she's shutting us down. >> the house democratic caucus met this morning to talk about the way forward on their agenda, including the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, a bill restoring provisions of the 1965 voting rights act, and the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that's been approved by the senate. some members, as you saw, coming to speak with the media after that meeting this morning. we'll work to bring you those remarks as they become available. until then, right now we'll take you back to "washington journal." bill, $100 billion for roads and bridges. they want to spend $65 billion on broadband internet, 46 billion dollars for severe weather resilience operations, $39 billion for transit and airports. caller: the last person who spoke said it would give biden a victory.

of course he would say that. it would not be a victory if they settle for less than the $3.5 trillion bill. we need a lot of infrastructure, not just the social infrastructure, not just the hard infrastructure, but the social infrastructure as well. right-wing extremists, corporate democrats are looked at as moderate. they are not moderates. they are going with the republican party, not the democratic party. there is no party discipline. the republicans always have discipline. they vote on strict party lines and no one deviates from it. we do not have moderate republicans. to call these democrats moderate is a misnomer. it gives them political cover. for republicans to use afghanistan, a bipartisan

quagmire, to undermine infrastructure for american citizens is ridiculous. as to the last caller, the point about pushing voting rights -- pushing voting rights helps people vote regardless of whether they are independent, republican, or democrats. why do they want to suppress the vote. -- the vote? we should not be calling democrats who vote with the republican party moderates. they are not moderate anymore than the republican party. they are extreme right-wingers. host: he was referring to the budget reconciliation bill. it includes voting rights legislation as well. here are the top numbers. 300 $32 billion -- 332 billion dollars for public housing and

housing affordability. $135 billion to address forest fires and carbon emissions. there is more to it, as we said. as democrats debate what to do, how to move forward with these two proposals, what do you support? it is your turn to tell washington. good morning. caller: i want to make a note of the fact that we should be calling the republican party the racist party. host: what does that have to do with infrastructure? caller: it is that they only want to build infrastructure for rich white people. host: listen to the republican argument from jason smith, republican of missouri, criticizing the democratic budget.

[video clip] >> budgeting means coming up with a plan before you start spending. of course the budget is not about strengthening the physical integrity of our nation, nor is the budget about getting government spending and inflation under control. we know it is not about protecting the integrity of programs, our seniors depend on -- programs are seniors depend on. it does not protect america's working-class families. and those making less than $400,000 a year from a tax increase. in fact, it does the opposite. the whole effort is to turn this budget into a political tool to unlock the door to at least $3.5 trillion in new spending and a host of policies which do

nothing to fix the crisis that american families are facing. the inflation crisis, the border crisis, the energy crisis, the afghanistan crisis. this budget only makes it worse. host: jason smith of missouri is the top republican on the house budget committee. their argument against moving forward with 3.5 trillion dollar budget reconciliation package. julie in kentucky, you are a republican. we will go to you next. caller: they should only address infrastructure. take everything else out. just infrastructure. then it would pass. the fake stuff they have entered in just to get it sneakily

passed, take that out. address what they are trying to address, infrastructure. host: and you would support it as a republican if they would just move forward on a boat with what passed in the senate -- on a vote with what passed in the senate already. you would support it. caller: only if it was nothing but infrastructure and none of the other fake stuff. host: did you support what was approved by the senate? caller: not all of it, no. host: meredith in massachusetts, democratic caller. caller: thank you for taking my call. i support this fully. all of these items listed in the inver structure bill have been long neglected in our country and we need to pay for these improvements in our public transit system and our future and our climate.

i have a hybrid vehicle. that is the way of the future, hybrid or electric vehicles. we have been talking about this my entire 43 years of life. it is long overdue and i am willing to pay for it because this is for my kids' future and their kids and so forth. host: meredith in massachusetts, thanks for calling in. glenda in california -- linda in california, independent. caller: i would like to say that you met with regards to the infrastructure bill or any bill that it is -- that any bill that is increasing our debt needs to be looked at. it needs to be taken apart and restructured differently. most states have the capability of providing infrastructure

money, much of which is gotten by bond especially in california over the last 10 years. most of the bonds are repaid. for the most part, that is not happening. where the money is going is questionable. i think that is the reason many people are question what is going into the infrastructure built in and of itself. there were things that came up with other bills we were questioning as far as what does it have to do with covid and why do we have to rebuild the john f. kennedy center when we are dealing with covid. this is the reason why these questions keep coming up with these huge bills.

how much further are we supposed to go when we cannot see paying it back? host: and the debt ceiling has to be raised in october, as you probably know. caller: this is insanity. i do not think this is really a party thing. it is really a national thing. we have to be able to repay these debts. in what way are we going to do that? host: dave, cincinnati, democratic caller. caller: [indiscernible]

and then senator portman stepped in. [indiscernible] the bridge was brought up many times. that is going to go through a process. it is going to be well spent. the money spent on infrastructure -- what china spends, what europe spends. we have not had a major bill. host: you are a little muffled. it is hard to hear you. bob in arizona, independent. caller: i had one item.

that lady congressperson that was on a few minutes ago, i believe she must be in lala land. when the sun goes down, the power goes out. thank you. host: doug in south dakota, democratic caller. caller: $30 trillion in debt and biden -- i am a democrat. i believe in spending money for the people and helping people, but i believe in paying bills. these people must think money comes on trees. i do not understand it. biden is going to end up giving everything back to trump. biden is falling -- following the same procedure. host: you agree with the tense

interest -- 10 centrist democrats saying move forward on the $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill. caller: i totally a guilt -- agree with the infrastructure deal. if they are going to give it back to trump, i cannot handle another four years of trump. he is following the same procedure, being entity at. you -- being an idiot. you have to pay your way. if you cannot pay your way, you need help. host: scott wong give us an update earlier about where negotiations are and they continue this morning.

house democrats are going to meet behind closed doors and continue to work this out. punch will news -- punch bowl news sent out this update saying the monarch group began the day negotiating before the budget -- moderate group began the get -- day negotiating before the budget reconciliation. a significant departure from their previous position, yet predictable for these lawmakers. let's go to mike in arkansas, independent. caller: much like her previous callers, i am worried about this rapidly rising national debt. the scary part about this is the only reason we are able to get away with this level of spending is we have the reserve currency of the world.

if we keep having a rise in national debt, we are going to see a confidence crisis in the dollar around the world. host: al from arkansas texts us to say the only and that is important is roads, bridges, clearwater, rod band. the other things they want we cannot afford. democrats want to raise the taxes on the wealthy and big corporations. all people will have to pay through higher prices on goods and services. i would not approve either one. most of the infrastructure part is mainly done by local and state governments got not the federal governments. too much federal government control is always too much fraud and waste. you can send us your thoughts via text with your first name, city, and state at (202) 748-8003. oscar in san diego, republican. caller: how are you? host: what do you think should

happen? caller: i was listening to what you were saying and the figures that were on the screen on the tv. it had $107 billion to legalize this new illegal aliens coming into america. why don't we spend that instead to reinforce our borders and have more border patrol to keep the amount? why not spend it on homeless veterans and homeless brothers? after covid is over, hundreds of thousands of businesses will be closed forever. we are going to wind up a third world country. host: the wall street journal reporting august 9 the legislation was expected at that point to include paid family

medical leave, and expansion of the child tax credit, universal pre-k. it will provide green cards to millions of immigrants. you can learn more details of what is in this if you go to democrats' website in the senate. they have on democrats. senate.gov a breakdown of what is in this budget reconciliation agreement. you can read more details there if you go to democrats.senate.gov. david in west virginia, independent. caller: good morning. my question is, everybody that supports the two bills that total over $5 trillion, is that not going to hurt the economy and bankrupt the country, and evaluate the dollar -- d

evaluate -- devaluate the dollar, why don't we double it? $4 trillion for infrastructure. we are bankrupting the country with this hocus-pocus money out there. if we did that, at least our infrastructure would be good when we default on the dollar. everyone keeps saying our kids and grandkids have to pay this. nobody is ever going to pay this. nobody has have not and you have not the debt we already have. i wish people would stop saying our grand kids are going to pay. if it is so great, why don't we triple it? host: understood, david. bob, new york, democratic caller. caller: good morning. you have to keep in mind for my

republican friends that when donald trump first got into office one of the first things he wanted to do was funding new york from i-95 down. he increased the national debt $7.8 trillion. now the republicans are throwing this afghanistan thing. stephen miller and that is the man who caused the problems because he did not want afghanistan people coming back to the united states. he made it more difficult. he made people jump through hoops. which is part of the problem we have in afghanistan now. the covid problem -- you can thank the president for that because in october -- host: stick infrastructure.

on afghanistan, ap news alert says the officials say the cia director met with taliban political leaders in kabul amid evacuation efforts. that from the associated press. we are going to talk about afghanistan in our next hour of the washington journal. right now, this infrastructure debate happening on the house side within the democratic party , family infighting over how to move forward. 10 centrist democrats holding up the democratic agenda. do you support it? what do you think should happen? this is tim in ohio, who says let's pass a budget that just pays our bills. it is required of the average citizen here and why not the government? -- then i support every bit of it. it is about time we had something big for the people. especially the human

infrastructure part. republicans need to work together to do something for the 90% for a change. what do you think? caller: and for structure is -- infrastructure is generally seen as a budget positive item. reduces waste. $3.5 trillion is a large pill to swallow. when you have an interest wait so low -- rate so low. as a 34-year-old person -- what are those services going to be? we are seeing pull out of afghanistan, reduction of our imperial scope. you would think with that you would want to improve your budgets. it seems we are just taking that opportunity to increase spending elsewhere. host: how do you respond to this

text? we support many nations. now it is time to support us. yes to both bills. caller: the market has a way to fix a lot of problems. look at what they are trying to do with electric vehicles. the chevy volt, they had to recall all the vehicles because of fires in their batteries. i do not think the technology is proven. we are ready to move forward betting on the technology. there are a lot of political talking points without taking the time to ensure it is worthy of investment. host: as you have heard in today's program, this three

point 5 trillion dollar reconciliation package includes a budget framework proposed by democrats. it includes what they call human infrastructure. it includes a voting rights bill. take a look at this ad put together by voting rights groups to target those democratic house members who want to hold up the $3.5 trillion because they say first we should vote on this $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. take a look at this. [video clip] >> joe biden promised he would build back better. his infrastructure plan does that, fixing our roads and bridges, making historic investments, expanding medicare. these nine conservative democrats are sabotaging biden's agenda because it would make billionaires and corporations pay their fair share. stop obstructing president biden

and start working for the american people. host: you saw there at the end the democratic leader of the group of 10 who spent hours negotiating with the speaker's office and other leadership members on capitol hill behind closed doors. as we learn from scott wong, shuffling back and forth between offices for hours. it was after midnight yesterday that democrats pulled the plug on moving forward for now. they were supposed to bring to the floor a vote for the rules for the debate and they did not do that yesterday. the speaker says they will do so today. they are going to meet in a little over an hour and talk about the path forward. in the meantime, read, what do you think your party should do -- marie, what you think your party should do? caller: i support the

infrastructure bill. that would be half of what it is. during president obama's first year in office, he offered stimulus for infrastructure. they decided they would vote no on everything he put forth. we would not even be dealing with the roads and bridges and all this stuff that started as part of infrastructure had they supported that bill when president obama first put it out. the bill would be half of that, not including roads or bridges. we are behind a lot of the nations in that part of the infrastructure because of the selfishness and topography of the republicans and now they want to talk about we need to do

this. it could have been half of that if they had done that before. host: what do you have to say, bobby? caller: i support the 10 democrats. i hope they stay with their backbone and stand their ground. we have a gas tax down here that is $.45 a gallon. they plant flowers in the middle of the interstate instead of fixing the roads and bridges and other stuff. it don't make no sense. i support them. they need to get reelected. i would donate to their campaigns. host: steve in alabama says, i oppose all three of the bills being considered in the house. these are another step toward a

bloated federal government that continues robbing hard-working, freedom loving americans. text us your thoughts. include your city and state at (202) 748-8003. larry in washington, democratic caller. caller: thank you for taking my call. it is morning. host: very early for you. caller: it is pretty early over here. my thought on the infrastructure package is the american taxpayer is being shortchanged. we need a larger package as far as i'm concerned. it is odd that callers talk about social security but keep the top 100 wealthiest people in the united states paying for the full package out of pocket and still have millions of dollars

to live on, which i know is hard for people who live on millions. millions of people that live on social security seem to do all right, even though we do not go on a lot of vacations. that is my thought. we should have wealthy people pay for this. host: peggy in south carolina, independent. caller: they keep raising our gas tax and our potholes and roads are getting bigger and they are lining their pockets with our tax money. [indiscernible] they ain't doing nothing. host: we will go to steve in new

york, democratic caller. you are on the air. caller: hi. host: you need to mute your television. caller: i am sorry. i am not a democrat. i am a republican. host: all right. what are your thoughts on the infrastructure debate? caller: we are too much in debt already, $28 trillion already, and you want another $3 trillion. i believe democrats are trying to make -- destroy america. i really do. another $3 trillion for the democratic party for their agenda. i do not know. they need to stop and realize what they are doing. they are destroying america. host: bob in illinois in a text.

i support old-fashioned infrastructure, may be 10%, not the remaining wokeness nonsense. private industry will take care of the rest. do not bury generations to come in massive debt. the house lawmakers are in session this week. the senate is out for august recess. nancy pelosi calling house lawmakers back to vote on the $3.5 trillion budget package before the house moves forward on what passed in the senate. that is being held up by 10 centrist democrats. we will see what happens next here in washington. keep your channel on c-span. you can go to our website, follow us on twitter @cspanwj, follow us on instagram and facebook as well for the latest on what is happening here in washington throughout the day and the rest of the week.

gary in indianapolis, a republican. good morning. caller: i am for the infrastructure, but i do not want to see infrastructure 100% spending. i do not want to see 10%, 20%. if you're going to do something, do it right. fix the roads, bridges, and take this fat out. whether you are republican, democrat, independent, you need to see who voted for what. whoever voted for all the money that has nothing to do with infrastructure, vote those people out. that congress is ours and it is our tax dollars. whoever is not going to support 100% infrastructure on rebuilding -- i call it the three b's.

tilde better roads and bridges and all that -- build better roads and bridges and all that. make sure the money is spent for what it is supposed to be. host: glenn, massachusetts, independent. what is your message to washington on infrastructure? caller: i was listening to that guy from maryland going on and on about electric cars and why those are bad. the guy does not know what he is talking -- host: scott in pennsylvania sends a text to say, start over. separate the pork. dolores. caller: hello. i am for the infrastructure bill , the stimulus package. in the stores, the people do not have enough money to pay their bills.

the food is much more expensive or they do not have it or they have to buy the next brand for the food. the rent -- the people do not have money to pay rent or mortgage. they would need the money to pay their rent or their mortgage. it is very much needed. people do not have the money to get medicines. they need medicines. the infrastructures bill that would give the people stimulus is very much needed. the black people and the white people are the same. the people who are poor, the spanish people come of the people who are poor need the money badly -- very much. if they do not get the money, it is going to trickle up to the

rich. they are going to lose money. host: dolores in baton rouge, louisiana. let's go across to diane in key west, florida, democratic caller. caller: i do not understand about the debt. it seems we are trillions in, but what i am happy about these bills is that it is not just a tax cut for the rich. it is really for the working people. our infrastructure is crumbling. you cannot deny that. for parents with children, day care, medicare, this goes across the board. the last president to spend so much money on the people was johnson and thereafter, whether you are democrat or republican, they always added to the debt. i am tired of that complaint.

another thing is that, with so many billionaires, trillion heirs, jeff bezos, they cannot possibly circulate the money throughout the economy. this definitely will stimulate the money and touch the people. i am looking forward to it. the -- both of these bills should both pass at the same time, and thank you so much for letting me share. host: all right, diane. rick tina in san diego, democratic caller. what are you saying should happen in washington today? caller: i think they should pass both bills. i am a single parent in san diego, a custodian, and the child with the child tax credit that i have been getting, it allows me to just breathe, just to give me a little breath for each month.

so i think that they definitely should pass both bills and think about the parents and the single parents, what they are going through right now. host: we will leave it there for now. we will return to this conversation. in the last hour of "the washington journal," you will be able to call in. we will if the house approves those debate rolls, the budget resolution will have deemed to have been approved by the house without an individual vote on the budget resolution itself. the house would then move on to debate infrastructure and the voting rights bill. when the house comes into

session at noon eastern today, you can see live coverage here on c-span. ♪ . >> the population of china in 1949 when the communists took control, was 540 million people. during these 72 years, the p.r.c. has had five principal

leaders. since 2012, the current head of state, xi jinping. george washington university professor david sham bow has written close to 30 books devoted to the subject of asia. we talk with the professor about his newest book titled "china's leaders: from mao to now." >> listen to book notes plus at c-span.org/podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. announcer" continues. host: joining us this morning is jeremy butler, the ceo of washington -- of iraq veterans of america. i want to get your reaction to the withdrawal from afghanistan. your opinion on that decision? guest: