all of our veterans get the best opportunities that they have earned. they have done their duty and they ask nothing more than that this country do ours. now and for decades to come. happy memorial day, everybody. our fallench over heroes and may he continue to bless the united states of america. >> for americans trying to get a job and get ahead, republicans are committed to making things easier. we have passed dozens of bills to extend opportunities. we have pushed senate democrats to match our focus on jobs. soon, we expect the president to sign one of our ideas into law. and infrastructure bill designed to improve ports, harbors and waterways. the flow of trade and commerce. at its core, it's a foundation for long-term job growth. not just jobs in construction, but also jobs that depend and are created by him are transportation system. watert reform, our

infrastructure becomes more obsolete by the day. that means the cost of doing business in america rises. other countries those at the gap and we become less competitive. right now, it can take 15 years to study a single project. nothing gets going. the cost of these studies keep going up and up. to top it off, this bill was bloated with earmarks, free-for-all spirit it is the worst of all rose. republicans turned the page. we are sitting hard deadlines and cost limits for cutting out the outdated projects. there are no earmarks. these things mean breaking down barriers to the worthy products -- worthy projects. this is progress. when you entrust republicans with majority in the house, we pledge to do some simple things. important things. focus on jobs. change the culture to make government more accountable to you.

this is a great example of how we are delivering on both accounts. with so much more to do, it's an example of what we can accomplish when president obama and senate democrats work with us to address your priorities. whatever it takes, we're determined to bring home jobs for mac my coworkers. thank you for listening. in honor of memorial day, let me take this moment to say god bless united states of america and all who have fallen in our name. >> for over 35 years, suzanne brings -- c-span brings public affairs events to you. putting him in the room at congressional hearings, white house event, briefings and conferences and offering complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span. created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago. brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch as in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. the house passed a bill to

fund defense programs in 2015. the estimated cost is nearly $600 billion. next come a closer look at some of the measures in the bill. this is from today's "washington federal." host: todd harrison is a senior fellow. you're here to talk about the defense authorization bill. remind us of difference between an authorization and an appropriation in legislative language. that is confusing about this. the house and senate have their own armed services committees. they produce a defense authorization act. that is a policy bill. it sets broad policy like changing don't ask the hotel. they can prohibit the military from retiring weapon systems or

moving units or bases. it can close bases. it sets broad policy. this has an implication on defense spending. the authorization bill does not give the money to spend. that is the appropriations bill. that is a separate process that goes to the house and senate and different committees. that won't happen until the fall. host: this is an area that is a place of agreement on capitol hill. guest: if you sit in on the hearings, it is surprising. there is a lot more by predators and -- bipartisan agreement. the issues don't write down easily along partisan lines. you see a lot of cooperation. the senate authorization bill that passed this week, the vote was 25 to one in the committee.

host: talk about how the bill is affecting these measures as it moved through congress. guest: the budget control act in 2011, that set at it caps on defense and nondefense spending. those caps are still in effect until 2015 and beyond, up to 2021. that is going to limit defense spending this year. previously they had wanted to spend $550 billion. the budget cap is going to limit the dod share to 406 billion. that is a much tighter constraint than they were expecting a few years ago. both the house and senate don't

like this constraint. they want to spend more. they recognize that they are stuck with this. they will not be able to alter the budget cap this year. host: what are the areas of spending under the budget cap? guest: the base defense budget, not including the wars, you have compensation, pay and benefits. you've got operations and maintenance accounts. that funds the peacetime operations of our forces. everything from buying fuel to paying for the maintenance of equipment in peacetime. training operations. this is the back office for defense. funding all of the administrative functions. the other big part of the budget is acquisition. that pays for research and development. those are the big components.

it does the big pots of money they are working with. the house and senate take the president's request. they like to tinker with that in make changes. host: we will go through what the pentagon has requested. we want our viewers to call in. we have a special line for members of the military in this segment. let's start with what the

pentagon is proposing. guest: first of all, what is notable is this the first time they proposed a budget that fit within the budget caps that are required by law. for 2015, they spent $496 billion. in order to make this fit, they retired a number of weapon systems that they don't think they need any more. the big highlight is the a-10 aircraft. they will be retiring the entire fleet of them. they're proposing retiring them and meeting stiff resistance on the hill. they propose doing things at the navy ships. there are a number of changes like that. the army has made some changes in their core structure. they're taking some helicopters into the active component and taking helicopters and moving

them into the guard and the reserve. there has been a lot of resistance on that. dod has some other cost savings. they have another round of days closures. as the military gets smaller, it will be more like that. they will have another round of base closures to get rid of some of that excess inventory. host: this is the process we have heard before? guest: that would save money in the long run, getting rid of waste in the budget. they would have changes in military compensation. they would reduce the amount of pay raises. they would only get a one percent pay raise this year. not a big change, but it adds up to quite a bit. they want to reduce the housing allowance. in addition to regular pay, you

get a housing allowance. it is tax-free. it pays 100% of rental cost and what ever market they live in. they are scaling it back and instead of covering 100%, it would cover 95%. they want to change the military health care system. it would raise the premiums. it would raise co-pays into a single plan. some dependents would be affect it. it is a broad package of changes in order to fit within the budget. many of those as congress ok with? guest: very few.

both house and the senate have said no to these closures. jobs in people's districts. a do not want to go along with this in an election year. but the house in the senate have said no to retiring major weapons systems like these. they have said no. they do not want to let the air force retired them. these things cost money. they have also said no to the changes in the military health care system and increases in co-pays. they said no to that. seem tothing that they be ok with is the pay raise. both the house and senate are willing to let dod do the one percent pay raise instead of the 1.8%. that happened last year as well.

the dod got a lower-than-expected payraise. host: we want to get into collars. stacy is from maryland on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to make a quick comment. is ridiculous to put a cap on pay and make them pay more for their health care. there are weapon systems that need to be shut down. there should be a cap on corporate profits. the corporate profits should be managed. top-secret of these programs know we has visibility to? guest: what she is talking about

is the defense acquisition regulations. that governs how they buy weapon systems. there has been quite a bit of emphasis in this administration on looking at the actual costs of contractors. that actually does get to the point she is talking about looking at corporate profits. price you are paying for it and you can determine the profit. i think that is misguided. dod should be focused on the price. that is what matters. is the product worth the price? is it a fair price in terms of what other people are paying? it is a comparable service or product.

compared to what you paid in the go out to you are i buy something, we buy a car what you're focused on is the price. you have no visibility what it cost that country to provide it. it's not really relevant to you, you just need to know am i willing to pay that? is that a good price compared to the price other people are offering? is it a good price compared to what i've paid in the past? so i think d.o.d. is actually going down the rabbit hole here and trying to figure out the internal cost of companies. >> for people who want to know that, how much transparency is there? >> to looking into company profits, the d.o.d. can actually force companies, if they want to contract with them, to reveal this kind of information. the problem with that is for companies that do mix business between government and commercial clients, it's very difficult for them segregate out

their cost. if you read the financial reports of any major companies, they go to great extremes to twist themselves and contort themselves to define what their costs are, how you portion those costs across different parts of the business, over the long run, especially up front capital costs that are, you're buying equipment or a facility that might last 10, 20, 30 years. it's very complicated for companies to calculate this. it's even more complicated when the government gets involved and man tate how they calculate these things. host: a veteran and democrat calling in. good morning. come good morning, how are you? thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead, quest. caller: i know the d.o.d. has priorities, and on this memorial day i would like to know why the president of the united states was able to have tim geitner

bailout wall street and the banks and these corporations, yet he can't depth them to bailout the veterans and their families, which would be a lot less money than it took to bailout the banks and the corporations, you know. and the housing people, speculators. so why can't the department of defense bailout the veterans for the back log and take care of the veterans and their families? because without the veterans and their families, you don't have a military. guest: the difference as you're explaining this between the d.o.d. budget and the veterans affair budget as well. a lot of people miss this fact. the d.o.d. budget does not include the cost of veterans spending, veterans benefit services.

that's in the department of veterans affairs budget. if you actually look at what the administration has done, in 2009, the v.a. budget was about $96 billion a year. now, today, in 2014, it's over $150 billion a year. so there's been a huge increase in spending on veterans benefits and services. that's not part of the defense budget or these defense budget caps or anything. a huge increase in veteran spending, a lot of people assume it's because of veterans coming back from iraq and afghanistan with all the injuries they've incurred there. actually the growth in veteran spending is due more to the vietnam era of veterans. many of those veterans now are reaching, you know, they're part of the baby boomer generation. they're reaching retirement age, and you know, when you get older, your health care costs go up. that's a lot of what we're seeing. the other thing that's happened benefits and services who qualifies and what's provided

have expanded under the obama administration so more and more people are qualifying now. that has contributed to the back log, and seen patients and in processing claims for veterans benefits. you know, could they have done better in tackling just the mountain of work they've got before them? probably. but i'm not an expert on how they process all of these claims. but it's not for lack of spending money. host: you talk about the veterans affair budget. here's the department of defense budget, that's the dark blue here from the year 1948 through 2014. you can see defense spending. the orange part of this chart here is the supplemental war funding, and explain what that is and how that fits into the military's budget. >> sure, the wars in iraq and afghanistan have been funded a bit differently than previous wars. you see a spike for the korean wars in the early 1950's there.

you see another bomb for the vietnam war, and then the next bump you see, was not for a war, but for the reagan's arms build-up in the 1980's, then the drawdown at the end of the cold war. wars in iraq and afghanistan were funded a bit differently because they've been funded consistently through supplement supplement funding. it's not part of the regular defense budget, it's submitted separately. it gets expedited procedures, considered emergency funding, it's not subject to the budget caps that are in place right now. so as a budget analyst, that's convenient because it allows us to segregate that money and analyze it separately. now, you see it drops off suddenly after 2014, that's because there's no future projection of what that war funding will be after 2014. we've not even seen the request from the administration yet for what the 2015 war budget will be. i imagine it will probably be so. d $50 billion or

now the light blue section you see on the chart, that's actually the budget caps that are in effect for the next several years. that's what we're talking about, if congress doesn't change the budget caps, it will be limited to the level you see there. now, it doesn't look like a cut. if you look at it in that graph. but it is a cut relative to what d.o.d. had been planning to spend. they had been planning to significantly increase funding over the coming years to pay for things like military compensation, which has been growing much faster than inflation, been growing about 4% a year, faster than inflation for the past decade. and pay for all these excess bases and facility that congress won't let him retire. to pay for all these legacy weapons systems congress won't let them retire. legacy weapons systems, you know, planes and ships and tanks, they're kind of like an old car. as they get older they cost more and more to operate and

maintain. there's a lot of internal cost growth within d.o.d. that basically means if we want to maintain the same size military we have today, it will cost more and more year after year unless we do somethings to fundamentally reform it. host: a big picture question for you from twitter. is military build-up in rich nations individually and as a group like nato, seen by poor nations as a threat directed against them? guest: that's a good question. we're not at a point right now where we are building up. not only is the u.s. reducing its defense spending and reducing the size of its military, our nato allies are doing that as well. and many of them are moved faster than we have. in the united kingdom, they moved rather quickly to down size their military. so, we are seeing that it's not just a matter of the u.s. having more constrained resources for defense. many of our partners and allies around the world have similar

constraints. host: let's go to jim waiting in massachusetts on our line for democrats. jim, good morning. caller: hi, how are you? do you hear me? host: yes. caller: you know, this is my point. i understand and i appreciate everything you're saying. i've learned somethings from you, but it seems to me that you're speaking in an extremely mariah carey ro sense. and a lot -- speaking in an extremely macro sense. where it's about the waste in defense spending. a couple of months ago i saw a congresswoman on the floor, you know, presenting this stuff like paying ten times what a plastic elbow is worth, and meals overseas for soldiers that we're paying for that they throw in the dumpster because they make them whether the soldier's going to eat them or not, because they

get paid for it. so i wonder if you could address are of those things that really down low on the radar, and i think it's really connected directly with pork fat spending and whatever, and government officials getting contracts for friends and so on and so forth. anyway, sorry to be so long. host: we'll let todd harrison give you a response. guest: jim, i think you give a good example. waste in the defense budget is not like fat around the slice of the meat that you can cut off neatly, it is marbled into the meat. it's not unique to d.o.d., it's any large bureaucracy, any large corporation really. there will be waste and

inefficiency, but it is marbled down in the meat, it's down at the very low level, a lot of it, so it's very hard to get to. i think the only real solution is we've got to find a way to enable and empower middle and lower level managers to actually root out this waste. that's a hard thing to do, i hope we can crack that nut one day. but in the meantime, we've got to keep every time you find an example of waste like that, you got to bring it to people's attentions and try to get it fixed one by one, little by little. we can start to make some improvements. >> todd harrison, you've been on the program before, but for those who aren't familiar with your group, talk about it. guest: sure, we're a nonpartisan, nonprofit defense think tank. our goal is to help educate and inform issues about issues of defense strategy in the defense budget. so i lead the budget side, so i focus on how we resource for defense.

online.org. ba and we'll talk to paul in south carolina on our line for independents. paul, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm a military retiree, 10 years in the marine corps, and 10 in the air force. in the marines and air force, we pulled our own mess duty, and we pulled our own guard duty. but i noticed at fort jackson sow here in columbia, the guard , or m.p.'s we used to call them, are civilian, and i understand the mess hall is even contracted out to civilians. the soldiers should be doing their own jobs, not civilians. and that's my comment. thank you. guest: i'd be interested in when

he served because he's absolutely right. it used to be that way. also very unusual for someone to have served in one service and transfer to another branch. to going from the marine corps to the air force, be very interested to talk to the caller. host: too bad we still don't have him on the line. [laughter] guest: the idea of contractors, now the way the military operates, we have a much more highly educated force today, a much more highly skilled force today, they're better compensated. you know, as a result, it's an all volunteer military. and we focus on making sure our troops are highly trained to do the jobs, their primary military jobs, and we use contractors more to do the other work that's not, you don't need a military person necessarily doing it. so, this actually extends into war zones as well. if you look in iraq and afghanistan, we didn't have our troops over there peeling

potatos working in the mess hall. our troops are over there to prosecute the war. and we hired contractors to come in and do things like food services, laundry services. a lot of the base upkeep. even some of the engineering work, we were bringing in contractors to do it. in afghanistan for example, we've had about as many contractors as we've had troops at any given point in time doing all these. and these contractors, many of them are actually third party foreign nationals, so they're not from afghanistan, they're not from the u.s. they're from other places around the world who have been brought in. and in many cases, it's much more cost effective. these people work for lower wages, we don't owe them long-term benefits, and you know, we can use them when we need them in a conflict and when we don't need them we don't have to pay them anymore. they're not on the government payroll anymore. so, it has been a significant change, but actually i think it goes back to 1973 when we ended the draft, and we transitioned to an all volunteer military.

that meant we're going to have a professional force and going to have to change the way we use members of the military. when we need to search, we're not going surge those professionals, because it's all voluntarily, and we'll have to fill in with contractors to do some of the jobs that you don't necessarily need a member of the military to do. host: go to murriel in new haven, connecticut. caller: good morning. i would like for you to reveal the how rank influences pending cuts in benefits, such as housing and health. is it accurate to say that some with fullitary retire

pay, and could you p specific and the cuts in housing health as regards to the enlisteders nell and the top military commanders? thank you. depoip sure. one of the things i did not mention with the reduction and the pay raise is that it would be 1% pay raise for everyone, except general officers, they would get a 0% pay raise. from a budget perspective, it's trivial, it doesn't add up to much money, but i think it sets a good example. so i'm glad they're doing that. in terms of -- host: and that's general rank? poip yes, for generals and admirals. for things like, well, i should get to the retirement pay. you can get 100% retirement pay but you have to serve 40 years.

to serve 40 years, it's an up and out system in terms of rank, so by definition if you reach 40 years, you're very high rank or whether an officer. so it is possible and some people do that. but not many. in terms of the health care benefits? the proposed changes from d.o.d., which again, these are being largely -- it's not going to happen this year, maybe in the future. but what d.o.d. proposed, there's actually a different scale in what people would pay for their health care benefits in retirement, and officers and higher ranking officers would pay more, and enlisted retirees would pay less. i forget all the numbers, it's a very complicated table, and it's gradually based in overtime so it wouldn't hit people suddenly. but they do make a difference in what people would pay based on their rank and their retirement pay.

host: on our twitter page is want to go back to congress's involvement here in the pentagon budget. why is congress hesitant to cut some of these weapons systems specifically? do they disagree with the generals and admirals of what the future wars are going to look like? >> you know, not to be too cynical but it boils down to jobs in people's district. so if you're going to retire, then that means that the units that fly a-10's, some of those jobs are going to go away. that's in someone's district and this is an election year after all. it's congress's prerogative to intervene and provide oversight and direction in these kind of matters. but that is driving a lot of it. it's just a simple jobs issue. but, there are some legitimate disagreements as well about whether or not we need some of these weapons systems. there are people who really think the a-10 is a valuable

aircraft to have in our inventory because it can form important missions. so they want to keep it in the inventory for that reason. people on the other side who think while that's important, we have to prioritize. in a constrained budget environment you've got to make some cuts somewhere and this is a lower priority and we have other aircraft that can do the same mission as well. so, it's a back and forth debate in terms of strategy. but i think really what's behind a lot of it, especially when it comes to compensation reform is votes, and it's very hard to do something like this, it's going to ruffle some feathers. guest: we said the senate is working on its version, the house passed its version. the white house has threatened to veto the house version of that bill. here's part of the veto statement, veto threat statement from the white house. is a veto threat on

the bills unusual? >> it's not too unusual. there are different levels of veto threats. this is a medium level threat. i believe the wording was the president senior's advisors would recommend he veto the bill. host: the advisors would recommend to the president he veto the bill? guest: the highest level of threat is when the president says i will veto this bill. so the president isn't promising to veto, people would recommend he veto it. it's interesting to observe the language there with the different type of veto threats. this is not unusual. i think what the white house is frustrated with, i can tell you talking to senior leaders in the pentagon, they're very frustrated with the fact that

congress has put these budget constraints on the department, but then they're not allowing the department the flexibility to make the changes it needs to operate efficiently wide receiver the budget constraints. they're not letting them change compensation, or retiring, or letting them do all the things they need to do to cut spending, and so what's left? and you know, i'll tell you, what d.o.d. will end up doing if they're forced to keep all of these things they don't want, but they're not given more money to do it, is they're going to cut back on training for the troops. that's the one thing you can cut back in the near term. you can cut back on training and you can cut back on maintenance. and that's what they're likely to do, and that's what we talk about in terms of harming military readiness. and always like to remind people it's easy to talk about keeping faith with the troops, and a lot of time people say keep faith with the troops when they talk about keeping benefits. but keeping faith with the troops is also making sure best trained, best equipped military in the world and we don't send

them into combat without sufficient training or equipment, as we have done in the past. this memorial day weekend i think we should all think about what do we really mean when we talk about keeping faith with the troops? it's not just about paying benefits, but about a balanced force, a balanced military budget. host: we've got a line for veterans. gary is on that line from new jersey. gary, good morning, thanks for calling "washington journal." caller: good morning. i would just like to answer a all the in reference to commissaries they're trying to close down. i just left an army over in korea and i noticed that's what they're doing. they don't understand, if they do that, they'll only push outous on the economy and what and ave to end up paying it will cost a lot of american people more money.

guest: i'm glad he mentioned the commissaryries, i forgot to mention that before. the commissaries, people aren't familiar with them, they're d.o.d. run grocery stores, basically a grocery store in the military base run by the department of defense. the reasons they exist, goes back to when military posts were very isolated out in the frontier and folks who lived there, they didn't have the ability to go out and by groceries anywhere, so the military completed these commissaries on the bases. today they serve a different function, really. they provide subsidized groceries to service members. so they sell groceries at a below cost level. it tends to be about a 30% lower cost than what equivilent product would provide, would cost you on the outside. what d.o.d. has proposed is actually not closing all the commissaries. what they propose is reducing the subsidary. so the subsidary right now cost about $1.4 billion a year in the defense budget to subsidize groceries for military families

and retirees in the commissaryries. they proposed scaling that back. so that means you would get something at 10% discount or less. what hasn't been proposed is letting them sell generic brands. right now they don't sell any generic. so that would help if you could buy generic, that would help make up for the lack of the subsidary for the name-brand product. that is something, the reduction and subsidary is something both the house and the senate have rejected. that doesn't look like it will happen in the near term. host: the debate over private contractors, defense contractors continues on our twitter page. we're talked -- with todd harrison. one thing i want to ask you about is some news that came out yesterday of the pentagon looking to close 21 facilities in europe. here's the story about it.

it's a move the department said would save some $60 million annually. the hill notes that the closure is comprised mostly of recreational and housing facilities at u.s. and nato bases across europe, such as a hotel, golf course. part of a previously announced effort, in light of the u.s. attempts to assure european of russian's nnex yation of the crimea. guest: those restrictions apply to the u.s. they do not apply to foreign bases. and so d.o.d. can do a lot on its own to close bases in europe and other places around the world. they actually have. if you look back over the past deak cade, we've closed a lot of facilities in europe, so they're continuing to do more of that and get more efficient, and if they want to close skeet

shooting ranges and golf courses, by all means, i think we should. but the problem is we can't close those in the u.s. without congressional approval. if we want to get more efficient, d.o.d. can do a lot overseas and they're already doing that. but we're talking about 80, 85% of the bases that need to be closed there in the u.s. and congress has got to give them permission to do that. as long as they don't, you've got built in waste in the defense budget year after year. host: five minutes or so left with todd harrison. if you want to see more of their work, or you can follow todd harrison on twitter, @todd harrison dc. we're going to go to joe waiting in florida on our line for republicans. joe, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i was wondering how it's going to be impacted given the

fact that already forced structure for this army, is that going to be reduced versus the impact of this sequester a year ago? thanks. guest: so the army forestructure that the caller is referring to, basically the size of the army, overall number of people in the army, and the number of brigade combat teams. it's already being reduced. they're already in the from sess of scaling down to 490,000 in the active duty army, and about 42 b.c.p.'s. and just for perspective, at the peak of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, i think that the active duty army was well over 550,000, higher than that, i forget the exact number. so they're already scaling down the army structure considerably. what the army has said if these

budget caps, if they remain in effect for the rest of this decade, the army's going to have get even smaller. they're going to have to go down to 420,000 in strength, possibly as for as 24 combat teams. now, that's in the future though, that's not in 2015. so in 2015, the down sizing the army is basically not an issue because they're going to continue on that trend line, and get to about 490,000 and 32 b.c.t.'s in 2015. so congress doesn't need to make a decision on whether or not the army is allowed to make smaller. that's a decision they'll have to make in the future. but they actually are making that decision right now when they don't allow base closures, they don't allow compensation or the retirement of legacy weapons systems. and in the case of the army, if they force them to continue to buy them tanks that the army said they don't need right now, then all of that will take away resources, and force deeper cuts and force structure in the

future. but, that's not a decision that they're actually making right now. that's a decision they're going to have to face up to in the next couple of years. host: frank is waiting in new york on that line we have for veterans and members of the military. frank, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, frank. caller: i have a question. when will the v.a. or even the d.o.d. ever have a way of communication with not from the top down but from the bottom up when it comes to people who actually work for the v.a. and see the waste in mismanagement, which i have for 20 years, and are able to really get something to actually be considered, as far as solutions? i worked there for 20 years, and i just saw a huge amount of waste and mismanagement. the managers from the lowest level on the way up get these monster bonuses which are absolutely ridiculous? guest: you raise a great issue. the problem of any large

organization. i've worked in private companies that were rather large, and you have the same issue that the folks, you know, kind of at the working level around the front edge, you see exactly what's going on. they know,000 make operations efficient. it's a matter of getting the senior management to realize that and make some of the changes and empower the people at the lower levels to do things more efficiently. and to do better. that's something the d.o.d. and the v.a. is going to continue to struggle with, but you know, what we've got to look for is for good people, like the caller and like others who are out there, to want to be part of the solution. and to go to work for d.o.d., go to work for the veterans administration, and try to work from the bottom up, and from inside out. to make these organizations better. that's what it's going to take. a lot of good people that are properly motivated to do the right thing. host: last call is from johnny from texas on our democrats line. good morning.

caller: good morning. i would like to understand why you don't see the connection between wall street and the contractors? because, the contractors that civilians, these they're usually cost plus. i don't know what dummy couldn't afford to produce some of the stuff the d.o.d. requires at cost plus. on s far as cutting costs military retirees, i don't see them cutting costs on congressional retirees, or past president retirees. and that's all i have to say. guest: you've got some great callers who know their stuff. cost plus is one type of way the d.o.d. acquires systems. i agree, i think it should be rarely used, but unfortunately it's used quite often. a cost plus contract is where d.o.d. basically says to the contractor, we'll pay you

whatever your cost is, your actual cost for doing the service or providing the goods that we're contracting for, plus we'll give you profit on top of that. so, from a contractor perspective this is great because there's no risk. you're always going to make profit. and so, if your incentive is to bid really low and say hey we can do this for a very small amount of money, once you get the contract you say oh look, it's going to cost more than we thought. as you overrun the cost, d.o.d. pays you a higher cost and they pay you a higher profit on top of that. because the cost plus, the plus part of that is a percentage of the cost. so, it's a financial incentive to overrun cost. this happens quite a bit in d.o.d. i think it's a terrible way of contracting. congress has actually put it in effect to make it harder for d.o.d. to use cost plus type of contracts. they're trying to get them to use what are called firm fixed

price contracts. but what i've seen the way d.o.d. will contract for firm fixed price, it's neither firm nor fixed because a lot of times what they'll do is they'll write the contract and say we'll pay you a certain amount of money to produce what we're asking for, but if you overrun your expected cost, we will share the cost overrun with you, so it actually ends up costing more and d.o.d. pays for some of that cost overrun. host: that's better than cost plus where d.o.d. pays, but it still doesn't provide the proper incentive we need for contractors. host: before we let you go, we talk about the house bill. when is the senate version supposed to move through the pipeline? guest: you can never predict how these things are going to move through in the senate. this week it passed through committees so now it's waiting for consideration by the full senate. so i think odds are good they'll get a pass this summer. and you know, the house as well and they can go to conference

committee and get this taken care of before they want to leave town for the election season. the big thing, the big unknown is when the appropriations bills are going to move through. right now they're kind of at a stand still, waiting for d.o.d. to submit their war funding for 2015 and they say they don't want to move until they get the war funding request. of course that depends on us reaching an agreement in afghanistan for how many troops are going to stay in afghanistan. we can't have that agreement until they finish their election process and they've got a new president. so, a lot of this is in limbo right now. host: todd harrison is with the center of strategic [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] tomorrow, allegations of .a.conduct at v

facilities. then john hirst will have a review of the presidential elections. brandes will talk about president obama's management style including recent mishandling of issues. this is the issue that the hill has been headlining. they are planning on introducing this as lawmakers return from the memorial day holiday. it aims to increase accountability and improve benefits, education, and job training. it would also restore the one percent cut in cost of living payments. hill"t is from "the playmaker. country. a big they see 6.5 million people a

year. are people going to get treated badly? absolutely. that is the strategy. has to be put into a rocker context. you are going to see all kinds of problems. what are the issues we are dealing with right now. care is good. there are waiting lists. there are allegations that some hospitals are cooking the books. and itcalling this up looks like two weeks. that is outrageous. and discussion. it may well hand, be that important parts of the country they didn't have a doctorate or nurses or staff they need to. i have called for more funding va health care.

obamacare funding has been pretty good. you are looking at the system in the last three years that have been increased by an million and a half people coming into the system including some with systems. they are not. is the secretary firing this? i think that is an issue we need to look at very hard. we're going to be hearing on that essence the recess is over. >> you can watch the entire interview with ernie sanders tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern >> i focus on trying to stop peoplend trying to catch

who did in the past but actually go out and figure it out and 50%, 20%, 60%. better spentbe trying to find the problems, identify the problems and help solve them. >> if i ask you have the american people got their money's worth? >> definitely not. there have been some good things done. then our people from the department of commerce. a lot of people have devoted their lives and energies over there. have we gotten the biggest bang for the buck? no. find all the time. poor planning and for application.

american taxpayer dollars stand on greek structure in afghanistan on c-span's q and a. >> you can now take c-span with you wherever you go with our c-span radio app for your smartphone or tablet. listen to all three c-span tv channels or c-span radio anytime. there is a schedule of each of our network so you can tune in when you want, played podcasts of recent shows like at her words, the communicators and cube and a. take it with you wherever you go. download this online for your tom wheelerd testified before the house somey subcommittee about of the more recent actions including a decision to move forward with the so-called open

internet proposal. he also talked about the spec term auction they will oversee. the hearing is about 2.5 hours. >> we will call to order the subcommittee on communications and technology. i want to welcome our members and our witness. welcome our members, and our witness, the chairman of the federal communications commission, mr. wheeler, we're delighted that you would make time to come and spend with us on this important day with so much going on in the telecommunications world. six months ago, this subcommittee met for the very first time with the current complement of fcc commissioners, and welcomed mr. wheeler as the new chairman. today, and let me welcome mr. wheeler back, we meet to review the record of action, and

selective inaction that the commission has taken under the first six months of your leadership. unfortunately, given some of the most recent actions out of the commission, i fear that we may be heading into some rough waters. when we last met i offered two pieces of advice to chairman wheeler. and his colleagues. first, i urged them to heed the words of congress where it was -- has spoken and reject calls to act in ways contrary to congressional intent. second, i urged them to bear in mind that even seemingly small changes in the federal communications commission's rules can have significant impact on the marketplace. i called upon all the members of the commission to discharge their duties with transparency, accountability, and a long view of the technological landscape. in sum, my advice was that they must approach their duties with humility and restraint. unfortunately, recent actions have hinted that my advice was ignored. in december, we had yet to know that the d.c. circuit court of appeals would once again reject the commission's attempt to regulate the internet and could only speculate as to whether the

commission under chairman wheeler's lead would mount a third attempt. sadly, we now know the answer. not only has chairman wheeler leading us down this path again the item the commission adopted last week tees up the long dead idea that the internet is a common carrier. this reinvigorated willingness to consider regulating the internet under title 2 of the communications act, rules that find their roots in the 19th century railroad regulation, and were designed to regulate the world of telephone monopoly. hearken back to a world in which twisted copper was the only portal for consumers to communication network and voice the only service. the modern communications landscape bears no resemblance to the world title 2 was meant to regulate and application of title 2 to the internet is, at best, a forfeit. worse still the practical consequences of reclassification are to give the bureaucrats at the fcc the authority to second-guess business decisions and to regulate every possible aspect of the internet.