government shutdown and a discussion about the -- make college more affordable with jason delisle and mark huelsman. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ host: good morning. it is thursday, january 31st, 2019. the senate meets at 10:00 a.m.. the house will meet for a pro forma session at noon. we begin this morning on the border security negotiations under the ticking clock on the government funding bill. president trump made it clear he wants final deals to improve money for a border wall. we want to know what you think should happen if funding is not included in the final proposal. would you support another

shutdown over border wall funding? if you would, give us a call. 202-748-8000 is the number. if you would not, 202-748-8001. you can catch up with us on social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good thursday morning to you. you can start calling in now. yesterday the bipartisan, bicameral group whose job it is -- met for the first time -- called a conference committee and they will be meeting through february 15. the president was tweeting --ughts about the upcoming physicalting a wall or barrier, they are wasting their time. here is the headline from the new york times this morning on the results of that first meeting. it democrats fact much into

their first -- democrats packed much into their first offer, but not what the president wants. the appropriations chairwoman in the house, her thoughts on the upcoming negotiation's. [video clip] >> to further secure the border, we should focus on proven solutions like equipment at ports of entry to detect drugs and new technology between ports of entry to detect unauthorized crossings. more aircraft and vessels to help homeland security agencies patrol our land borders and u.s. borders. resources to meet the humanitarian needs of migrants, especially children and families . smart border security is not overly reliant on physical barriers which the trump administration failed to

demonstrate are cost-effective compared to better technology and more personnel. host: more headlines stemming from that first meeting of the conference committee. this is from the wall street journal as lawmakers meet. while remains a barrier and one more headline from the washington times, democrats offer funds, but not to build a wall. more from the outset of that conference committee hearing. this is the chairman of the senate committee, his thoughts yesterday. [video clip] >> our border patrol professionals tell us a comprehensive approach is necessary, an approach that includes technology, infrastructure, personnel, and physical areas. as a-- smart technology part of the solution, but not the only solution in and of itself. cameras, sensors, drones and other smart technology highlight

the gaps and vulnerability along our border. in short, they provide a greater awareness of where our insecurities lie. nott technology alone does actually stop anyone from crossing into the u.s. illegally. if that is happening, our borders are not secure. border patrol tells us they need physical barriers to help them do their job. not from coast to coast, but strategically placed where traffic is highest. combined with technology, manpower, and other infrastructure, these barriers comprise a comprehensive solution that is capable of fully securing the border. it is a common sense all of the above solution to a problem that both parties have said for years we have to fix. have those negotiators

dust over two weeks to go until the february 15 deadline where they would have to come up with a plan otherwise the government would shut down again. if that plan does not include funding for a wall, would you support another shutdown over border wall funding? give us a call, phone lines if you support it, 202-748-8000. if you would oppose that, 202-748-8001. don up first from trenton, new jersey, on the line for those who support. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. wall,eve without a border the country will just be overrun since we have these new telephones. you can see how well things are doing. you are guaranteed for life for -- if you did not do this, they are going to send you back to your own country.

you went to the hospital and couldn't speak english. so hardknow why it is to get these new rules in. the money will come out of social security and everything to take care of these immigrants and there is no proof a wall doesn't work. everybody says the wall doesn't work. i don't see that. everybody else has walls. they would tear them down if they did not work. host: that is john in new jersey. this is anthony in maryland. caller: good morning. i oppose the wall because another shutdown would only hurt the country just like this shutdown hurt the country. the first shutdown against -- the solution --l be and we won't have to before hemp started

said he was going to build the wall. he started firing illegal immigrants. this week, he is just starting to fire them. ,f you go after the employers they would not come. found a legal on his property, he ought to be fined $10,000 and prosecuted for raking the law and hiring illegals. he is talking out of two sides of his mouth. he is hiring people and he said during his rally, hispanics love me because i give them jobs. host: this is gail in virginia. would you support another shutdown over border wall funding? caller: i would support a shutdown over border wall funding because i feel like it will require people to work

anyther and i haven't seen effort on the part of the democrats to work on funding. what we think is an important -- i would be in favor it would givee leverage to work together and i don't see democrats being willing to work with the republicans. when it says it gives us leverage to work together, did that happen under the other shutdown? did you see movement that would tell you the shutdown strategy works? caller: no, and i was disappointed there was not a movement on their part. i feel as though they should have been more willing to work with president trump, but they

were not. host: what makes you confident -- confident it would happen this time if it happened a second time? caller: i don't know, but i think it is a way -- i don't feel like the government shutdown -- we should even have gone to that point. that is the part, as an american, i am disappointed in. we should not even have gotten to this point. there should be more of a bipartisan effort to work together. host: from gail to devon in connecticut on the line for those who oppose. caller: good morning. i oppose the wall. two days ago when the leaders of the intelligence agency testified at congress about iran, russia, korea, they did not mention the wall. i think democrats are getting their information from the intelligence agency and i think

the president should start doing that. host: the president with some reaction yesterday to some of that testimony on capitol hill in response to some of his intelligence leaders, president trump slamming his own intelligence officials wednesday morning, a day after they countered some of his claims before congress. on tuesday, gina haspel, dan coats, fbi director christopher wray told the senate committee on intelligence that iran appeared to be in line with the 2015 iran nuclear deal made during the obama administration. they talked about their assessments that president trump is underestimating the situation with north korea and the islamic state terror group known as isis. to the president tweeting out several responses to his intelligence community yesterday. we will talk about those a little bit later in the program. floyd is waiting in overland park, kansas, on the line for

those who would support a shutdown if the next deal doesn't include funding for a wall. go ahead. support the shutdown if it happens again. democrats know how to stop it, but they don't care, they don't want to stop it. every illegal that gets into america is going to be a vote for the democrats. that is the way they figure it, anyway. that is the way i feel about it, too. all the medicare for all and all of this junk is simply going to bankrupt the nation. if that is what it democrats want, it looks like that is what democrats are going to get. lots of luck. i am 84, so i don't care. will be about 8:30 we talking about one of those proposals 2020 candidates have

been pushing the free college proposal. we will take a deep dive into those with a roundtable discussion. kelly is next in arizona on the line for those who oppose another shutdown. go ahead. caller: it is the first time i have called when you are on. oppose theg you, i shutdown, but then i am for it. i really feel we need barriers, , but i knowa parts every morning it seems like you guys bash trump and hate trump. i know you are the one that takes all the topics. why do the democrats kill babies and the unborn? can you do a topic on what is going on now? host: we have done topics on abortion before. we are not here to bash anyone. we are here to have a discussion

about public policy that is going on now. you said you are for the shutdown and against the shutdown, explained that more. for the shutdown of democrats will come to a deal and stop worrying about all these illegals and giving them everything. let's worry about americans and i would oppose the shutdown let trump do his national security. if that is the way to go, that is better than shutting it down and costing us more money and people out of work. abortion.he topics on i hope you do the other topics because it is so personal to me. i feel like democrats kill babies and it hurts me this is happening in our country. host: i am sure it is a topic we will discuss again. the current funding measure runs

out february 15. that's how much time the conference committee has the come up with a deal the president would sign that would keep the government open. if not, we are back into another government shutdown. here is polling on this question we are asking this morning. politico and morning consult had after after -- poll president trump announced the end of the shutdown. 72% of voters support the agreement to reopen the government. only 15% opposed it. after that, things got dicey. only 31% of voters support shutting the government down to force congress to appropriate money for the wall while nearly twice that, 58% oppose another shutdown. if the government does shutdown again, 54% would blame trump and republicans while just 33% would blame democrats. we want to know what you think. our viewers on phone lines for

those who would support another shutdown on border wall funding. 202-748-8000. for those who would oppose, 202-748-8001. todd in asheville, north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. you will have to excuse my voice, the cold weather has gotten to me of here. host: cold weather across a large part of this country today. caller: i am telling you. i just wanted to point out. can you hear me? host: yes, sir. caller: i want to point out -- point out the fact of these drugs coming across the border. that is one of the main reasons for, i think, their desire to keep the border open. a lot of these sanctuary blue cities like chicago and --tsburgh, the money being to say the money be made from drugs has no effect in politics is like saying the money being

made on alcohol had no control al's-- had no effect on control. her grandfather was the one who got out of jail and made that deal that he would get out of jail and help the u.s. fight mussolini. after war, they started bringing in heroin from turkey. host: i am not familiar with that story. bring us up to today. caller: today, the wall is being shut down and the drugs are being cut off. thatresult, the grease fuels these political machines in a lot of these big cities is being removed. they are not going to be able to achieve power. the ability to have unlimited

amounts of cash -- it is like $1 million a week. if that is cut off, they are not going to be able to maintain their political power. host: that is todd in asheville, north carolina. the wall on president trump's mind this morning according to his twitter page. the president tweeting large sections of the wall have already been built with much more under construction or ready to go. renovation of existing walls is also a big part of the plan. finally, after many decades, properly secure our border. the wall is getting done one way or the other. we mention the president yesterday even before the conference committee was tweeting about the upcoming negotiations saying if they were not contemplating the wall, they were wasting their time. here is dick durbin yesterday when asked about the president's tweets ahead of that meeting. [video clip] >> this conference committee

meets in good faith on a bipartisan basis to solve a problem. it would be helpful if the president was onboard to reach a successful conclusion. we have had enough suffering with the shutdown which danger the -- endangered the economic security of 800,000 employees. the president threatens to give another shutdown if we do not cave to him. host: members across capitol hill asked about the president's tweet ahead of that conference committee. here is another senate republican policy committee chairman roy blunt, his comments about the president's tweet. [video clip] >> at the end of the day, we need a bill the president will sign and we need to be working to see if we cannot come to a compromise that democrats and republicans can't be for and the president can sign. it's important to keep the

government open, but also important to meet our responsibilities to secure the border. i think there are a number of signs from democrats in the house that they are willing to put a pretty big number on the table. we need to figure out how to find that number so it is a number the president can work with. host: back to the president's twitter page, tweeting again about the wall saying let's call them walls from now on and stop playing political games. a wall is a wall. the president's trump from -- tweet from a few minutes ago. looking toward the upcoming weeks and what president trump plans to do. a pr blitz on the border wall including a super bowl sunday interview on cbs. the president has his state of the union next week. the story talking about the possibility of another trip by the president to the border. that story is by david jackson and john fritz in today's usa

today. would you support another shutdown over border wall funding? anna would not de soto, texas. caller: good morning, john. bases in5 military texas alone. the highway patrol, the texas rangers, they all do an amazing job of stopping traffic on highway 35 and 59. those are the ones that reach across. all these people from new jersey, massachusetts, where do they get these binoculars that they can see into texas? i worked coming out of white sands military base to el paso every month, no problems because you have helicopters -- if you are speeding and i know because i got pulled over by a helicopter, i saw one on the

side of me and i was waving and they were waving back. three miles up, i got pulled over. they explained why. people who drive fast, and i was driving fast trying to get to the airport in el paso. people who drive slow, they search my car to make sure no one had gotten inside because i was on the military base in white sands. when you talk about texas being unsafe, they just shot and killed the police in houston, two people who were drug offenders and guess what, they were not mexican. they were a white couple. longview texas -- they are and ku kluxinheads drugs men for the activity. and you insult our police force,

our 15 military bases. we don't need a wall and if you are going to do something, give those people a raise with that $5.7 billion, not shut it down. texas is fine. you need to get a life, america. thank you so much, john, i enjoy when you are on. host: the house yesterday backing a 2.6 pay raise for federal workers, one of the stories in the washington post. the house holding a vote on that pay raise for civilian federal employees. 259-161.ise passed by the payraise calibrated to match what has been given to military personnel in the 2019 spending bill. the military spending bill was one of the five spending bills passed before the beginning of the fiscal 2019 fiscal year. 29 republicans joined democrats

in voting for that payraise bill on the floor of the house yesterday. hawaii.out in maui, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: i am doing well. thank you for getting up early for us today. waser: when the government shut down the last time, 90% of the people did not even notice the government was even shut down. i also believe this is a power struggle between the president and the speaker of the house. winlieve the president will . i believe democrats are playing russian roulette with a loaded gun. $10.8 billion to south america, but they cannot

protect the united states borders. the fact of the matter, the lady from texas says there is no problem. why doesn't she turn on the tv illegalsat the 15,000 trying to cross the border? government actually is overweighted anyway. on that last shutdown, like i said, nobody really noticed. yes, we had a few problems, but not really that bad. maybe we need to trim the government. the only thing we need in our government, actually, is the military to protect the security of the united states. congress back there behind you, they don't do anything. they haven't done anything for

the american people and i don't know -- in don't know how many years, probably about four to five years. we need to protect the borders. we need to protect the american people. why doll doesn't work, you lock your doors? host: that is john in hawaii. robert in massachusetts opposes another shutdown over wall funding. go ahead, robert. caller: remember ronald reagan said tear that wall down? september 11, these people did not come over no wall. they came from out of canada, went to boston, and flew across .he country without a wall

the -- brothers -- i remember them in boston. they brought one of the bodies worcester where we are. they had to sneak that body out of town. when they used to call the pharmacy a drugstore. this is where all the drugs are coming from, out of a -- the pharmacy. drugs,eople talk about look up all these motorcycle gangs who are giving it to your children, these gangs. name.geles is a mexican el paso, texas, mexican name. these people have been in the united states before the white man got here. you stole their land and now you want to send them back.

i don't know what wrong with you people. host: here are a few comments from our twitter and facebook pages. tony writes no border wall, build useful infrastructure. rene saying both parties have to work together to secure our borders. if that doesn't happen, shut it down again. one more viewer saying i support not paying congress until they agree on border security. this question we are asking whether you support another shutdown over border wall on that a facebook poll available on our facebook page, facebook.com/cspan. currently 64% saying they would not support another government shutdown over border wall funding. over 2500 yes, just votes. we will check in again in a half-hour. michael in paterson, new jersey, on the line for those who would

support it. caller: this is michael and i support the wall. why? because it is part of security. stiffs mexico with that, don't give them humanitarian aid. maybe they will learn to close their border and that will pay for the wall because mexico will have to stick it to them because they are trying to stick it to us. they are giving them buses. why are they giving them buses? soy know our government is divided. they want democrats because they want open borders and when they shut the government down again, shut the politicians' money down. not the workers. the workers don't deserve to get punished. it is the politicians doing it and they make loopholes for themselves. take your pay away.

medicare for all, let me ask the politicians this in person, is it that a care for all or just medicare for us? host: new jersey on members being paid. spendinghe 12 annual bills were passed before the fiscal 2019 year started in october of last year. one of those bills was the legislative branch appropriations bill. that is the bill that funds congress and member offices. the house and senate have their own appropriations process. it was one of the five spending bills passed along with the spending bill for the military and other federal affairs. that is the reason why congress continue to operate under the government shutdown. anne in charlottesville, virginia. good morning. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: i am absolutely absolutt

the shutdown again. -- he keepshings saying the democrats are not compromising, that he has not changed. it is still the 5.7 amount. this is the one thing no one talks about that bothers me the most. they do not talk about the actual physical border of mexico. consists of the rio grande river. almost all the border and mexico is a river. you cannot run a border wall down the middle of a river. so the border obviously is on our side because saccone is not going to let us take away their access -- because mexico is not going to let us take away their access. so it is on the u.s. side, and that is why they can do more, like when they passed this in 2009, i think it was, because there are so many lawsuits.

we have treaties with the mexican government over the usage of that river. we have to supply them with an amount of water because the river is so depleted now from what our agricultural people are drawing out of it. thene is discussing fiscality of the border. own thehers down there private property. you cannot wall the rio grande their their property, so cattle cannot access it. they have crops and cattle that access the river. people want to recreational use that river. that is why there is a lawsuit against trump by canoeists in virginia. golfs along the potomac, security people completely block off that river. and they do not allow people to canoe and kayak it.

so now there is a canoe association suing him. host: have you been down to the rio grande down there? talk about your interest in this and your knowledge of it. caller: no, i have not. that is why i like hearing the woman from texas. there are a couple of fights right now -- i think it is "usa today" and someone else online -- that put up websites where they have put up a helicopter and filmed every part of the border. have films from the helicopter. there are areas like the big bend park, and there are parks along the border, four or five, some of them are unesco heritage sites. the pictures i see, it looks like the canyon. obviously they do not put the wall down in the middle of the park. it is not very accessible there. they do not count on many people

crossing. viewers are showing our "usa today's" view of the wall and the border area, the map that they go through section by section of the u.s.-mexico border, what is there and what is not there. go ahead. caller: that is the site and i was looking at. that is where i have gotten most of my pictures. that is exactly the site that i saw. there is a government site. i forget which part of the government where they actually list all the intricacies of the treaties we have with mexico. the other part, like the colorado river, consists of part of the border over near california, and mexico actually had the dam running across the river there, that actually goes, i guess, onto united states

property. so what are you going to do? you cannot put a wall down the middle of the river. , you are seeing reports like with -- what is his chapo?el he escaped. there is a lot of tunneling underground. there had been a tunnel built from a fake kfc underground to mexico. a physical wall would not do anything to keep these drugs coming in underground. host: how does this end on february 15? what do you think happens? caller: i think unfortunately things are going to get shut down again. i don't know. there is too much -- there is so much fake -- there is so much spiel and spending being done on it. that is what bothers me.

no one talks about the treaties we have with mexico, about what we would have to bill down there. why you cannot know they wall. why they were not successful in doing one in 2009. int: that is ann charlottesville, virginia. this first section of "the washington journal," we are asking if you would support a wall. aswant to keep you updated well. we are just after 7:30 on the east coast. the federal reserve bank yesterday signaling a hold on rate increases, on wall street's, financial markets. fueling a market rally yesterday. officials voted to hold their benchmark rates steady and delivered an about-face from their policy stance from just six weeks earlier. last week -- last month they

bysed their benchmark rates a quarter percentage point to a range between 2.25 percent and 2.5% and signaled two more rate rises were likely this year. jerome powell, the head of the federal reserve, said the going risk of a sharp economic slowdown due to cooling growth in europe and asia -- he also said officials were paying of ation to growing risks sharp u.s. economic shutdown. -- were paying close attention to related headwinds. if negotiators on capitol hill do not reach a deal that the president can sign -- we want to know if you support another shutdown over border wall funding. david in todd, north carolina, go ahead. caller: from my perspective, it seems like the state, town, and counties have just as much in

this race as the federal government because the state and the counties and towns give temporary status to offenders and plea bargains and stuff. even the local population gets plea bargains and special treatment by the counties and the towns that the federal government is never aware of, theirndermines and cohesion in the community. if the states are accountable for illegal activity in the states and they allow people to serve in the military or serve in the county as employees for and bargains or cooperation informants and stuff, we have a broker system. in the counties would not be disconnected, not the federal. host: this is james in akron, ohio. he opposes another shutdown. go ahead. caller: let me say this before i give you my opinion.

made thepolicy has black man the most disrespected person in the world. and then they have made the jewish person the most hated people in the world. the american policy, they tried to make the black people believe that they are losing their jobs because the hispanics had come in and had taken them. but the hispanics are not hiring anybody. a few are, but this is all policy in america, and this is what is happening. to the wall -- the problem with the wall is this. , mostnot that the people democrats are against the wall. it is what donald trump represents, and it is more of that than the wall. i think everybody wants security. everybody wants -- and there are

a lot of things going on here. people coming through the south are not the problem. that is some of it. but our problems are greater in this country than that. we have streets, roads, all these things. it is coast-to-coast with the streets and the roads and bridges are in such decay. the presidente talking about fixing the borders and stopping people from coming into this country. but all the things he is talking about our american made. if you think about it, the hiring, the people that do the hiring are his friends. and right now he is not going to have another shutdown. he will not do it because his friends are losing money. , and thatabout money is the problem we have here in the country. host: in pleasant valley, new york, go ahead. caller: good morning.

i bring up an issue. the lady in texas, i do not know where she is coming from. you can build a wall anywhere you want, down the water, through the ocean, wherever you want. arizona not staying in and texas. they are fleeing into the interior part of this country. in new york state, fundamentally the city i live in has changed to a little mexico. people do not see that over there. host: give me an example of that in pleasant valley. caller: outside of pleasant valley. pleasant valley is a small town. we have another town called tipsy just outside of maine. the town i grew up in, tipsy -- keepsie, has fundamentally changed. all the shops are being run by

-- i assume it is illegals. they get funding. they get funding from the local government. we as the middle class are paying for it. our schools are overfilled. host: why do you think they are illegals? caller: because that is what we are doing. we are bringing them in here. i know for a fact. for a with people, i work facility -- and i was a union rep at the time -- and they told me they were doing the hiring and they called it vida hiring. do you know what that is? host: explain it to me. caller: it is that we are hiring everybody except blacks or whites. host: why is that, ed? caller: it must have been funding. they hire all these people, 40, 48 people, from vice presidents,

professors, right down to the laborers. a year later they found out none of their social security numbers were any good. host: ed in pleasant valley, new york. this is curb and -- this is kirban, in texas. go ahead. caller: i am against the shutdown. we should watch the news every day. any time they show on the news, they are showing the wall down there, that people are climbing the wall. so why shutdown? i agree we need border control down there. and they are doing a good job because they catch them. and the other thing, you know, the last month or two, it seems like almost every day cops are getting killed. and they are getting killed by people just like them. people theyspanic

are killing, it is people that look just like them. the wall we keep the people from killing the cops. the people that looked just like them, american people killing cops. it is not because of hispanic people. mentioned,y just about the hispanics, these are american people. what they are saying, hispanic people need to stop having kids because they are more populating and coming up and getting good jobs and they do not like that. host: you do not think hispanic people should have children? caller: know, that is what they are saying. they are saying too many hispanic people are coming up in the neighborhood. there are too any people having nice cards and nice homes and everything -- nice cars and nice homes and everything. they are saying they are illegal, but they are hispanic

people. and just from mexico getting american jobs, which they were born here. and went to school and got their education, got good jobs, started their own business, and buying the things that they wanted to because they worked hard for it. and you have people who are mad because they are doing good. host: got your point. this debate over the border wall playing out across capitol hill yesterday, not just that conference committee that is going to be tasked with coming up with the plan on the floor of the house of representatives yesterday. congressman jim jordan from ohio, republican, called on democrats to remember their past statements on walls as they enter this current debate. democrats would support now what they supported then, there never would have been a shutdown.

10 years ago, all kinds of senators supported money for a barrier on the border. senator obama said this. "we simply cannot allow people to pour into the united states undocumented, unchecked. americans are right to demand better border security." "iretary clinton said this, voted numerous times to build a barrier to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in." oh, how times have changed. where are the democrats today? what is the position of the left today? congressman blumenauer -- abolish ice. the speaker of the united states house of representatives said walls are immoral. and the person they selected to give the state of the union response, gubernatorial candidate georgia, said she is ok with noncitizens voting. oh, how times have changed.

all we are asking for is do what you said before, be for what you were for before. let's build border security. let's focus on one simple thing here, one simple thing. let's do what is best for the country. everyone knows a sovereign nation should control its borders. everyone knows a border security wall will help with his caravan phenomenon we have watched over the last several months. democrats were all for it a couple of years ago. there never would have been a shutdown and we would be serving the american people. host: just about 15 minutes left in this segment of "the washington journal." would you support another shutdown over border wall funding? lines for those who would and lines for those who would not are on your screen. from st. louis, missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, rubina.

caller: yes, i support the president and everything he is doing. what i don't understand is, what is it that people do not understand? the reason for building this wall is not just to protect him, it is to protect our country. they allowed every other president to build every other thing they wanted, but the president is only asking for, if i am not mistaken, half of what the other presidents were asking for. it is personal. i want to know what is the real reason that the democrats do not want that wall built. it is personal. it is personal. so -- host: this is link in bridgeport, connecticut. thank: good morning, and you once again for c-span. effectively, i oppose the idea

of another shutdown to force the hand of democrats to fund a border wall. not for the conventional reasons, however. the reason i oppose the shutdown is because we have not yet in goodnation had a really discussion about how voters are being able to dictate and demarcate how things operate in washington with our tax dollars. at this point given the extraordinary amount of hubris and vitriol and hatemongering taking place with both political parties, it is high time to have a discussion about having an implementation of new walls -- of new laws and recommend -- of ,ew laws and regulations referendum votes on things like border security, border wall, fencing, and other amenities to be voted on by every registered eligible voter in the united states. so as the takeaway, the power

and the hubris that is being waged and wielded over our heads by politicians who are feckless ,nd rather morally compromised it would merely place that power back in the hands of the people to demarcate issues on border security. host: how often do you see referendums taking place? caller: i would think that it should take place, at the very least, after every midterm election within two years of a midterm election. and we could have a discussion that would be left up to the people as well as respective politicians who state, "well, we need to have a vote, in this case, on border security." or have a vote on what we demarcate as the beginning of when life begins in terms of abortion, things like that that are incendiary, hot-topic issues, that the american people

can demarcate and it is not just left in the hands of the executive branch or the legislative branch or even the judicial branch. i am discussing a new way of thinking wherein the people can demarcate how we look upon extremely high-potency, high-tension policies that politicians are scared to demarcate or have a valuable opinion on. host: who gets to say what is a hot topic, under your plan? caller: effectively it would be something left up to public criteria, as effectively would be another case, where we could start a special type of -- well this is just an idea i am throwing out there. have a my friends might problem with it on the right. a new government organization where people can contact that organization and state we would

like to have a referendum vote on this issue. and if you have upwards of 35% or 40% of the entire sampling of the entire voting demographic, we want to have a special referendum vote on that issue, then that issue is voted upon within the next referendum voting cycle. host: thanks for sharing your plan. patty is in north branford, connecticut come on that line for those who would support another shutdown for border wall funding. why is that, patty? caller: people watching the news or reading the newspapers, there is a court case going on in manhattan. el chapo. they admitted on the stand they paid off the last mexican president millions of dollars to free in mexicoam doing his business. it is still continuing with his son. i am sure a lot of presidents in

the past got paid off. you see, when they put a new mayor in or a journalist comes out and talks about them, or a sheriff, they are killed immediately. so they are being paid off and we are supposed to sit there and agree with mexico and help them? it is like having afghanistan morals. that is all i have to say. host: that is patty in connecticut on this topic of shutdowns. ae house yesterday voted on resolution that would state that shutdowns are "not an acceptable tactic or strategy for resolving differences regarding policy, funding levels, or government philosophy." it was a resolution proposed by democrats and opposed by most republicans on the floor of the house. house majority leader steny hoyer -- here he is talking about this resolution. [video clip] >> this resolution is simple,

one i believe every member of this house ought to support. unless you support shutting down the united states of america government. strategy to do so over funding, period. this cause 800,000 american workers to be denied their paychecks. $11 billion was the cost. that is the direct cost. it clearution makes that such a use of shutdowns or the threat of shutdowns ought not to be tolerated in our political system. this resolution says that, but i am going to have some other people say that as well. no other country has this phenomenon. i cannot find another country that shuts its government down. in australia, if you shut the government down, the government falls.

so you have to form a new government. there is no reason why americans should have to live under the threat of taken hostage yet again by the next time there is an unresolved debate over an issue, whatever the issue might be. clip]ideo under anwas brought up expedited procedure that required two thirds of the house to agree to it to be passed. here are responses from republican leaders yesterday. the meadows, head of conservative freedom caucus, calling it a political stunt. house minority leader kevin mccarthy saying it is a glorified press release and accusing democrats of using the house process to "settle political scores," reporting in today's "washington post." joe come along long island, new york, would oppose another government shutdown over border

wall funding. why is that? caller: the republicans and democrats -- they fight each other. you want to take the doors and windows off your house, democrats want to cut to the chase, move to latin america. that is what they are trying to do. that is it. host: jason, san diego, california, is next. he would also oppose. go ahead. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, sir. ,aller: i oppose the shutdown and further, the wall. that is some kind of gimmick, a shiny object. what about the anchor babies? people who overstay their visas, and chain migration? once their stay is gone here they use their social security number to get all kinds of benefits. why are we so stuck on a wall?

drugs come through the borders and on ships and stuff like that , and the president cannot keep you safe. he cannot keep you safe. a beneficiary of chain migration because laws for citizens -- they just do not make sense. we need comprehensive immigration, the total package. not just a wall. thank you. host: jeremy is next in wisconsin. good morning. yes, sir., thank you for c-span, sir. i appreciate it. i was surprised that you played steny hoyer's remarks immediately. which makes me less and the legitimacy of the 10th amendment. in eau claire, wisconsin, extremely cold. host: any thoughts on the shutdown and the wall discussion we are having?

while in harrisburg, pennsylvania. go ahead. taking myank you for call. i enjoy your program. this whole business is about trump's wall that he promised over and over again. mexico would pay for it. now he wants the country to participate in a cover-up, which he never really addressed to the american people, and he never asked to have the american people pay for this wall. if he were any kind of a politician, he would have figured that out. so we are arguing over something that he lost, which is the wall. he should not even deserve a wall because mexico is not paying for it. you want to know the real reason? that is it. you want to stop drugs coming into america, do something about the demand.

because as long as they are not talking about the demand and the people who want those drugs, it will never stop because where there is demand, there will be a supply. and they will figure out how to get it to the people who want it. they have been doing this for thousands of years. that is the only way the drugs will stop coming into the country. if you think anything else, you are fooling yourself, which is what trump wants you to do, to deceive yourself and go along with his program. do not pay attention to the fact that his ego put him in front of the american people and bragged about how he was going to get mexico to pay for this. he bragged about it. host: got your point. from trinity, north carolina, our last caller in this segment. why would you support a shut down for border wall funding, sharon? caller: i want the wall built because i think -- i realize it

cannot go anywhere, but where we cannot get a wall, we can use the border patrol. it just makes sense. i think that we should use everything to keep the drugs and bad people out of america. host: when you say everything, sharon, does that include the wall and some of the other things that democrats have talked about? talkst sharon, but we will more about the proposals and the debate back and forth today and over the course of the next two weeks because the deadline for that conference committee to come up with a plan, february 15. that is going to do it for this first segment of "the washington journal" today. up next, we will be joined by centersan policy director shai akabas. later, a roundtable discussion on free college proposals, and effort to make higher education

more affordable. stick around. plenty to talk about today. >> over the last year, the world has seen but we always knew. that no people on earth are so fearless or daring or determined as americans. if there is a mountain, we climate. if there is a frontier, we cross it. if there is a challenge, we tame it. get there is opportunity, we seize it. let's begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our union is strong because our people are strong. [applause] the state of the union, first

postponed because of a shutdown will take place on tuesday night. watch as president trump delivers his state of the new address live from the house chamber the any at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, followed by the democratic response by former georgia given a tour of candidate stacey abrams -- gubernatorial candidate stacey abrams. ors on c-span, c-span.org, listen with the free c-span radio app. >> live super bowl sunday at noon eastern, author dave ziron is on "in-depth." "game over: cap politics has turned the sports world turned -- >> i love sports and that's why we need to fight for sports. we need to reclaim them, take sports back. what we need is to know our

history. that is our greatest ammunition in this fight. we need to know the history of the athletes, the sports writers and the fans who stood up to the machine. differ no other reason than knowing this history, i think it allows us to look at the world and see the struggle can affect every aspect of life in the system. even the ivory tower known as sports. within our conversation, your calls, emails, tweaks and facebook questions -- tweets and facebook questions on c-span2. >> washington journal continues. is from the byas paulison party's eccentric -- bipartisan policy center. we know the congressional budget office has rejected the long-term hit to the gdp at something like $3 billion.

do you agree with that report? the white house does not agree with it. guest: when it comes to the shutdown there are three big areas of impact. the first is a macroeconomic impact, which is what the cbo report focused on and said there were $3 billion longer-term costs to it. at a whole, it is not that large. jerome powell yesterday referenced it and said it was a short-term impact. there will be no long-term impact on economic growth into the future. unless there is a further shutdown of the government. the second category is the actual human cost, which we have been hearing about in news stories for the last several weeks. that whole of government employees and contractors who are not paid to the shutdown. and the contractor category they will never get that pay.

the federal reserve finds 40% of americans can't come up with enough funding to meet a $400 unexpected expense. that gives you a sense of how many people are living paycheck to paycheck. for many of these government employees or contractors this is the real pain. the third category has the least attention, the risks imposed by a long-term shutdown by the one we just went through. like the tsangs warnings were people were flying every day and are less secure because there are fewer agents in the workforce has been diminished because people are not showing up for work when and not getting paid. the fda's food inspections. they could've been a foodborne illness outbreaks and we would not have the people to control it. those of the ramifications that could have transpired. host: on the dollar amount cost

of the shutdown, the white house disagrees with the cbo report that has gotten a lot of attention. this is larry kudlow earlier on monday. [video] >> we frequently disagree with the cbo. they are doing the best job they can, i get that. i don't technology any of that right now. -- acknowledge any of that right now. in a $20 trillion economy it is ofd to make the best guess the small fractions of numbers. let's see how it rolls out. we will get it gdp report in a week. it will take longer for the first quarter. ofhink we have a whole bunch very temporary factors. now that the government has reopened the switch goes right back on. there is no permanent damage to

the economy. with the greatest of respect to my friends at the cbo who often disagree with us and don't agree with our tax cuts, no, i don't really agree. king says he does not expect permanent damage to the economy. expectays he doesn't permanent damage to the economy. guest: people can disagree. certainly there estimates are not perfect but there needs to be a nonpartisan force for all of these numbers. it's important we do continue to look at their estimates for what the best guess is of the economic impact. i don't think mr. kudlow's estimates are that much different from the cbo. the cbo is saying the lasting macroeconomic impact is .02% of gdp growth. which islose to zero, what the economic advisor is

arguing. when it comes to rounding errors like that, the important element is not the macroeconomic impact. it is more of what happened on individual basis all around the country and what could have happened in terms of a disaster if we go through this again. host: he said the bipartisan policy center considered a bipartisan source. what is it? guest: it was founded about 10 years ago by four senate majority leaders. tom daschle, bob dole, howard baker in george mitchell. we do research and education on various policy areas, including economic policy to help inform the public about the important decisions being made. we try to bring policymakers together. our government shutdowns a

sensible solution? just aboutthey are the worst outcome we can have when it comes to the way the government functions. the functioning of the congress and the government is to keep the lights on. if they are not there to do that, they are not performing their duties. with the shutdown did is probably the most -- what the shutdown did was probably the most inefficient thing. host: we're speaking with shai akabas about the cost of the shutdown. you can join in on the phone lines. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. what do you think would be the best mechanism to keep a future shutdown from happening? do you have a recommendation to do that? guest: there are a lot of ways being talked about right now. resolutions,inuing

where the government spending is levels last year's and priorities until a new bill is passed. the issue with them is they are very inefficient. i called him the next worst outcome to a government shutdown. the government is operating but at last year's priority and spending levels, some of which may be too high or too low. but we don't want to do is an up in a situation where we have more continuing resolutions that we have today because we have a lot. congress often does not get their appropriations process done on time. we need to look at ways to this incentivize congress from averting -- dis incentivize congress from going to a shutdown. congress should forfeit their pay for the time

the government's shutdown. they write, "if they cost paid for hundreds of thousands of americans, did stance to reason they should share some of that pain." they note the measure could face of constitutional challenges. your thoughts on doing that? guest: i agree it should not just be the average rank-and-file government worker that feels the impact of this. members of congress certainly should as well. i'm not convinced that would entirely solve the problem. part of the issue with the thedown, as people know, entire government does not shutdown. this was a partial government shutdown. even a full shutdown only shuts down discretionary portions of the government, those funded on an annual basis. even more so there are lots of exceptions made to protect life and property. that thethe functions individual american experiences on a regular basis are kept in place and kept running, even in the midst of a shutdown that is unfunded. things like irs refunds

announced by this administration to continue during the shutdown. when you get more and more activities that are continuing during the shutdown, americans feel it less and less so there is less pressure on policymakers to find a resolution. what a think we need to do is make sure there are functions of the government that do not necessarily protect life and property. if airplanes are not flying, the don't need tsa agents. -- you don't need tsa agents. if they are not flying, they will be a big outcry across the country to have it fixed in short order. but because airline operations went on pretty much standard for several weeks until he got to the very end when laguardia airport was not able to carry out all of its flights on time, that was the impetus for getting it fixed. if we saw more effects like that earlier on that were not necessarily harmful to the long-term economic growth, that would be the pressure point to make them take action in time.

host: i want to talk about other proposals. let's chat with color is first. edward from new jersey, independent. caller: thank you. trillion andump $1 terminator second kill everyone on the border, the gop or trump have any idea about fixing the lead in the water or getting college education to people or anything to make america great other than just populist rhetoric? i have not heard a single plan for the gop or the administration about doing anything more than that. radiate the entire border. what are they going to do for us? host: stick around for the next segment. we will talk about proposals on free college education. you may find that discussion interesting at the bottom of the hour. john from pennsylvania, a democrat.

caller: good morning. host: go ahead, john. caller: i would like to ask your guest what is the least amount that government employees make? guest: that's a good question. i don't know offhand. certainly government employees that make low to moderate wages. in there also definitely sense of this latest shutdown government contractors, people like janitors at government agencies that make something close to minimum wage. i don't know offhand what the lowest wage a government employee makes. host: john, why do you ask? can the employees raise a family of four on $10,000 a year?

because i did it. i own my own house. i have two vehicles. what are these employees doing with their money? host: that is john in pennsylvania. another john from texas, a republican. caller: good morning. how are you folks this morning? thank you for c-span. we are concerned with this segment about the money that was supposedly wasted. i don't think any money was wasted, but i do have a solution. the next time it shuts down, and i don't care if it does shut down. i think we have to have the wall. if they would cut the money when they shut it down from congress and the senate and not pay them, they would get off

their duff and do something. of the shutdown don't pay them anymore. just start their pay over again did -- not like what they with back pay and all that kind of stuff. we have to wake these people up better up there that is supposed to be up there for our benefit. our tax money being spent for illegals is crazy. there is enough money sent to south america, whether it be the mexicans -- they are supposed to be north americans, but south america and mexico. he could take a little chunk out of that and build whatever kind of all he wanted in we would not miss a time, and south america and mexico would be paying for the wall at that point. this could all be over with and hushed up and all that kind of

crap and we could get back to our lives. host: shai akabas, on that last point, we get this question a lot. why not use foreign aid money for a specific project? your thoughts on using that or reappropriated that? guest: foreign aid is a very small portion of the federal government. it is less than 1% of everything we spend. there is certainly more than $5.7 billion, which is what the but ations are over, this point in negotiations that are happening between democrats and republicans are not so much over the dollar amount. it has become a nominal disagreement over whether we build something that is a concrete wall built by mexico or no wall. i think there is a lot of room in between. we have a lot of barriers already on the southern border. i'm not an expert but we have

been shown pictures of border walls or fencing in place. we are talking about whether there will be enhancement to that structure. the dollar amount has already been negotiated in a close -- they are close on it, shutting the government down over a rhetorical disagreement would be silly. host: your expertise is the federal funding process. usa today, one of their aoposals was to move from one-your budget cycle to a two-your budget cycle, thus having fewer moments when a shutdown could occur and giving congress more time to get their work done. what are your thoughts on that and why we work under a one-your budget cycle? -- one-your budget cycle? -- one-year budget cycle? guest: right now the appropriations process takes of the entire year from start to finish. there is very little time where congress can dedicate itself

wholly to overseeing the spending going on. the concerns raised are around two-year appropriations are it is difficult to know what priorities and programs we will need to spend money on close to two years of now. figuring that out without having to do what are called supplemental appropriations on a recurring basis would be challenging. is why wethose two have ended up in a one-year budget cycle. year under the republican house and senate and white house, they were only able to pass five of the 12 annual appropriations bills. they are getting a late start on this year's cycle because we're still dealing with fiscal 2018. -- fiscal 2019. what happens at the end of this fiscal year? guest: i expect it will be another tough debate. we have caps on defense and nondefense discretionary

spending, which means it is done on an annual basis. nondefense is all of the domestic agencies and government. funding for those areas has been an issue for the last decade capsse we have these that is automatically reduced the total amounts in the form of a sequester if congress does not take action to waive those caps. publicans to know what to sequester the defense -- republicans do not want to sequester the defense department. they want to pass legislation to lift those caps. add to the already growing debt. caller: thanks for the show. i hope these federal employees are setting up their money because it appears we will have another shutdown and another deferred pay vacation for them.

they are also probably getting overtime money to make up for the time they lost. the sunshine days are over. is theygoing to happen will soon be asked to give nonpaid work days off because we host: 22,000 -- shai akabas? guest: the federal debt is a huge issue. the congressional budget office put out report earlier this week detailing how serious a problem that is for our country going forward. it lays out legit and economic projections. -- budget and economic projections. the current federal debt is a roughly $60 trillion, which is 78 -- $16 trillion and growing quickly. it is projected to get to over

100% of the size of the economy within the next decade. that is a real problem percent were reasons. it needs additional interest we have to pay on the debt. two is when we accumulate the a debt from our generation or the generations that are currently in the workforce, someone will ultimately have to foot the bill for taxes to pay it off. that means higher taxes on our children. it precludes investments in areas both democrats and republicans agree we need to invest in, for example infrastructure. that is been talked about for many years about the crumbling infrastructure across the country. part of the reason we can't get that done is because we don't have agreement on how to pay for it given the current fiscal situation we have. figuring out how to match all the priorities we have going story the cbohe ifnts about the debt crisis we don't do anything about it is

a real challenge. host: the u.s. debt clock has the current u.s. national debt trillion and counting. at $863ent deficit billion. remind is the difference. guest: i was referencing the debt held by the public. the $21.9 trillion is the total government debt, including the trust fund, the money we owe to ourselves. the annual deficit is the amount that the revenues we take in fall short of the amount of spending we do each year. that is close to $900 billion right now on an annual basis. the debt is the total amount of deficits we have accumulated since the start of our country. that has now added up to close to $22 trillion, which is a staggering number for the

average american to understand. host: tony is a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. please don't cut me off. observer for the fifth infantry. the average federal employee makes between $60,000 and $80,000 a year. let me go on. i went devastating tell you for a wedding. i took the train. i saw the state of the country. take a train. look what is going on. factories are closed. there were no lights on for christmas. steel is resting. -- rusting. you print paper and collect money.

it is fiat money. it is fake. againstighting in yemen guys in the stone age. give them water. host: for his back to the subject we are talking about, the cost of the government shutdown. is that something that worries you? caller: that's impossible. what is going to happen is we will be bankrupt. will be flying chinese flags arrest. host: go ahead and finish your statement. guest: it is impossible. -- thank god they did not raise the rates yesterday. donald trump does some good things, he does some crazy he has done some good stuff for the economy so i can't knock the guy. host: pick up on the rates

increase the federal reserve did not do yesterday and why. guest: my sense of why the fed chose not to raise rates yesterday was because they realized there is a lot of uncertainty in the economy today. whether it is from trade policy, the sense some people get the economic expansion over the last decade might be closer to its endpoint, and they feel like interest rates are roughly at the neutral point, meeting they will not either accelerating economic growth or restraining economic growth. that is generally where you want to be when the economy is humming along at a reasonable pace. they don't see signs inflation is the report were it will -- is at the point where they will be jumping higher. they said it will keep rates at a relatively modest level because the main reason you raise rates is to ward off inflation in the future. host: bob is a republican.

good morning. caller: i just have a couple of questions. honduras whole of took my job and send money home. is there a way we can tax that for border security? has the cbo ever been right? i don't have the answer for anything. thank you. guest: good question. on the first i would expect those workers get taxed on income already through income taxes or payroll taxes. it depends on their employment situation, if they are reporting asnings as americans -- people in america are required to do. en the second question, thi congressional budget office is rarely write to the decimal point. that is because there is a lot of uncertainty in their

projections they make. they are not going to ever hit it right on the mark, but they are considered the best forecaster we have for government spending and taxes we are expected to take in, as well is a good forecaster for economic factors. that does not mean they will predict when the next recession will happen. very few people are able to do that. they do give a very balanced individual sense of where we are headed as a country. the scenario they paint as a baseline, meeting without any expected changes, is almost an optimistic scenario in the sense we are instructed as to how they score all of the programs in the government and the taxes that are taken in and they have to expect congress will not make changes to this programs. it is called a baseline. they also print the alternative fiscal scenario, which i would call it more realistic scenario.

what is likely to happen. manyxample, the tax cuts, are expected to expire in 2025. the alternative scenario, the more realistic scenario shows they will be extended into the future. they face that past examples where he had tax-cut several large, broad-based, borderline expiring back in 2010. it all got extended for two more years. in 2012, they all got extended after that. it is hard to get a temporary but long-lasting and broad-based tax cut set to expire allowing to expire. those of the types of changes they make to try to make a realistic projection of where the budget is going in the future. host: we talked about the february 15 deadline coming up for some sort of deal on border security. looking at another deadline, march 2 is on the debt limit is set to be reinstated. why was it suspended?

restrains debt limit the government from barring further to fund operations. there is a large gap between the spending and the revenue we are doing. we have to borrow on the order of about $900 billion and growing per year. the debt limit was suspended as part of a budget deal a little over a year ago to come back into effect on march 2. the reason they did that was to give or knowledge we have spending that is outpacing revenue, for then he comes back into effect of congress has decided they want to reevaluate that decision. recognizeportant to is the borrowing is the result of spending and taxing decisions that congress and the president have already made. not allowing us to pay the bills is a very effective way to run the government. we owe this money because we borrowed and we will not be able to pay the interest or borrow

more to pay the contractor's or businesses -- contractors who are providing services to the government. it is expected to come back into effect on march 2. some --al "deadline" if were something catastrophic it happened would not be until the summer or the fall. we have more resources on the website that people can go to to find out more about the debt limit. host: bipartisanpolicy.org. caller: good morning. i have a statement i want to make. while everybody is distracted and focused on those handful of people coming across the border to work a lot of minimal labor aboutwhat is being done those you speak to, the illegal immigrants you speak to what the telephone every day? they work for fortune 500 companies, major insurance

companies, credit card companies and all these fortune 500s who have big tax cuts, but you can hardly order a pizza without someone picking up and what trump calls those s-hole countries. host: why do you think they are illegal immigrants when you talk to them on the phone? guest: because they are in another country. they are not a part of this country. they are picking up overseas so they are not a citizen of the united states. host: so companies should not be on the call centers overseas? guest: they are complaining about the ones walking across on foot to come work jobs, but because they are picking up our phones overseas and are not legal immigrants of the united states, i would consider the illegal immigrants who happen to work for fortune 500 companies. guest: well, there are call

centers these companies have or the employee people overseas to serve some of the functions of their businesses. that's only comes from the fact that labor costs are often cheaper than they are here in the united states. there are policies we can try to put in place in terms of taxes that try to make our economy but it istitive, difficult when you are looking at other countries that just over a month much lower costs -- just overall have much lower costs of living and wages. positionscertain where they need to be filled for it is almost impossible to make u.s. workers competitive with those workers overseas. you have to pay them significantly below minimum wage in the united states. host: cecil in florida, a republican. caller: good morning. about the wall, i think we should have a wall.

i think we need the wall. brent got -- tom elected on that. i thinks democrats, there are a few that would go along with the wall, within you have pelosi with defense all the way around her house -- with the fence all the way around her house and she will not give a five dollar bill to the wall. us.ything costs the illegal immigrants get mad because they separated the babies. they get hospitalization and food and if you took one half of that money and spent it on the wall, you would have that wall and then some and you would have less expenses on them -- on the immigrants being here on food and housing and every thing else and they are not even citizens. the reason democrats want that is because they can get the vote.

pelosi is mad because trump got in and she will not give in or nothing. quite as she have a wall around her house? -- why does she have a wall around her house? host: what are immigrants getting in terms of benefits? guest: that is not my primary area of expertise. that are some -- there are some programs available to people who are not here legally. many government programs eligible to americans they are not eligible for. in terms of spending distracting us from the bigger picture, which is we have a rapidly increasing federal debt. the interest we pay on that debt is going to exceed the spending on the medicaid program for all americans across the country in several years. then the entire spending we do on the defense department by 2025. that is pretty astounding.

interest toaying overseas countries, more than we are spending on the department of defense secretary american people. we need to figure out how to address those problems like entitlement reform, reforming the major health care programs. that does not mean they need to go away or be overhauled. there need to be changes to account for the fact we are spending more on them than taking in. we just had a major tax cut a year and a half ago that brought down the federal revenues we are expecting for the government. we were already insufficiently collecting revenues to keep up with spending. we need to move in the opposite direction. these of a broader picture fiscal issues that policymakers need to be focusing on. when we are talking about $5.7 billion in how people spend that occupying months of congress's time, we are not dealing with the broader issues that could be dangerous for the country in the

coming years. host: shai akabas from the bipartisan policy center, always appreciate your time. guest: thanks her having me on. host: up next, a roundtable discussion on free college proposals and making higher education more affordable. we will be joined by the american enterprise institute cozy jason delisle -- institute cozy jason delisle -- institute's jason delisle, and mark huelsman. stick around. ♪ >> this c-span bus recently traveled to tennessee, asking folks what does it mean to be american? is athink what it means chance to be a unique individual, have your own opinion, year on person and be -- be your own person

and be somebody the world is never seen before. sometimes it doesn't always work out that way. being the unique american is a chance of being somebody different and a chance to change the world. >> to me what it means to be american has not always had the most positive connotation. -- history ofery oppression towards minorities. in this day and age i feel as though being an american can be bringing about change and acknowledging we can be better than we have been in the past. i what it means to me is, guess it was instilled in me when i was a boy scout. working my way through the right to become an eagle scout. to top values of the scouting program about god and country, which i'm still very patriotic today.

now being elected official for the last 30 some years, the right to vote, the freedoms of speech, the things this country enjoys compared to other countries around the globe, those freedoms i don't take lightly. being an american makes it worthwhile. american, toing an me, america is the greatest country on earth for its time and place in history. it means to be part of that greatness. i also believe great countries come and go. -- witheatness comes greatness comes as possibility to maintain that greatness. you have to help others also achieve greatness. it doesn't mean the have to lose your greatness. it means you will be pushed up by you helping others.

if we don't understand that principle, we will be just like other countries that are finding their own places in history. >> it means embracing the ideas set forth by thomas jefferson and the declaration of independence. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and working for towards a government -- working towards a government that helps fulfills those ideals. >> the five freedoms the first amendment, speech, right, petition, pray, symbol, those are only in existence in america which makes us the most free nation in the world. it is not a coincidence the most powerful nation, most creative nation in history is the united states of america. >> voices on the road on c-span. washington journal continues. host: free college is back in the policy discussion because of

proposals put forth by 2020 president of candidates. harris --kamala harris on sunday. [video] >> i am running to declare education is a fundamental right. [cheers] >> we will guarantee that red with universal free pay and debt-free college. [cheers] host: for our deep dive on this topic we are joined by jason delisle and mark huelsman. mark huelsman, explained the different meanings when it comes to free college. there is debt college, tuition free college. guest: they mean different things. the main distinction i make his tuition-free college is somewhat self-explanatory. there are different ways you can design it. tuition-free basically says by

some mechanism you will not pay a two ort four-year school. ree take into account that is a rising cost of college but it is not the only cost. tuition,ke on debt for fees, living expenses, childcare. all the things he needed pay for in school. cover,ee means we will for the government, state, federal or maybe an institution will cover most of the costs of education beyond tuition. that is the general distinction. host: there has been discussion about a federal proposal. as a discussion is happening some 20 states have their own free college programs. how do most of the states operate? is it the debt-free model,

tuition-free? guest: they are doing tuition-free and it is mostly community college. it is not a public four-year university. it is tuition-free. we will get into some of the terminology here that the wonks in d.c. are using like "last dollar," meeting you take all your student aid from various sources, applied to tuition. anything left the state or locality will make that up and set your tuition at zero. states are laboratories of democracy. what have you found benefits the most from these various free college plans? guest: mainly because they are talking to community college is right now. -- colleges right now. we have a pretty generous system of student aid in this country

already. it is a little opaque. know how much you have to pay. but we have pell grant's, state grants, scholarships, money from the colleges themselves that they taken through discounts. theyower income students, are already paying pretty close to zero in terms of tuition. it is not a big change for them. it is for the more middle class and upper middle-class students that are not getting this need-based student aid that will see the biggest change. host: what would be your concerns about how the benefits are distributed? for thehe problems national system is we have to have a one-size-fits-all. generally these things with your matching plan. they would constrain public universities and states and the policies they enact, how much they can increase pay and funding.

and ipretty complicated actually think there are other concerns in terms of, ironically, tuition increases access for higher education. it allows university to raise revenue and find a good educational programs. this would constrain them. all of that revenue would come from the government. , yourmark huelsman thoughts? guest: jason is right is the wave -- in the way we do financial aid is incredibly opaque. anyone trying to put their kids through college or themselves through college understands the complexity of a financial aid system. you have to decide you want to attend college. you have to vaguely know the aid is out there, whether it is the pell grant or state grant programs. you have to apply and hope you can cobble together enough aid once you have decided it is that a sufficient level.

that has not generally work in terms of making it so people understand what they are paying for for college and understand or obligations in terms of debt. it has been money in terms of muddy inompletion -- terms of college completion. even the last dollar program, the programs that require you to fill up the financial aid form, they may be called together some other a you will get -- some thoseaid you will get, programs have increased financial aid application among low income students. tennessee was one of the first states that recently one of the states under a republican governor. they had a limited program for financial benefit for low income students, but they saw a pretty major uptick in financial aid

applications for the students. they have seen more interest in community colleges, and more adult students enrolled. the galvanizing force of free, depending on how generous it is monetarily, should not be underestimated. host: phone lines are a little different this morning. if you are a college student or parent of a college student, give us a call at (202) 748-8000 . all others can join the conversation at (202) 748-8001. having this discussion until about 9:30 this morning. plenty of time to listen in and called. the other discussion is rising cost of education. your colleagues on college tuition as a change in price over the course of 20 years. this chart showing various goods and services and wages and how they changed over 20 years from

1997 to 2017. 200%on has gone up nearly since 1997. free college would lower the cost for individuals, but doesn't do anything to rein in the rising cost of college tuition? does it do anything to rein in the rising cost of college tuition? guest: colleges would not be able to raise revenue through tuition. i can't stress enough how raising revenue situations is not necessarily a bad thing. if you target it right. the chart we just put up, this is showing the sticker price college and not segregated by income. we have a lot of student a targeted at income. lower income people are paying low tuitions. it has not increased as much as it has rehired income families. the university is using revenue

to price discriminate. they are charging higher income families more. that is were most of the anxiety is coming from. the high income families are seeing big tuition increases than the one making the most noise. guest: the middle-class is generally making noise because it is a genuine concern for families around the kitchen table. i take issue with affect low-income students are not necessarily getting a good deal. we know that people who received pell grants, upwards of 5000 to 6000 -- $5,000 to $6,000 from the government or more likely to borrow. they have a lower net tuition at the end of the day but there are other costs they are facing in school. 25% of all college students have children. that is a double whammy of financial burden that will increase the fact -- that will increase your borrowing.

a lot of students are definitely feeling a squeeze. the pell grant covered three quarters of the cost of college at a public institution. now covers less than one third. it's because we have made -- we have not made the commitment to low income students that we had in the past. host: our guests study higher education issues at the research institute in washington, d.c. jason delisle with the american enterprise institute, and mark huelsman. we are taking your calls this hour. dj from hampton, virginia. we talk about higher education and free college. caller: good morning. first of all i have put five children through college. they work and i worked. we did not take pell grants or anything else. if you want education, you can get one but you have to work for it and therefore the will left

have huge bills when you graduate. plus, kids today are not going in for anything we really need for the country. we need engineers. we need accountants. they are going in for the arts, which is an easy way to get through college. you are not going to get a job. what is the purpose of going? i think it is a waste. i really believe in free education for a trade schools because we need plumbers, electricians, air-conditioning people. those are more important than a college education. when i worked i had people come into our business with a at a dry college cleaners because they can i get a job anywhere after they got their degree. what a waste. this concern over

do these degrees lead to good jobs and what are people earning, that is out there more than it has been in a long time. i think what you are seeing now in response to that in the particularlynment, from federal policymakers and the state level, is getting information out there on what graduates go on to earn in specific programs. you might prevent some people making choices that don't lead to good returns on their investment. a lot of those anxieties are certainly feeling those. guest: i would say congratulations on putting five kids through school. one, at the end it was mentioned all kinds ofs and mechanical jobs that cannot be outsourced. the potential beautiful pieces of free

community college if done right. we could have anyone who wants to get a two-year degree or a trade, work in a trade or retool the labor force, they could go to a community college, no questions asked. sort of how we make everyone go through high school. that is the potential of free community college. people have this vision of a college student, the 18-year-old on campus majoring in art history or something like that, but the vast majority of students are adult students returning to work. they have kids of their own. they are people trying to get by in the economy with some training and some skills. i will defend the art history degree, for the level arts education -- liberal arts education. i don't think we should necessarily be picking majors we subsidize versus others. even if you look at broader economic statistics, history majors have the same

unemployment rate as math majors or political science majors. everything right talking about the value of various majors at various times, but howard schultz who is been in the news recently has a liberal arts degree. there are plenty of ceos with liberal arts degrees. host: her parents and students,rents and (202) 748-8000. all others, (202) 748-8001. caller: good morning. i could not disagree with that first color. students have a college degree. collegeserative that set the tone for how you manage your life and responsibility. when you compare how the u.s. students compared to students in china and other countries, we fall significantly behind. i have two kids that went through college.

the price is astronomical. what gets me is although the institution has not changed, the courses have not changed, the food and the housing have not changed. i don't understand why the price of college went up 200%. i was appalled at the amount of i was paying in books. street not bet is regulated -- why can this industry not be regulated? i don't understand what a semester in college has a cost to the cost of a car now. host: thanks for the call. we want to show that chart one more time from the american enterprise institute. the cost of college textbooks over the past 20 years has risen higher than the cost of tuition increased by nearly 200%.

issues she other , not rising at the same rate and other things like cell phones and toys falling over 20 years. guest: the caller mentioned she was pushing back against this idea of steering students to one type of degree or another with government policy. i think the sentiment is right. we don't want to go down that road. there is a real risk with the anxiety around college costs to say we should a government loans or grants for certain degrees. the great thing about our system is it has lots of choice and lots of different options. i don't think we want to go down the road of putting the umb on the's th

scale about where to go in what the study. caller: good morning. i'm not sure if you have made this observation. number one, the only thing that is gone up more than college education is health care. if you think about government-subsidized health care along with government-subsidized college education, we have to think what is that happening. why are these things out of sight? the second comment is nobody has made the observation that all -- i live in the south. college athletics is huge down here. a $10 billion contract for football nationally. why are we generating $10 billion when at the same time colleges and universities want more money. for the same reason people in business want more money, because they want more money.

somebody needs to say something about that. guest: i would say i think a couple of things to that. in terms of the costs of education going up tremendously, particularly at state colleges -- we have 50 different state systems. there is a lot of choice in the system. there are a lot of different reasons why different colleges are raising prices. if you take community colleges or a regional four-year, nonreflective institutions, those schools get less money from state support that other colleges. that support has been declining on a per student level over time. colleges can do a few things. they can raise tuition. they can cut services, may be moved to adjunct faculty or maintain or deferred maintenance. or they can attract wealthy, out-of-state students, attract international students, try to get revenue some other way.

it is true state colleges and universities have been seeing less revenue per state overtime -- her student over time -- per student over time. it is imperative for the federal government to match that. we have not necessarily been doing that. on the health care cost question, that is one potential reason costs are going up. medical costs are going up. higher education is a labor-intensive industry. we teachers, we need i.t., many facilities. it tends to be an expensive thing on its own. some states and schools are trying to do things like have free textbooks or open educational resources, but it is an issue. host: coming up on 9:00 on the east coast. our discussion is on free college and the rising costs of college. you can join the discussion this morning. next week we will have the state of the union address.

we want to go back to the state of the net address from 2015. here is then president barack obama talking about his free college plan. [video] president obama: by the end of this decade two or three job openings -- in three job openings will require higher education. but too many americans are price set of the education they need. is not fair to them. it is sure not smart for our future. what i'm sending this congress a gold the plan to lower the cost of community college. 20. that -- to zero. [applause] president obama: keep in mind 40% of college students choose community college. some are young and starting out. some are older and looking for a better job. some are veterans.

single parents trying to transition back into the job market. whoever you are, this plan is your chance to graduate ready for the new chance to graduate y for the new economy without debt. understand, you have to earn it. you have to keep your grades up. graduate on time. tennessee, a state with republican leadership, and chicago, a city with democratic are showing that free community college is possible. i want to spread that idea across america. when two years of college becomes as free and universal in america as high school is today. what to do -- host: what did you think of that plant when it was announced? guest: a number of reactions. there are a bunch of strings attached. if states want to take this

federal money and matching grants, they will have to abide by all sorts of rules congress will set. i am not sure we want to centralize our higher education system at the federal level. president obama mentioned you would leave school without debt. that does not make sense in this case could he is talking about tuition. they are talking about tuition and not living expenses. almost all of the debt people incur from community college is from borrowing for living expenses. i would not say borrowing to pursue a degree is bad. orple will hear debt-free free college and they will be disappointed when they find out that is not the case. plan,on the president's how close is it what we know is being announced by some of these democratic 2020 presidential candidates. guest: the first thing about

president obama's line is it is a notion that people generally agree with, that when we invest in our people and our workforce and our training system we get a lot back. it is any knowledge meant of that. peoplebs and most believe they will have to get some form of post year education to get the lowest rungs of the middle class and get to the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. i think jason is right that the programsunity college as designed, president obama's was more generous. thats called first dollar allows people to use aid for living expenses. that is what is happening -- that is more generous than a few other places. that is what the federal government can do. we have seen states experiment with great results. the federal government can kick

in a little bit of extra money and allow you not have to borrow to fulfill the promise of debt-free. host: back your calls. william from virginia, a parent. good morning. caller: i heard one of your the reason whyng the cost of higher education went up is to improve education. perhaps that is where the money is going. i disagree. ago i have a college degree, i've an undergraduate degree and two masters and a phd and by the time i finished all of my education, i came up with zero debt. i am not advocating tuition free but at least debt-free make sense. isthe bottom of the analysis

that why the universities need a , comfortablenion dormitory, first-class dormitory , i think that it was where the money is going and most have multiple channels to get the revenue such as endowment, investment, i can thereand on telling you is no one source for them which is only tuition. i disagree that education should be that expensive. i am ready to send my daughter .o a professional school my estimate is it will cost more than half $1 million to get her through professional school. that is insane to be that

expensive. host: thanks for that and good luck to you and your daughter. guest: i would love to comment on this. of the dorms being luxurious and fancy and student unions and what looks like spending at universities, people complain about this but they also want it. -- there ist evidence people seek out colleges and universities that are more expensive and they want these kind of amenities and they are paying for them. bit to the last point, the caller was talking about a family member going to professional school, law or medical school. it will cost half $1 million. why? they think it is worth it. the jobs will pay a lot of money. that is part of the issue. there is a lot of demand and

people are willing to pay it. host: a question from twitter from mark stone who wrote how would free college work? could any student choose harvard or stanford. have any details come out by the democratic politicians about how it would work? guest: a great question. most free college plans would be available for students who want to attend an in-state public institution. as jason mentioned a lot of that was at community college which is where the state free college programs kicked in. most of the federal proposals would allow anyone to take classes at an in-state four-year institution. we are not talking about allowing free college at harvard or year or princeton. there is a lot of choice in our system. of an are desirous out-of-state school or a private institution, nothing about free college prevents you from wanting to send your kid there.

what it does say is there is a true public option in your state similar to k-12. there is a public local high school you can go to and most people choose those goals. 40% of students are at community colleges. there a notion there's a lot of choice. there is some choice. most people are at regional schools. host: are we far enough down the road that their stipulations about what happens after you graduate? for new york excels your scholarship you have to stay in new york and worked in new york for an amount of time to not have to repay that. guest: that is one of those things that somewhat a good idea and when the rubber hits the road it is a lot less attractive. estate may want to say we want to keep our workforce, you go to school here, you work your. -- you work here. or your grant will turn into a student loan. it becomes a bait and switch for students you might have to leave the state, they might have to take care of family.

that is something i would not recommend states put on their free college plans but there are plenty of other bells and whistles. host: thoughts on the work requirements? guest: the federal government is showing us a wonderful case study on why you do not want to have a grant that converts to a loan. it is called the teach grant. it has been an administrative disaster where the recipient do not know they need to fill out the paperwork or they do not do it in time or they were not sure about all the fine print and suddenly what was free turns into a big loan. they are matt. they are -- they are mad. they are surprised. i think you will see the same thing with the new york excels your plan. host: dolores from texas. caller: originally i lived in michigan and we moved to my husband's job in 2015 after i graduated.

we lived intexas, elkins, we went to acc, austin community college, and that was fine because we could break it up and the three payments together. -- to go there. we had to move. acc became out of district instead of in district. we waited a year to go to elgin from michigan because it was $1200 just for credit course. i have two autistic kids, i'm a displaced veteran wife and i was going to classes with my son. when i was going to elgin i could pay the three payments. here because they did not pass their bill, it is back to the $1200 course class and i cannot afford that. i do not have a problem with paying for a three payment, but because of the fact that now we are back to the $1200, i cannot do that with autistic kids.

neither one drives. we have a 30 year mortgage on our house. a one income family. it makes it rough to help my sons get to their potential when we cannot afford to send them to college. host: thanks for sharing your story. guest: i think that story is indicative of a lot of people. you did not do anything wrong. you did everything right. you did everything we told you to do. you wanted to send your kids to college, you wanted to better yourself as you said. the fact that we have made a very complicated price structure of a public college, a community college in this case has made it so you have delayed going to school and made it so people drop out of college and people who dropout with debt tend to be in dire straits. that is what i think the point of free college is. it makes it so at whatever point

you are in your life, at whatever point you are in terms of your need to build skills or build up your talent, there is going to be something for you. there is going to be something that is no cost and transferable. all kinds of things we need to undergird that with. i think that is the potential. host: jason, you are jotting notes down? guest: i was struck by what the caller mentioned that things seem inflexible for her. she does not have the options she wants. those things will get worse under a free college system, under free community college .ystem because it is expensive governments are coming up with lots of fine print to fit this into a budget line. students are going to get caught off guard. what we have done, at least in the federal program is vouchers, grants that you can use for any

kind of education option you want. it might be online or after work , very flexible and you can take it to a private institution. free college options will suck up all the money and channel it right to the public option that will not give you those choices. host: illinois is next. jerry, good morning. caller: good morning and thanks to c-span. my background was at career services for 35 years at various schools from trinity college to resource universities. tofrom community college research universities. i'm in the chicago market and mayor emanuel is pushing the idea of data 14 rather than kate at 12. -- rather than k-12 -- k through 14 rather than k-12. i think he is right saying more people need to have the extra years, what you call community college, but integrated. how does that play out in terms

of federal thoughts on this if you guys know anything about that. stem. two is regarding i was an engineer in another lifetime. the idea of graduate engineering ,rograms, if you look at them more than half of the graduates are not u.s. citizens or permanent residents. these graduate engineering programs would struggle for students. is there any push to get some for american or u.s. students into graduate engineering programs. thanks for a much. host: thanks for the question. frame i think that k-14 is right. it is meeting families where they know they are. they want more education for their kids regardless of race, class, political persuasion. what can happen in a federal free college system, it is not usurp what chicago is trying to do with their system.

it does not change what different districts are offering. and it says is states institutions can experiment with the types of programs they offer , with the majors they are offering, how they are running their business. what it says is we will come in with more funding. you have to maintain your funding do have, but we will come in with a little bit more to make it so the cost to students is zero. that means we're not just throwing money at the system. we are throwing it at the system and painting it to a specific price point which shows that get students excited. host: jason, do you want to pick up on non-us citizens? guest: this gets back to raising revenue. if you imagine a system where universities are constrained and they cannot generate revenue by charging tuition, even to people who can pay, they will go looking elsewhere for that revenue. these kinds of trends like recruiting out-of-state students

or foreign students, i think they will get worse if we tie universities down and where they get their revenue. host: about 15 or 20 minutes left in our discussion. continue to call in. staten island, good morning. caller: college is a scam for your money. i jumped out of college -- i dropped out of college. mechanic -- a bus driver new york city -- a bus driver makes $50,000 year plus benefits. thank you. mark on what i think is being called career and technical education, used to be called trade school. guest: that caller was tapping into anxiety about whether college is worth it at this

point or whether a four year degree is worth it. that comes from the fact that it is costing a ton and costing families a lot of anxiety and sleepless nights about their finances. i would say that generally speaking, the typical student who goes to college does better than if they did not. we have seen, while wages have not increased for most of the population, they of bottomed out for those without any college education. we should be promoting people to get a degree, more education. they tend to do better. .here are many ways to do that the anxiety about that is being caused by the fact we have let prices go up and up at what are supposed to be even public institutions. host: joseph in florida. good morning. graduated from high school in new york city in 1961. i was able to be admitted into

queens college, part of the city university of new york, based on my high school gpa, my sat scores, and at that time the system was absolutely free. one year in front of me was a young man named colin powell. i bring that out there to give you an example of the millions of people who were given an opportunity cap a higher education, contribute to our society. researchbill has been -- there is been research done that that was one of the most successful legislations in our history. why? it gave millions of people opportunity to get an education, become professional, and pay back to society not only with their service but through taxes. look at europe. how the germans do it. we have to do something.

this is a disgrace what is going on now. burdening young people with tremendous debt. they cannot get into society, not by homes. have to do something about it. host: thanks for the call. jason? guest: the caller brings up europe. often we hear international comparisons saying everywhere else does it better. actually, when you take a hard look at what other countries are to script onend things we think are important in our system. they may have free or lower tuition, but they are fewer choices. they are also more selective. in germany, you might have to have much higher grades or being much better student to get that restricted slot at the university that is free. that is something most americans bristle at. we like higher education to be open. it is a second chance. that is not what they do in other countries.

host: owings mills maryland is next. philip, a parent. caller: thank you for taking my call. please be patient with me. i have issues with subsidized and unsubsidized loans. .e have four children now i am paying over $900 a and i haveudent loan one that is in the university who said i have to take more parent loan. i have said no. i cannot declare bankruptcy. they said that if i apply for another loan they will add it to my burden. this is a loan you cannot transfer to your children. even when they grow up. now i am maxed out on that.

they say you have to take care of loan or your child cannot be registered. that is an issue. host: let's take up that issue. mark? guest: the problem with student debt is often couched in a way that we think of people carrying their own debt. increasingly we see a lot of parents taking on what the caller was mentioning, parent plus loans. that is a type of debt, due to the rising cost of college, that parents have a smaller time window to pay it back. they cannot transfer to their kids, although in some cases there is anecdotal evidence that parents take out a parent plus loan but the kid is still on the hook for paying off the loan. are those loans than loans students would take out? guest: they are generally less generous than subsidized loans. guest: this program is a real problem. it is a federal student loans

may not to the student but to the parent. there is no income check. there is no ability to repay on eligibility and parents can borrow virtually unlimited amounts. colleges and universities are -- it does not matter what we charge, take out one of these loans. parents do not have the ability to pay because we're not screening for that. this problem the caller is talking about is out there and it is getting bad. host: about 15 minutes left in the segment. i want to dig in more with what is happening on the state level. one of the governors of the state from rhode island, earlier this month in her state of the state talked about expanding the state's efforts when it comes to free college. here is what she had to say. [video clip] two years ago we took a historic step as a state.

we make community college tuition free for every high school student. [applause] , the percentage of students on track to graduate .rom ccri has quadrupled enrollment has doubled. i cannot go a week without somebody stopping me and saying the scholarship has changed their life, or change the life of their son or daughter. tuition free community college

is one of the lowest cost, highest impact investments that the state of rhode island has ever made. [applause] >> this year, i propose we expand what is working. i propose we expand the promise to rhode island college to cover the last two years of a four your degree at rhode island college. delisle, as we mentioned for, states with various free college plans. how many are taking steps like rhode island to expand the programs? is that the trend? fairly new are all and concentrated around community college. new york is the only one, i believe, that is actually offering two bachelors degrees. that is the fine print for

students is pretty lengthy. , theyave to be full-time have to pay it back if they leave. these are some of the issues. ,he other is the university there are big administrative hurdles. i should point out that in rhode island, the governor's how this is a low cost policy. i should point out that the reason why it is low-cost is there is already so much aid in the system bringing tuition down to a low level. to get it to zero does not cost the state that much. guest: i think whether it is rhode island or tennessee, it did not cost very much because there was a pell grant available to extend it to be tuition free for low income, middle-class students. the governor mentioned steps out of rhode island.

spike in college rates and they are expanding it. it used to be just if you are high school student who wanted to go right out of high school, the traditional college student. that was who was eligible for tennessee free college. they have expanded into adults, which i think is superpowerful because adult students are the ones engaging with a second chance of going back to school and the ability to retrain for a job. host: time for a fewer calls. john is in detroit. good morning. caller: part of the problem with all of the student debt is they are giving loans for degrees weather is no need. if they would quit giving -- where there is no need. if they would quit giving -- if they would quit giving loans to people getting degrees who are useless, and start giving loans on the ability of the person to repay the loan with the degree

they get, they would have much less student debt. host: what is a useless degree? caller: how many people need a degree in women's studies? you have a college that is paying professors like elizabeth warren when she was teaching one class, $300,000 a year to teach one class. why are they having those degrees at all? if a person wants to get that degree, that is fine. they should not be able to get a loan for it if they are not going to be able to repay that loan. host: jason delisle on useless degrees. guest: we have policies in place that say if too many students cannot pay their federal loans or do not pay their federal loans back after they leave school, the school becomes ineligible for the loan. there is interest in strengthening those kinds of rules and actually bring in

earnings, to start looking at what students go on to earn and decide whether or not those institutions should continue to get federal student aid money. ishink one of the trade-offs someone has to decide, some government or policymaker has to decide what is a good degree and what is worth it and what is not in that gets messy. host: manchester, maryland. good morning. caller: i wanted to comment on my experience. got married at a very young age. my wife and i put myself through school. it was not easy. i was working full time, going to community college and talk completed their programs and ended up graduating from towson university and went on to get an mba at mount st. mary's university. you can do it, you can get theugh life without debt at

end, which was very nice. it took a longer time because some semesters we had no money and i could not go at all. i think the delay was worth it. i do have one question. is her any correlation between the influx of government money through financial aid and the rising cost charged by colleges and universities? point, i the first think people are making their way through and sometimes dropping out along the way, that is a real problem for a lot of people. this caller made it through. we know a lot of people who do not finish community college or another degree program are often coming out with debt and no degree. those are the people for whom student debt is a crisis. people are much more likely to default on their loans and so forth. i will say on the point about whether federal aid is driving up tuition prices, i think

there's a mountain of research on this. where thatbelief is is happening happens to be at for-profit colleges and universities which are offering up theh are hoovering prices. host: just a few minutes left. jason delisle. the college promise campaign. what is that? guest: my understanding of this is this is free college. these are the free college policies. this will be that community college will be free and you will not have to take on student debt. host: some of the programs in there are funded by donors and philanthropy. it is not just on the state level. guest: that is right. the first modern free college

program was in kalamazoo, michigan, and it said anyone going to kalamazoo public schools would be able to go to college for free. that program was generously funded and it actually had a radical impact on the k-12 system in kalamazoo after years of decline, people leaving the school system. it saw spikes in enrollment and graduation rates. all of these knock on effects that are pretty -- that a free college program gravitated around. host: a map around the united states of the various different free college programs. time for one or two more calls. zach in harrisburg, pennsylvania. a parent. thank you for taking -- caller: thank you for taking my call. awesome conversation. i have three girls who graduated from college and one son.

as a pta president, i try to teach my parents -- in pennsylvania we have 529 savings plans, which help you save for your kids college. if you start early enough, you can accumulate a lot of money. for me, i think the college debate is over culture. with a more educated populace, we can move on in other areas that seem to stagnate because of the education of the populace, like climate control and climate change and those other areas. if we moved to a culture of educated, and educated populace than the college tuition and college attendance will be a nonstarter. , likeld already be a norm the 14 year thing in chicago. thank you for taking my call. will hear from gloria

in upper marlboro maryland. a student. caller: good morning, thanks to c-span. god bless you for this conversation. you're going to find this an odd question. i have a question because i'm a ordainedyear-old fully pastor and social justice advocate and i want to return to school. because the society is not a be not adaant, -- is compliant my problem is investigating where i can go to do that to continue to make a difference while i've been raising 22 children and was able to rescue hundreds of children from foster care forever through an adoption program that i built . this was during my time out of

.ollege i made the decision to marry instead of getting an advanced degree. with all that is going on, and all that is happened to me to trample on my personal civil rights, people with disabilities have no advocates. i want to go back to school to become that advocate. i chose my team well. i want to sit down and decide how to not only solve my problems but make a difference for others. host: gloria, an 81-year-old student. guest: bless you. i love that story. whenever i hear stories like that who is as me college student today is not necessarily who we think of when we think of a college didn't.

it is not necessarily the 18-year-old graduating high school. there are plenty of them. we have the most diverse generation of students in american history. there are more students of color knocking at the doors of college. there are more older people wanting to retrain for anything, whether it is to be an advocate or a welder. of debt-freety college is is talking about when we make those investments in people, when we remove the financial barrier. people cite the financial barrier as the number one reason they are not going, we can do magical things. gloria, i hope you live to be 100 years old. that means you're doing social justice work for 16 or 17 years when you get out of school. host: jason delisle, the final minute. guest: i will go back to the issue of wanting to have a system that has lots of choice and lots of options for gloria.

the local community college may not be right for her. maybe she wants to go to private school. maybe she wants to go for-profit school. before we go down this road far of putting all of our eggs in one basket of free community college, we consider putting the money and more things. host: jason delisle is an american fellow at the american enterprise institute. is a policyn director at demos. thanks for the conversation. up next, until our program ends at 10:00 we are taking your calls as we discussed today in washington. phone line on your screens. start calling in. democrats, republicans, and independence. we'll be right back. ♪

>> sunday on "q&a" the case that brought down vice president spiro agnew in 1973 with prosecuting attorneys rob lehman and tim baker. >> we believed we could indict the vice president and that he was not immune from prosecution while in office. his lawyers, among the defensive positions they took was that he cannot be prosecuted. jail did not want to get a and he has this get out of jail free card. what was that? this is watergate. richard nixon was a walking dead man, politically speaking. it was only a matter of time, most everybody understood, before he would be forced out of office. that would make spirit i knew, -- that would make spiro agnew president.

can you imagine how the country would react? president nixon, a crook, leaves office, vice president agnew, a crook, becomes president. >> this weekend, the c-span cities tour takes you to buy celia, california. , one, two,he largest or three in the nation for agricultural. we are the largest county in the nation for dairy products. as a result of that we have a lot of industry here that is based on agricultural needs. noonturday, on book tv, at eastern, a visit with local sharesterry omens as he

stories of notable western criminals. >> the county was remote, it had the mountains next door, which made great hideouts for people on the run. in the swamps east of visilia were great hideouts for people on the run. if you're going to practice criminal activity, you want to do that without getting caught. county, it made it convenient for outlaws to hideout. >> on sunday at 2:00 on american history tv, we will explore the city and history of the region's agriculture and its impact today. watch c-span cities tour of california on c-span twos book tv and sunday on american history tv on c-span3.

working with our cable affiliates as we explore the american story. "washington journal" continues. host: a busy journal and washington, d.c. now is your time to call in and let us know what you want to talk about. ,emocrats, (202) 748-8000 republicans, (202) 748-8001 independents, (202) 748-8002. the house in for a brief session at noon. the senate will convene at 10:00. both expected in the senate at 3:30. here are some other issues we are covering on the c-span ,etwork today in washington including current and former law enforcement and drug enforcement agency officials discussing ongoing efforts to combat counterfeit drug and fentanyl trade operation. that is happening right now on

c-span3. you can also watch it on c-span.org and listen to it on the free c-span radio app. today at 10:45, nancy pelosi will be holding her weekly press conference with cash with reporters. we will be covering that -- with reporters. a forum on u.s. policy in the middle east. our coverage of that beginning at 12:30 eastern on c-span. one more. our preview of the trump administration 2020 defense budget happening at the center for strategic and international studies today at 1:30. we'll be covering that on c-span3, c-span.org and you can listen to that on c-span radio. some of the headlines today in washington, including the fallout over the fed yesterday signaling it would place a hold on its benchmark rate increases.

the central bank saying the case for rate rises has weakened and the dow jumping some 435 points .fter that announcement this from the washington times. president trump slamming his own intelligence officials as passive and naive after they contradicted him earlier this week in testimony before the senate. one more from the front page of the new york times. that discussion we had this morning about the conference committee that is meeting to have out that agreement on border security ahead of that february 15 deadline for government funding. if they do not have an agreement the president can sign, the government would shut down. the headline this morning is democrats pack much into their first offer, but not what president trump once. that is the wall. the president making clear on twitter he wanted those

discussions to include funding for the wall. what you want to talk about today in washington? jim is up first in illinois. an independent. good morning. i was calling in for your last segment about four years of college paid for. they always mention chicago. that is a good indication of how well it works. we owe them $86 million for the teachers. to me it seems like it is not working. thank you. host: how we make it work better? caller: truthfully i would have to say what they had in the budgets. right now what is causing it is their pension. to me i would say go to a 401(k) to eliminate part of the problem with retirement. i do not know without seeing the rest of the problem. texas.addie in abilene, a republican. good morning.

caller: good morning. how are you? , as a republican, and an american, i need to tell you that we who live close to the , we have known what it is home. like, and close to i am from texas and i've been here all my life. area, from the west texas down by dell rio. , they are asking congressman to come to the border, not to come to the border entrance, but to come to

their ranches and see all the damage illegals have done. do not go to the most famous border entry at california, do not go down here to the rio grande entry, they do an awesome job at the entry. have fencese missing, fences cut out. we have people swimming across the river daily. they get lost, they do not know where they are going. they end up on people's farms and ranches demanding food and water. like they have lived there all their lives. we cannot have that. not in this country. i appreciate it. host: in the first statement of our program we asked viewers if it is worth another shutdown to get wall funding in the deal that is going to come together in the next two weeks. what you think to that question? caller: i think the president

ought to go ahead and declare a national emergency and do what he needs to do, because he is never going to get the funding he needs for the wall. ,e will get funding for drones they drive over my house all the time. they don't catch the people. all they do is watch them. the farmers are armed, driving these roads. when they catch them, they have to call up border patrol and there is not enough of them. there may be 45 minutes to an hour before they get there. this is totally ridiculous what is happening. now there are thousands of them in tijuana coming. they are everywhere. , this is not and racial thing, it is not a partisan thing, it is an american thing. i want to keep our country safe and the border needs to be there.

the whole border. not just chunks here and there and everywhere. host: this is carol in new york, a democrat. good morning. caller: i would like to make a suggestion as to a future guest. i would like to suggest you invite adam abramowitz to be on your program. the reason i make that suggestion is there is a lot of about the ceo of starbucks running for president as an independent, and i believe there's a lot of talk about the impact his running would have on the race. i think abramowitz has the understandhelp us the ramifications and by acations of such a run

middle-of-the-road independent. host: why would he be able to do that? caller: he has written a book recently about the great political realignment, talking about the political parties, about the increasing party identification, the increasing ideological rigidity about left and right moving to the left and the right. the increasing whiteness of the republican party. these are groups in the electorate that would have to on an independent middle-of-the-road candidate. i think you would be able to he has a viable candidate. i know the democrats are moaning and groaning about how he would take votes away from the assuretic party and

president trump of his reelection. us anht be able to give indication as to how much substance that argument has. host: thanks for the suggestion. here is the political cartoon in the opinion section of an indication as to how much today's "usa today." schultz frozen in a block of ice with starbucks coffee. one man asking if he is a polar vortex victim, the other saying it was a chilly reception from democrats. the setting is the announcement he may run for democrats. victor is in florida, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. nota democrat and i support shutting down the government frn in a block of ice with starbucks coffee. because it hurts the employees

and it hurts their families. -- i support the wall, but they have to come to negotiations. they can only do it one way. the republicans and democratic senators and congressmen should not get paid for it you might come to an agreement quickly. they should not say they will get it back retroactive because then they will stall out. if you do not pay the congressmen and the senators i am sure they will come to a quick agreement. host: that is victor in florida. this is jerry in california, a republican. good morning. caller: are you doing? can you hear me ok? host: yes, sir. caller: i'm african-american, i am republican, and i do not understand what is going on in this world. host: what don't you understand? caller: we have people that are in this country that once

allowed anyone to come to this country no matter what. you can come to this country if you want. if you say you do not want them to come, you have to be a racist. the problem is people do not understand that most of the laws that were written for whenration were written you could own a ranch in mexiconia and a ranch in and ride your horse to each ranch. this has nothing to do with color, to say that when you come to this country, they have to know who you are, they have to know you do not have any diseases, which people do not understand, out of all of the native americans that were killed, the majority of them were killed by germs that came from europe. people look at everything you say it has to be racist. that is not racist to say people

have to be vetted to come into this country and you know who is coming. host: is disease your biggest concern? caller: yes. host: that is jerry in california. this is albert in vermont. an independent. go ahead. caller: good morning. on an englisheen only ramped. the u.s. is the second -- in english only rant. the u.s. is the second largest spanish-speaking country in the world. puerto rico is part of the u.s. and spanish is official there. according to fox, 21% of americans speak a language other than english at home. canadians are not required to speak english. canadian prime ministers must speak french. switzerland has four official language and it has no effect on their economy. another point, fox talks about socialism.

socialism is government ownership and operation of business. our progressives, such as bernie sanders, advocate health care and higher education and not ownership of business. they refer to venezuela and north korea, but not first world countries such as germany and scandinavia, which provide health care and education to its citizens. that is my comment. thank you. host: less than 10 minutes left. returning to this headline today trumphington, president planning his own intelligence officials on twitter yesterday, a day after encountering some of his claims in front of congress. they include some of the concerns raised by those intelligence officials that iran appears to be in line with the 2015 iran nuclear deal made during the obama administration. president trump has taken a different tack on what ironic --

on what iran is doing. this is the president yesterday on twitter. seem tolligence people be passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of iran. they are wrong. when i became president iran was making trouble all over the middle east since ending the terrible iran nuclear deal they are much different. a search -- a source of potential danger in conflict. they are testing rockets and coming close to the end. their economy is crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. be careful of iran. perhaps intelligence should go back to school. the editorial board of the washington post taking up the president's war of words with his intelligence officials, saying it is breathtaking to see the president so at odds with the intelligence community. intelligence collection and analysis are the critical intersection, the place where

reality is presented for decisions. they wrote will overseas adversaries be emboldened by the sight of a president who feels compelled to publicly disparage his own intelligence community of 17 agencies and more than 100,000 people? if you want to read the full op-ed about the president's comments, the headline is the intelligence chiefs are right. gary is in michigan. a democrat. good morning. caller: can you hear me? i am a native american in northern michigan. being ag i have seen native american and what took place through the years, it is racism. if you go to the canadian border all you see is white faces, and you go down to the south you see a bunch of brown faces. the white did say they would take over again shove the brown people out. that is just common sense. i've been there.

i feel that way every day. i do not understand how people can go on tv and say this and that when it has already taken place. it has taken place. the genocide of the native american people has already taken place. the rest of the world has seen with united states government has done. we can battle with these people all day long. when they take a look at our the nativeth american people, and the genocide, that is what they do not want in our country, especially with iran, who is brown people. host: this is wes in germantown, maryland. a republican. caller: i wanted to mention something about an idea for the president's exit strategy. this is my idea, not his. i was thinking that i agree with the wall. through history, walls have worked.

the problem is the democrats have a good excuse to find out how are we going to pay for this? i would say my idea is that the government gives alone to the exit strategy wall and in turn, the weight will be paid for is by tolls in and out of the country. by all means. for national security. if you fly out to europe and you fly back in, you still pay $40 each way. if you drive in or you drive out to mexico, you pay $40 each way. it is a truck -- if it is a truck that is a grocery good strzok, it pays to hunt -- grocery goods truck, it pays $200. no return fees. that is my idea. i wanted to mention that to the world. i hope that idea comes to a good

place if it is possible. i know other countries are actually doing the same thing. if you look at brazil, if you look at mexico, they'll have entrance and exit fees. we do not. why not? has to happen. this is how you pay for the wall. host: speaking of the wall, the president is tweeting again about the wall this morning. he spent a bit of time on twitter on this topic. his most recent one from a few minutes ago, the president tweeting out more troops are being sent to the southern border to stop the invasion of illegals through large caravans. we have stopped the previous caravans and we will stop these. with a wall it would be so much easier and less expensive. being built, the president said. rob is next from kansas city, missouri. a democrat. host: -- caller: i had an observation.

my unscientific poll watching that is that no one wants the government to be shut down. ideanot know where this the current administration, where they are getting the idea from that the government needs to be shut down. nobody is for it. i hope whoever is behind it will not be reelected in 2020, including trump himself. the second thing i want to suggest is that when the government shuts down, nobody should get paid. not the president, not the congressman, not the senators. they should not get perks or be around -- or be allowed to fly and government planes could they should basically all be grounded and all suffer despite the fact that most of them are millionaires that they cannot get any expense paid by the government. that is my suggestion. let's see how we shut the government down. host: you say no one wants the government shutdown. we has to viewers would be ok with another government shutdown to get funding for the

presidents wall. it was a facebook poll we posted . some 12,000 people have responded so far this morning. would support another government shutdown over border wall funding. 63% saying no. and unscientific poll but it is on facebook on facebook.com/c-span if you want to participate in that. calvin is in new jersey, an independent. go ahead. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: it just so happens last month alone, my household got hit for $300. and talked his past. i'm in south jersey. he turned around and started so

much stuff down here, he is allowed to declare bankruptcy, which is part of business. what happened to all of the money he has somewhere? call her inst today's washington journal. we will be back here tomorrow morning. in the meantime, have a great thursday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] ♪ >> house speaker nancy pelosi holds her weekly briefing this morning. we will take you there live when