sacredauthor of " scriptures, sacred war, the bible and the american revolution." on c-span3. tuesday morning we are live in little rock, arkansas for the next stop on the c-span bus cities -- 50 capitals tour. starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern. now, a discussion on the congressional negotiations concerning the long-term budget deal. from washington journal, this is 30 minutes. >> sarah ferris at our table ajit anding covers appropriations for politico up on capitol hill until very, very late this morning. or early this morning, i should say.

what is the mood in the senate rand paule watching continuously objected to republican leadership trying to move forward with this stopgap bill and two years spending bill? mood was sleep deprived. a lot of senators not used to being up this late that did not want to be there. they really blamed the rand paul for this. he said he was making a stand, wanted to make sure the package did not get through without a fight. he certainly brought that fight. he was on that floor until 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon up until 1:00 a.m. as soon as the senate had a chance to vote, they got moving very quickly. they have the regular passage vote all within a couple minutes. and the senators were ready to get out of there. senate, youssed the

had democrats objecting in both chambers, republicans as well. but they had the numbers to pass it. what happens now? sarah: we finally have the top line spending levels everyone on capitol hill has been asking for for a year now. appropriators can get to work, start writing the trillion dollar bill that will actually fund the government through the 30th. the bill that has just asked is not a full year spending bill. it is a deal that has needed to so they canpassed write the spending bill. it is the reason why rand paul took his stand. he said he did not want to forget there was a massive debt ceiling increase. they don't know how much that will ultimately cost. there are a host of programs includinging, children's health programs, community health centers. and tax expenditures on the

medicare side and energy sector side. these were not able to get through as a standalone's. -- standalone. bill --est stand-alone this is the largest fiscal package since 2009. they did not vote on this under obama. but now we have the majority supporting it under president trump. greta: will the two sides come together? one caller said that they will wait until the last minute, march 22, 23. thisthey be able to pass omnibus bill? sarah: i think they will wait until the last minute. it takes a while to write these bills. they are in charge of 12 separate bills and have not been able to make much progress without knowing how much congress can actually spend this year.

it is a very abnormal year. the house did pass its own bills on the floor. the numbers -- they have a 300 billion above the sequester era caps. now appropriators can say we have this much money. it is easier to add money then subtract money. they think it will be a faster process than it might otherwise have been. now they will need the full six week period to get to work on these largest spending bills. a lot of work has not yet been done. greta: at this time every year the president's budget will be expected. what does it look like? sarah: it comes down to monday. they have told me there are no plans to delay this. out monday, aing massive document that capitol hill is not looking forward to

that much. republicans in the house and senate told me [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] he has been talking regularly with lawmakers. he does not need a budget he wantsto tell them to achieve infrastructure or a massive boost to the pentagon budget. the numbers in the document will not be as important as it is writing budgets on capitol hill because congress passed a budget with little regard with what the white house is putting up. host: will the president's budget be drastically different than what they just agree to? guest: it will be drastically different because what they agree to was a record level of domestic funding increases. the white house put out a statement yesterday and sourcing this deal largely because of the huge increases to the military spending, which president trump has been asking for for more than a year now. the white house did endorse the

deal, but it said the domestic spending level included was higher than it deemed necessary. this is something the white house has already made clear that it does not think that departments like the labor department and health and human services and education department -- it does not think it needs as much money as it got. the reason it did is because it's the key reason that democratic leaders agreed to back this bill. that is why they agreed to support a $700 billion military budget next year. host: will the president sign any sort of omnibus bill that gets passed before march 23? guest: he has indicated that he would could . a lot can happen in the next six weeks. we did not see much about the border wall or border security and the latest budget deal or short-term spending bill. immigration will be taking hold on capitol hill next week. leader mcconnell set that debate up in the wee hours of friday. we will see all of next week consumed on the immigration

debate. we could see president trump bringing up the border bill shortly after that. host: 67 republicans in the house voted no. 16 republicans in the senate voted no last night. who are those no votes and are they likely to vote no again on the trillion dollar omnibus bill? guest: a lot of the republicans who voted against this don't vote for the omnibus bill anyway. and the senate, we had a large amount of so-called budget hawks. members who have been trying to get mandatory spending under control for some time now. in the house, you have some of the conservatives you would expect to oppose this. the house freedom caucus took an official position against the bill. a larger more diverse group of conservatives did not take a formal position. a lot of their members opposed it, but they did not require their 170 members to oppose it. this is something we knew a lot

of conservatives were going to a oppose. it is hard for them to refuse the military increases when they are hearing on an almost daily basis from defense secretary james mattis that this is something without it that the military would not be of the readiness preparation that president trump has been talking about for a year. host:'s airfares here to answer questions -- sarah ferris here to answer questions and comments. the senate voted 71-28 to move forward on a continuing resolution to keep the government up and reopened. it closed at midnight. also to the budget deal, the house scrambled around 5:30 a.m. eastern time. in virginia, democrat, good morning to you. caller: good morning to you . what you just said about social security being the biggest -- that meansdebt

that congress has taken social security money rather than leaving it in the bank and gather interest so they can pay people like me who are retired. they are spending it. rather than pay it back, now they want to cut social security so they don't have to -- what is it? $6 trillion they owe social security? they don't want to pay it back. that's why they want to cut social security. host: let's take up this entitlement reform question. if they have a two-year budget deal in place, one of the news reports today said they cannot -- and they decide not to pass the budget in 2018 and 2019 -- that they cannot do entitlement reform. guest: it's important to clarify here because the budget deal that was passed yesterday was a bipartisan setting up for spending bills.

the white house proposal and the republican budgets that we would see on capitol hill would not have any effect except for setting up for the special budget tool that would allow for something like entitlement reform to go through without the filibuster. also how we saw the tax bill passed and the republican attempts to repeal obamacare. that the question is whether republicans will attempt to pass their joint resolution an attempt to do entitlement reform in 2018. from everything i've heard from republican leaders so far, the answer is no, which is something that democrats say is a relief. they were concerned about potential cuts to particular medicaid and perhaps medicare and food stamps. social security and medicare were not so much on the table for this. president trump said from the campaign that he is not looking to cut from beneficiaries. there are ways that republicans are looking to do either provider cuts or other reforms to medicare and social security. it is difficult to do because these are mandatory programs and would require a separate bill

and something like a reconciliation bill. you cannot just do this in the regular appropriations process. that's one of the biggest things that republicans are worried about because they cannot actually tackle the growing share of mandatory spending through the already difficult appropriations process. host: in alexandria, virginia, independent. caller: thank you for taking my phone call. i'm just curious about something i heard on another network this morning about nascar being mentioned in this bill. it is just kind of ludicrous that nascar, a multimillion owned byrporation opene private corporation, is mentioned on capitol hill in a bill with a shutdown. it's ironic that one of the major tracks in the nascar circuit is in kentucky where rand paul and mcconnell are located. maybe someone can delve into this stuff and what is going on in this bill that the average person will never know about. host: sarah ferris?

guest: that is something not surprised the all. -- not surprising at all. even members of congress have not had a chance to read it. this is a sex hundred 50 page bill and we got it at 11:55 p.m. -- 650 page coul bill and we got at 11:55 p.m. on wednesday. that is why senator rand paul held it up. this is something that combined several dozen tax extenders. these are a lot of tax breaks that were expired and not included in the 2015 package or the bill that we saw december. there were tax benefits in there for horse racing and tax benefits for when credits. pretty much running the game it everything that did not get included last time. it is difficult to piece apart this 650 page bill if you are not looking precisely for what

-- if you're not looking at it for precisely something that you wanted in there. host: that will be the next homework assignment for you and other reporters on capitol hill to dig through this 650 plus pages and figure out what's in it. let's go to tom and hawaii, republican. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. the point i would like to make is how inefficient this is for our country. not only is it difficult to plan existing projects that are going with furloughing employees, people on travel and working on projects now have to return home mid project and not complete the work. then to complete the work, they have to travel again to work on projects. it's a complete waste of money projects and have uncertainty on projects that are going on and how to plan for them.

thank you very much. host: sarah ferris? guest: the uncertainty is something that members of congress have been complaining about for the past five times the have voted on the short-term spending bill. we have to wait another six weeks to have actual legislation get this through september 30. we have heard the most from military leaders. secretary mattis has gone to both the republican retreat and got up to the white house briefing room and talking individually with members of the there are saying that army and navy departments that cannot start new projects. they are essentially ground to a halt unless they get a full year spending bill. the repeating cycle of continuing resolutions is really damaging to the military. that is something that republicans have hammered into them for the last several months. that is why it was so difficult to back another short-term spending bill that was made easier by the fact that the

military budget will now be $700 billion for fiscal 2018 and 2019. that is something that was pretty much the main reasons republicans would vote for the package. host: defense secretary mattis up on capitol hill earlier this week and testifying. we covered that hearing if you want to listen more to what he had to say and arguments for not operating under continuing resolution. schumer, senator chuck the minority leader who cut the deal, praising general mattis and his role in this. guest: democratic leaders have never not wanted to fund the military. the argument that they are making since 2011 and the start of sequestration when both the republicans and democrats saw domestic and defense funding basically on the chopping block and being forced to stave off these funding cuts every two years or so, democrats have said

we want boots for the military and a strong national defense. we just want domestic funding such as the education department and the health department and having these larger increases as well. under sequestration, both the mastech and defense have seen cuts slowly over time. it seems like we will have a reversal of that. these increases were far higher than both the 2011 and 2013 budget deal. we are going to see both sides of those ledgers, which have been huge debates of the spending talks in the last year. it seems to finally be evening out for a little bit. host: but skoda tammy in minnesota, democrat. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my call. i have more of an observation. we are about 45 minutes before the government is due to open and trump has this bill on his desk and still has not signed it.

it is being reported that he has not signed it because he is waiting for "fox and friends" to get over. host: where did you hear that, tammy? caller: i just heard it on cnn. host: sarah ferris? guest: there is flexibility for workers to avoid urloughed. they can spend four hours at work preparing for a shutdown if they are under shutdown protocol. there is a bit of flexibility so federal workers can still come in. host: charles in tennessee, independent. caller: i don't really have a question for your guest even though she is very knowledgeable. i have a comment. that most of the congressman and senators are egomaniacs trying to feather their own nest and we should have term limits. the government is not supposed to do certain things. it's not supposed to be a

profession. thank you. host: glenn in lancaster, california, republican. good morning to you. caller: i'm doing good this morning. here's a good question for this reporter here. we should add up all the money that was put out in quantitative easing and put that into the military and pay back social security with it. could you give us a number on how much money under the obama administration that was put in quantitative easing through the federal reserve bank to prop up the stock market and fluctuate prices for stocks and bonds and how much money was made by other than united states citizens? you can put it into the military, which are american

citizens. and you can put it into the social security and payback american citizens. add up that money that was not appropriated by congress. host: can i ask you? senator rand paul was making the argument. republicans not ok with the deficit under president obama that seem to be ok with deficits as long as there is a republican in the white house? caller: the same question could be to the democrats. why was $10 trillion spent under obama with the democrats and they are ok with that, but we don't even mention that? how much money has been spent on foreign-born invaders in the united states, but democrats and republicans? how much money was spent on iran when they only had $499 million? who okayed that money? host: got your point.

we will go on to stephanie and highland point, democrat. caller: i just wanted to know. say randall, i want to paul does not have any standing to make comments or complaints about the budget exploding because didn't he vote for the tax bill? the next thing i wanted to say was it is kind of scary because they are ballooning the deficit, but with that said, with the tax bill and the budget deal, what are we talking about? $3 trillion added on to the deficit? does any of that contain infrastructure spending? host: let's talk about that. guest: there's not too much infrastructure spending included in there yet. there's about $20 million set aside for the next two years and appropriators will decide where that goes. it is approaching at least $2 trillion if you take into account the tax cuts and the cbo estimated that would cost over

10 years. the cost of this bill is about $320 billion all things considered. that includes the tax extenders and disaster relief. there are those on capitol hill that note this is two years of raising the sequester, pushing up the spending cuts yet again. that,gress does not do then the costs are way more than $320 billion over a decade and it would be exponentially higher because the spending increases approved would just continue. tos very hard for congress go back and allow for spending cuts after raising for both the military and domestic programs. 2019, do they have to pass another long-term budget deal? or if they don't, does it go back to 2011 sequestration levels? guest: that's essentially right. this whole decades long sequestration effort ends in

2021. we have essentially one more budget deal that is two years long. this is something that affects leadership going back to 2011. we have had some very hard deals cut. this is why former speaker john boehner did not stay speaker. he faced in an internal revolt among republicans. ryan has avoided that under president trump. that means there are very difficult decisions to come. with $700 billion for the much forand nearly as domestic, it will be very hard to reverse those cuts and to not see those costs add up over the next several years. host: matt in new york, republican. ladies.good morning, i hope you are having a good day. earlierthe host speaker that there is $4 billion for the

v.a. to help rebuild the a hospitals. being a client of the v.a. hospitals, a new coat of paint is not going to fix what the problem is. the problem is they don't have enough personnel. i use those the and the the v.a. and the private system. i spoke to people in the private system that would've been willing to work at the v.a., but they don't pay what the private system does. at the v.a.,e here the basic thing with the v.a. is the primary care teams. of course it expands to the specialists. v.a.0 years, i'm using the and every couple years, the money goes to a new paint job. instead of personnel. the thing is we had five primary care teams.

four.ot cut to now the four teams are handling the caseload of the five. on top of that, to see a specialist, it's hard for them to even higher specialists. host: purge your point on that. -- heard your point on that. $4 billion is included in this, but that does not mean that is it for the veterans affairs department. we will have to wait and see what the appropriators come up with for the veterans affairs department and what they're spending levels are at, correct? guest: democrats have been championing this effort from the beginning. chuck schumer has been on the senate floor talking about how important it is to not only having more money go to v.a. choice and the private health care sector program but also cares the health spectrum for veterans, including mental health care. democrats have said they will make sure this entire budget for the v.a. goes up.

we do not know what the breakdown is going to be because we just have the top line spending levels. it is a significant increase in the domestic program levels. you can expect big increases in every department here. host: jasper is watching and bethel springs, democrat. good morning. caller: i was calling and i'm hearing about the budget and all that. well, i got disabled back in 1980. 8. i informed for nearly all my life -- farm for nearly all my life. in the last year i've had two strokes and two heart attacks and three back surgeries. now i'm disabled. draws $160 a month. it doesn't cover her medicine bill. they say that's all she can draw. they're so much money out there

wasted and the guy about the v.a., he's right. he is 100%. i'm a veteran myself. don't blame it on the democrats. it's both sides. , why the you always hear about upper-class, middle-class, but nobody ever mentions the bottom class? host: just his thoughts and tennessee. besides this budget deal that was approved, there has been this side conversation about what to do with dreamers or the daca participants. the president has offered his proposal to the democrats. they appear to not agree to that. what is going to be next though? the last thing that seven majority leader mitch mcconnell did on the floor after they approved opening up the government was what? guest: he did allow this debate

to go forward and essentially set up the debate to begin next monday evening. this essentially is what democrats have been told for more than a week. he is making good on his promise to restart the immigration debate. what's really going to be key is which built his debated. that is still not clear yet. is it going to be some of these bipartisan efforts that democratic leaders have been involved in? there are other bipartisan efforts that senator john mccain and chris coons have been part of. there's a whole spectrum of bills available both in the senate and the house. in the house, things are less clear on where this thing goes forward. paul ryan has been hesitant about an immigration bill brought to the floor, but he did make an agreement with democrats last night to get the 70 votes he needed to get this bill across the house floor at 5:30 a.m. the other thing to watch is that the immigration debate has been linked to spending.

republicans have said they will not consider an immigration debate while it is linked to spending. they don't when i have to vote for something that will increase the military and achieve all these priorities like hell funding if it also means having this uncomfortable and difficult conversation about dreamers, something very polarizing. they went to be separate. is separate and there's more oxygen in the room because the budget deal has finally passed, there will be more of an effort to have some hearings and open conversations versus just various groups meeting behind closed doors trying to come up with a way to get their bill to the floor. there is now a clear path for an actual immigration debate to go forward. host: whitney is in kansas, a democrat. good morning to you. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. question or comment for our guest? caller: mainly a comment.

i'm a federal employee and my son is in the military. it's significantly impacts numerous amounts of individuals that people are not even considering. when it comes to appropriations , everyone budget needs to remember we are under a sequestration. lasts 10 years and it will continue to last as long as everything goes the way it is going. everyone wants to blame party after party as to kicking the can down the road, but sequestration is nothing but a kick of the can. we are not paying attention to the actual fact of what's going on. we are paying attention to any of the bills that are on the floor. host: let me ask this. has any lawmaker argued sequestration has not been a bad thing? forcing cuts in spending on congress has not been about the?

-- a bad thing? guest: there are plenty of conservatives who have said this since 2011. the cuts were never intended to go through and only one time did that back in 2011. since then, conservatives have been trying to tempt on domestic spending. they have said it has reached levels that are too high. they will point to the mandatory spending making up a larger share of actual federal spending , which you cannot touch through the appropriations process. one thing included in this deal is another one of these so-called super committees that we have seen time and time again as congressional leaders try to sort out therir broken budget process. the task is to get the appropriate process moving you. we saw none of the individual bills come to the floor. the spending bills will be finished up in march. this is several months past the deadline so congressional leaders are trying to have some sort of way to reach the skids on this.

the committee has not had a great reception with conservatives and some of them are shrugging it off already, but there are some attempts to talk about the long-term effects of sequestration whether it is worthwhile to continue to live under the budget control after 2011. technically that is still the law of the land. and also larger conversations about what to do about the budget act of 1974. this is the last major bill setting up the congressional budget and appropriations cycle. a lot of conservatives, particularly those who do support sequestration and say that there needs to be larger conversations about this, say it's time to reconsider the budget act. host: our viewers can follow sarah ferris on politico.com and on twitter. she is the budget and appropriations reporter with politico. we thank you after a very long night on capitol hill for coming here and being