the whole argument about the farm bill -- there are a number of nuances to that. while i think it has been extremely ham-fisted the way the republicans have handled this, but the whole issue of food stamp programs, the fact that we have 48 million americans on food stamps when it was designed for 2 or 3 million americans, it is an issue that deserves serious attention. why is that? what are we doing?

i don't have the answers, but i do understand why it becomes incredibly partisan. we do need to have a dialogue about 48 million of our fellow citizens who have become dependent on the government for something as basic as nutrition. >> i agree. that is the question we have to deal with. it is also related to the reality of where our income has gone in this country. people at the bottom end of the income scale, as it polarizes, the more assitance we need. millions of americans are working hard and they are not paid enough for the basics of life. they need subsidies for housing, for food stamps.

food stamps is uniform for everyone. housing, some get it and some do not. in the case of health care, the very lowest are on medicaid. but then you have the problem of cost of insurance. that is part of the cost of what the affordable care act deals with. as long as we have that kind of polarization of income, those public costs will increase. >> the theme you have both raised -- now that we are away from the issue of does the government stay open or not, we will get into the debate about what do we invest in? is it a national institute of health, food stamps, reform of how the money is going into food stamps? it sounds like we will see a

shift in the debate and how we are focusing our attention. >> i think that is right, but let me raise another issue. i think it is complicated -- life over the recent years. less and less have the committees been doing their work. when they do do their work, they are overruled by central leadership. the committees produce a product and then they get vetoed by leadership. my observation is that it is not leadership is not nearly as smart as they think they are. [laughter] this issue goes beyond appropriations. this has been a major problem

with the farm bill. they have negotiated bipartisan, and then leadership pulls the rug out from under them. >> speaker sviggum, i will give you a chance to weigh back in on the farmers. minnesota, the upper midwest, the farm bill is big news. a lot of people are very anxious and i am sensing some increasing frustration and anger that this has not been worked out. >> we are talking about the wrong bill. we should not be talking about the farm bill. we should be calling it a nutrition bill. this is not necessarily over the farm 25% part of it.

it is more about the nutrition 75% part of it, is it not? we should be focusing the disagreement on where it is. congressman peterson and his republican counterpart have come together on the ag part of it. larry, can i ask a question? this overall discussion of this modest agreement, when you bring people together, it is tough. nobody is ever totally satisfied. what item or what issue or what funding mechanism was not in this bill, this agreement yesterday of ryan and murray,

that you think could have been added with bipartisan support? >> i do not know enough about the specifics of the agreement. i am six years removed from that. i could not give you an answer there. >> i do not know. >> this agreement yesterday, i think it is foretelling of the future. maybe the boat has sailed on medicare and social security. but this is an historic agreement. this is a good agreement for the country, i believe. when you're trying to put a package together, you form the coalition of things you can agree upon. i do not know there is an issue not extending unemployment benefits, that was an issue, right? not tax reform. there are things you could have added to bring more democratic support or more republican

support, but bipartisan support i think this was a pretty good agreement. >> can i come back to the point that marty raised about getting that number or getting the size of the pie? i was on the budget committee before president bush was elected and i was on the budget committee through part of his presidency. once you have an agreement between house and senate that we're only going to spend whatever the number is, $1.7 trillion, whatever the number. once you have that agreement, it everything get so much easier. one of my great frustrations was when the bush team came in and we had the house and the senate and the white house under republican control, i just assumed that we would have one

number to start with. it would have made things so much easier. the senate had a budget. the house had a budget. the president had a budget. to use a very simple analogy. we were at this number, the senate was at this number, the president was about at the senate's number. we ended up compromising at this number. the critical point of this agreement is they finally come together and have a number. then you can have legitimate and honest debate about how much should go to this or should go to that program. that is part of the legislative progress.

i also want to agree with marty that leadership, in recent years, both sides of the aisle have lost track of a very important theme that margaret thatcher advanced 30 years ago. first you win the debate. then you win the vote. what we have seen going on in congress, and why there is so much rancor, in terms of the posturing, leadership on both sides no longer think they have to win the debate. they just have to get enough votes. if they have to break knuckles, promise bridges, that is all considered fair game. if we can get back to the basic notion of having legitimate debate about legitimate issues and not allowing personalities to be allowed in the debate, i think you will see a much more you will see a washington that can work. >> let me give you an example of

that we have heard in response to the murray-ryan deal. they said -- big mistake to give up the sequestration number. it was better to stick to that number and cut spending from there. once you move away from sequestration, the republicans have given up the game. now it is back to the usual give and take. was it a mistake of the republican leadership to give up the argument about spending that was tied to sequestration? >> it was a big give. it was the one club that senator mcconnell had gotten into the budget agreement. it was an awful lot to give up. in the end -- is the agreement that was reached worth what was given up? both sides had given up a good deal.

that is why you will see some gnashing of teeth. >> i want to invite members of our audience who would like to submit a written question to do so. congressman sabo, i want to pick up on this theme and ask you to put on your hat as a strategist. think about where the underbelly of the democratic party is right now. challenges. obamacare is doing better but still has a lot of challenges. was this a smart strategic play by the congressional republicans to say, let's shift off of this debate over government shutdowns and the budget and clear the decks to go after obamacare with oversight hearings and a 24/7 watch? >> history will tell us.

my observation is that most large computer programs in the federal government have had a great deal of difficulty getting set up. that does not relate to the obama administration. that relates to the bush administration, the clinton administration, first bush, reagan. all the way through. it is beyond me why they pay not pay more attention to that particular issue. the hardware is great we have a little bit of a program problem a little bit of a software problem. i think eventually, that problem gets work out. at that point, i think the republicans will rue the day they made that a central issue. because then it will be working for millions of people and they

will be happier. right now, it is a plus for them, but they cannot count on computers to be troublesome a year from now. >> speaker sviggum, it was a caucus that was quite rambunctious when you were trying to lead them. does this strike you as a smart leadership move to get control back of the agenda? put the budget issues on the back burner, let the committees work their way and put the spotlight on what is the underbelly of the democratic party right now, the troubles that obamacare is having? >> i think that was part of the strategy. republicans had to get off the crisis to crisis management. they received most of the blame for the shutdown.

it was not maybe fair, but they did receive most of the blame. now the slate is a little bit clean. there is bipartisan movement on the budget. i would agree with gil that republicans have won the day on discretionary spending. $200 billion less than president obama recommended. how could you not consider that a victory? clear the deck and move on to an issue -- websites will be corrected. whether it is two weeks or 30 days. to me, the underbelly is the law itself. obamacare itself. the websites will be corrected, that is not the issue. my kids and grandkids have to

live with the law for the next 30 years. that is the underbelly. >> the strategic play by the republican leadership, let's put the budget issues on the back burner. let's clear the way for obama care to be front page news. it is going to move well beyond the website. in 2014, there will be all sorts of issues relating to the and who is getting covered and who is not getting covered. >> a lot of people will say the shutdown in october was a dumb fight dumbly fought. but it was a fight that had to be fought from a republican perspective.

there is this polar division between those who really believe that obamacare will work and those who believe it is a train wreck. that democrats and the country will rue the day we went down this path. time will tell who is correct. we think we will have a pretty good verdict by next november. republicans did make the calculation that they had made their point on the budget and on obamacare with the last government shutdown. it lasted 12 days. it was forgotten for the most part by the end of october.

there is nothing left for republicans to gain in another shutdown issue. there are so many other issues happening and is not just health care issue. as steve suggested, when the website is fixed, i think the problems become even worse because you will have -- millions of americans, we do not know the number, they will lose the insurance they have today. are they going to get better insurance? >> these are issues are going to play out over time. this is a major battle. the key question is simply agenda control. what is the issue being debated? the underlying politics of the

budget agreement from the republican perspective was let's get these budget issues off the front page. let's allow obamacare to have the space on the front page. >> a quick rejoinder to what gil said about 50 million -- i do not know where that is coming from. i think we look forward to a debate. millions of american people are now eligible at the lower end of the income scale. millions more who have health problems and millions more find they get a fairly reasonable deal on the affordable care act. the focus is there. >> it is a great debate, but we will not have it today. i want to ask each of you this question.

you are a shrewd leader in minnesota of the republican party. have you been surprised that the republicans in washington have not been a victory dance in the end zone? they swept into power in 2010 with a very coherent argument that spending was out of control. that the budget deficit was unsustainable. here we are with the fastest decline in the government's budget deficit in washington since world war ii. the cbo is reporting that for the next decade, the budget deficit will be in the 2% or 3% range. why isn't that republicans seem unable to make that victory dance? >> you are correct. left-wing democrats should be shaking their heads.

they cannot believe that this has happened. the spending level is $1 trillion, far less than any left-winger would've ever imagined two or three years ago. $200 billion less than the president's recommendation. they should be declaring victory on the budget. i was going to respond earlier. declare victory while you clear the deck. republicans have won the day on the question of discretionary spending. that should be something that we should be able to take to the american people. say spending is less. let's not eat our own. it was a victory from a conservative standpoint.

>> congressman sabo, you made some tough calls on the spending side, decreasing spending, raising revenue. it was not particularly popular. do you think republicans have now won the debate on spending? >> the long-term spending, it it still gets to be a question how you solve that long-term. entitlement programs and what you do with the revenue side. discretionary spending is not what was driving the deficit. in many ways we really salvaged programs, but in the short term, those cuts are severe. >> part of the art of negotiation is even when you believe you have had a big win and you know you will have to have democrats votes in the senate and republican votes in

the house, you do not want to pound your chest too much. it is helpful to the republican leadership in the house to have a lot of grumbling about this budget deal. it helps them pass it in the senate. you always have to have to be a little bit humble about the results of any negotiation. in the end, that is how it will play out. >> grab the victory, but do not do the victory dance because you need to maintain your bargaining leverage. >> never try to embarrass the other side. we do want to give it away -- the republicans want to pivot away from talk about a shut down. that is part of the strategy, but it is not just to have hearings about obamacare. there are other things going on

in the united states of america and around the world. we have a problem in syria. we have a problem with iran. >> there is no doubt the republicans will have a strong set of talking points. the democrats will have their talking points about strengthening the economy. this will get played out in the campaign. congressman sabo, we have a question from the audience. do you think it is possible to convince an urban legislator to vote for a farm bill that would make significant reductions on the level that house republicans have talked about, more than $40 billion of cuts? do you think urban legislators in the house or the senate would ever go along with something like that? >> those cuts will be dramatically reduced in any farm

bill that passes. the farm bill in general, there are disagreements between the different commodity groups. they are looking at eliminating the basic blanket payment to farmers. from the perspective of urban legislators in minnesota, the farm program is one of the few programs the federal government where we get a disproportionate share in minnesota. we do quite well in terms of money flowing to the state in ag versus many other programs.

>> another question from the audience, congressman gutknecht. you are talking about how much larger it is in terms of the number of people. do you see potential for some significant structural reform in s.n.a.p.? maybe a shift towards some kind of a cash transfer? >> i do not know. we have to get our arms around it. we are supposedly in the fifth year of an economic recovery. the president has raised the issue of the income disparity. it is a fact and something we have to come to grips with. from my perspective, we have to begin to understand how and why that happens. from my perspective, we need to find out whether or not the federal government and federal policies are to blame for that.

>> one of the unique things about the food stamp program is that it is universal for low- income people and it is tied to food products. you get some quarrel sometimes about what it is or is not. you have housing programs where a small percentage of eligible people end up getting assistance for housing. a significant difference between whether you qualify or unqualify for that type of income supplemental. one of the virtues of food stamps is that people qualify on a general basis. >> the truth of the matter is, i

chaired the subcommittee that it oversight over nutrition program. i take -- it was done by other people, but while i was in congress, we moved away from the paper food stamps to the debit cards, ok? we believed it would dramatically reduce the amount of fraud. the real cure for the number of people on food stamps is a much stronger general economy. when the real unemployment rate was down somewhere just north of 3%, we saw numbers collapsing on these programs. how do we really get this economy moving again? how do we get people to invest and build businesses and jobs in the united states? i think we are closer than we even think to that happening.

some of the policies in washington are keeping that from happening. >> there is a debate about this issue. one of the concerns in the in the business community has been out the crisis nature of decision-making in washington and the government shutdowns and the threat to our currency has created a kind of a depressing effect on economic rose. this is one of those big debates. congressman sabo, i want to come back to an issue we have not talked about that much. unemployment insurance -- there are a lot of democrats feel the deal that has been struck in washington is basically on the backs of struggling unemployed americans. over a million will be cut off from unemployment insurance. if you were in congress, would would you be voting against this

deal because it did not help this vulnerable group? >> i would be voting for it, but i would be disappointed. i don't think you would get it by voting no. >> congressman gutknecht, do you have thoughts about what we do about the long-term uninsured? >> long-term uninsured? >> i'm sorry, long-term unemployed? >> there are areas of our country -- you almost have to define geographically. look at areas -- in the coal states, for example i think in eastern kentucky, something like 100 out of 130 mines have closed down. the idea that you can have job training programs for coal miners and turn them into

computer programmers, i have always thought that was a fallacy. i believe there may be room for compromise on a geographic basis. i also believe that simply extending unemployment benefits probably increases the unemployment rate. human nature is what human nature is and the longer people can draw benefits, the more choosy they will be about what kind of unemployment they will take or what kind of employment they will take. it is much easier to find another job when you already have a job. we need to get people back in employment pool, and simply extending unemployment benefits probably works against that.

>> speaker sviggum, i want to get to how did we get to this point where avoiding a government shutdown is headline news. i am curious, when you are speaker, it was an interesting time in minnesota politics. we had gone from a fairly bipartisan -- there were a set of rules that both parties tended to play by. a set of rules that were kind of a no holds barred sort of politics like a government shutdown. can you put your finger on what changed that led here in minnesota in front of your eyes that has gotten us to this point where anything goes it seems? >> it did get tougher at the time i was in the legislature. i was a part of it. if i were going to point to something specific that changed the atmosphere a little bit from a little bit more collegial,

understanding of each other's positions as opposed to a hard- line partisanship, i would say the marty law, which basically prevented individuals from getting together in the legislature and going out for a supper, getting to know each other. it might've been sponsored by an interest group. by a banking group or labor group or native american group or whatever. all of that was suddenly ethically wrong. if you do not know the people on the other side of the aisle, much less may be in the other body, it is more difficult -- it is easier to be harsher to them, less civil.

i think that is part of it. i also think the politics part of it, we have so many districts now that are all democratic or all republican. if you are a democrat sitting right here, you will win. i liked it in the 1990's and 1980's when all the challenges internally with the caucus primaries and the challenges to endorse candidates were on the democratic side. then they changed the republican side in 2004 and i did not like that as much because they cause problems. that did take place. >> were you finding when you are --were the speaker of the republican party of minnesota, that the type of people showing up and becoming part of the endorsement process of the republican party had a more intense commitment, uncompromising commitment, to their agenda? did the set of issues that they

thought were the most important, rather than to the party itself and winning elections? did you see some of that? >> there was probably less balance amongst the people who attended caucuses. that includes democratic caucuses as well. i've spoken to democratic caucuses if they happened to be in the same school building. i think the caucus system intended to bring out those folks who were more passionate. less compromising, less balanced. that is why all of a sudden primaries look better to me. >> i want to pick up on this point that speaker sviggum mentioned. the power of the single issue advocate. it was rising in the republican party, have you seen arising in the democratic arctic? party? making it harder for

democrats to vote for compromise that would step on toes? such as the entitlement programs. >> i think there has been a growth of advocacy groups across the spectrum. many more than when i first started in politics. that is a constitutional right in this country. to petition their government. they are organized. the number of people has increased substantially. i think lots of them appeal to for money from individuals a lot of advocacy groups across the political spectrum send out mailings to people. there is no ambiguity about what is right and what is wrong. >> does that make it harder to govern? if you were chair of the budget committee today, dealing with

well-organized, intense groups, does that make your job as chair harder? >> yeah. >> congressman gutknecht, do you agree? is this democracy in its most glorious form, but also a constraint on reaching some of these agreements that we are talking about today? >> absolutely. steve raised a good point in terms of socializing. i suspect it was true when marty was in the legislature. there was a good deal of socializing between republicans and democrats. we got to know people on a more personal level. i never felt that my vote could be bought for the price of a dinner or a lunch. but it gave more opportunities for us to get to know our fellow legislators. i do believe it.

that the marty rule has in some respect contributed to the left civil behavior of members. it is hard to call someone a name if you have spent time with them and got to know them. secondly, and i strongly agree with what speaker sabo said, we have seen an enormous proliferation of groups which i would go so far as to say are not bound i the facts. they will selectively pick that about this issue or that issue and they have become incredibly effective at communicating that message to that group. it is almost a vulcanization of our country with all of these various groups speaking specifically to their groups. then you overlay that in the sense that the way people get their information, the media. how it performs its function,

and more importantly, we now have so many different ways people get their news. i suspect amongst the young people here at the university of minnesota, very few of them probably watch the nightly news. they may have their particular cable news network that they prefer. it is obvious, at least to me and i suspect to most, that each of these outlets tends to have its own point of view and its own storyline that they pursue. you combine the fact that we do not get together and we don't socialize with the geometric development of these interest groups, and what i would call the vulcanization of our whole media, but does that mean things cannot get better. no. strong leaders who are committed to winning the debates before you win the votes, i think

ultimately they will prevail, even against these almost insurmountable objectives. >> i agree. a lot of it comes down to leadership. at the federal level, i agree with what speaker sviggum and gil have said. the other thing that changes, when i was first elected to congress, we put our house for sale and moved to washington. that was true of most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. we got to know other people, spouses, kids of other members. today that does not happen. people run in and out on the last plane in and the first plane out. it compresses the congressional schedule. very little time there to talk to people. towards the end of my career, i would see someone next to me and

asked if they would know who that was. they thought it was someone from the other side. it was dramatically different. >> do you feel, to add on to the persuasive list of reinforcing factors for factionalism, that one of the challenges is the nature of our nomination process? who gets nominated today, is that different? >> that reflects what people think of their districts. i think the reality is that people are more polarized than before. that is reflected, whether it is a caucus or the primary system. >> speaker sviggum, you live in the southern part of minnesota and you have been going to your precinct for many years. when you show up there, are you seeing the same set of people or is there a new crowd that seems

to be on the way? >> there are definitely new people who come. that is good. you want to branch out. you want to be inclusive in any party. that is good. as speaker of the house, when you have to go to your local precinct office and fight to be a delegate, that is questionable. but that has happened. >> i take it that one of the challenges here in minnesota is that there are tremendous resources for groups like the tea party and they have figured out that going into the precinct office is a great way to get some leverage over the nomination process. >> and more power to them. they are using the processes that are available and involvement and participation. you mentioned the tea party, but there are left-wing groups that are doing the same thing.

>> absolutely. >> we have seen this in the democratic party. the endorsing process does not matter as much anymore, they go straight to primary. this process of the single issue advocates has played itself out. we are just about at the end of our time. i would like to give each of you a chance to reflect on where we are. we are heading into 2014, should we expect to see a continuing level of strife? or have we turned a corner and where there is going to be some real movement and appropriations and perhaps some reform related to food stamps, or other issues like immigration? will it be more of the same, or will this be a shift where we roll around to the end of this session and there could be a record of real accomplishment?

congressman gutknecht? >> i noticed that the vikings scored today and their opponents scored touchdowns in the last two minutes. the idea that if things don't move much until the end of the session and their pressure point is valid. we will always find that more activity will happen legislatively as you reach a pressure point. whether it is the budget or the debt ceiling. those are the times when you will see action. i do not recall that when moses led the israelites out of egypt he told them that they would wander for 40 years, ok? they did not know that when they left. i do not know how long we will wander in this timeframe. but i do know that ultimately i believe churchill was correct when he said americans ultimately do the right thing. once we have exhausted every other possibility. i think we as americans understand that we are all stakeholders in this government that we call the federal government. we are kind of in a tough

box. there is a chance that we will begin to see some light at the end of the tunnel. we will always have big differences. there are real philosophical differences. there are reasons that people started throwing tea in boston harbor. we are americans and we are entitled to have strong feelings about various issues. that will create friction. i am reminded of something that we were told at the bipartisan retreat one time. i have never forgotten it. what we do every day on the floor of the house of representatives in the united states house is a substitute for civil war. you have to assume that there will be friction. we also have to assume that ultimately strong people will rise to the occasion and that ultimately we will move ahead together. >> thank you. congressman sabo, do you agree

that while friction will remain, as we move into 2014, the pressure at the end of the session and the election in november, we may well see some touchdowns here? perhaps immigration reform, perhaps other big scores? >> that would surprise me. maybe immigration. i'm not sure. i just hope the farm bill gets taken care of in january. i think with the appropriations number set, that process will work itself out. if the leadership lets it happened. so that they could finish that work and be done in september. i would be surprised to see lots of high visibility political issues dealt with by the congress in the next year. i think they are potentially on

a very quiet path. limited hours of session, not that long. >> speaker sviggum, i want to thank you. you are the guy who pulled together the panel. i want to thank our staff here at the university of minnesota. they have put on more than three dozen programs this year. speaker sviggum, you tend to be bright and optimistic. the word from washington is this is one of the least productive congresses we have seen in some time. do you look at this deal as a light at the end of the tunnel? or is it more of a northern

european skepticism of your friend, congressman sabo? >> looking to the outside, i would tell you that there are lessons that were learned. there were lessons learned from the shutdown, from the continuing resolutions, which the republicans had concerns about, the democrats had concerns about. i think there were lessons learned. i am encouraged about this agreement yesterday. it will a path or the future. whether it is immigration or the farm bill, there will be a path. my students here at the humphrey school will tell you. you cannot govern from here if you cannot govern from here. you cannot govern from either polarized end. you have to bring people together. we have a path with the historic, i will say it's historic, agreement on the budget. >> that is what we are reporting today from the humphrey school, i want to thank everyone for coming. [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] up in a few moments, like "washington journal." then secretary of state john kerry talking about the recent nuclear deal with iran and the u.s. later, how u.s. foreign aid is being used to help syrian refugees. we will be taking your calls, tweets and e-mails life on "washington journal," followed by a roundtable about gun policy following the anniversary of the shooting in newtown, connecticut. our guests are tom manger and richard stanek.

then i look at the two-year budget deal. "washington journal" is next. ♪ recent addition to white house staff, her job will be more responsive. .he concerns on the hill iran says talks over its nuclear program are in jeopardy after the u.s. extend the blacklist of helping a rant get around stations. the wall street journal says the decisions of the federal reserve to reduce the $85 billion per month program could help the economy and could come as early as next week. this is the washington journal for december 14. for our first 45 minutes, thoughts on sandy