senate have adjourned for the holiday recess and will return in early january for the start of the second session of the 117th congress and upon its return will take up the president's spending plan known as build back better despite joe manchin announcing his opposition to the bill. democratic leadership hopes to take up voting rights legislation which may require changing filibuster rules. there's also a february 18 deadline for both chambers of congress to pass federal spending legislation to avert a government shutdown. watch these developments on the c-span networks once congress returns or you can watch our full coverage on c-span now, our new mobile video app. head over to c-span. org for our scheduling information or stream video live or on demand any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> coming uph

the state policy network on i citizen. then, samuel hammond talks about the child tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of the year. washington journal is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is thursday, december 23, 2021. a live shot of washington, d.c.'s union station as nearly 110 million americans get set to travel by car, rail and airplane over the next 10 days. that projection from aaa's year end travel forecast. it would be a 34% increase from last year. that travel surge comes amid a new covid surge, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant. we will begin by asking you how the omicron variant is impacting your travel plans, what

precautions are you and your family taking as you gather for the holidays? phone lines are split regionally this morning. if you live in the eastern or central time zones, it is (202) 748-8000. if you live in the mountain or pacific time zone, it is (202) 748-8001. you can send us a text this morning. that number is (202) 748-8003. you can also catch up with us on social media, on twitter. at c-span wj on twitter. on facebook, it is facebook.com/c-span. you can start calling in now on this question as the abc news headline puts it, to grandmother's house or no, omicron disrupts holiday plans. it was yesterday at a white house covid team briefing that rochelle walensky discussed what precautions americans can take to stay safe during their holiday travels. >> holiday gatherings and risk

of travel has less to do with the airplane or car ride and much more to do with how people from different households behave in the weeks to days before meeting up. importantly, consider gathering with family and friends who are also practicing similar proper prevention measures. and as we have said before, those who remain unvaccinated are the most vulnerable to covid-19. cdc data now updated through november, when delta was the predominant strain circulating, mistreated and nonvaccinated person has a 10 times greater risk of -- demonstrated a nonvaccinated person has a 10 times greater risk of testing positive for covid-19 and a 20 times greater risk of dying. every day, we are following more and more studies emerging about the omicron variant. early data on the vaccine is promising against omicron, especially against -- when

people are boosted. covid-19 vaccines, especially when accompanied by a booster dose, are likely to protect against severe disease, hospitalization and death. still, we know we will continue to hear more by people who get infected who are vaccinated. these people make it mild or asymptomatic infections and could unknowingly spread those infections to others. again, this means it is important for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask in public indoor settings and communities of substantial or high transmission. i would encourage people to take an at-home covid-19 test ahead of time to help protect you and your family and friends who might be at greater risk of covid-19 or severe illness. evidence has shown that these prevention measures, when layered together, work. so, again, if you are wondering how to stay healthy and protect your loved ones this winter,

please get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a mask at public indoor settings and take a covid-19 test before gathering with others. host: rochelle walensky yesterday, at the white house covid briefing, asking you this morning has the omicron variant impacted your holiday plans? keep calling in. we will get to your phone calls in a second. i want to run through a glut of mccraw news and covid-19 news omma here is a couple of the headlines from usa today, the fda authorized use of a new antiviral pill that can be taken at home to prevent people who are sick with covid-19 am becoming severely ill. we will talk about that later. this story on the biden administrations vaccine mandate, the supreme court announced they will hold a special hearing next month to consider challenges to joe biden's pandemic effort for

nationwide testing requirements for employers and a separate vaccine mandate for health care workers. both policies have been partially blocked from going into effect by lower courts. the high court will consider it on january 7. that is the friday before the court was scheduled to resume its oral arguments. plenty more covid news from yesterday, especially on the omicron front. we want to hear from you on how it has impacted your holiday travel plans. (202) 748-8000 in the eastern or central time zone. it is (202) 748-8001 if you're in the mountain or pacific time zone. let's head out to the west coast, to california. this is rory. how has omicron -- how is omicron impacting your plans? caller: omicron itself is not impacting me at all.

i have had both of my shots of moderna, i have had a booster. somebody has to tell me why a mask is necessary. anybody get the vaccines but drop the masks. people are getting into fist fights. if you want to wear a mask, where it. if you don't, don't. right now, omicron has gotten down to the level -- i've talked to doctors -- of the flu. which does kill some people. but, overall, it is not where it was a year ago. so, drop it. people want to enjoy christmas without a mask. they want to drink. drop the masks on airplanes, that is where the fights are beginning. not because of alcohol. host: are you going to be with family this christmas? caller: oh, yeah. we have all had our shots but no masks. separate the masks from the shots. they have to be separated. they don't go together.

and nobody is going to wear a mask and every buddy has had their shots. that is the difference -- everybody has had their shots. that is the difference. host: val in montana, you are next. caller: good morning. i'm not traveling anywhere but we have close family so we can get together. what i am curious about is when they are going to have -- on the laptop from hell. i was curious because i have not seen it mainstream, yet. host: we are talking about travel plans for the holidays with 100 10 million americans expected to travel by rail or by road or by airplane over the next 10 days, amid this omicron surge. we want to hear from viewers.

what it means for gatherings if you are having any special rules this year, how does it compare to last year? having this conversation with the spike in the omicron variant, for a visual on what the spread of the omicron. means, this is from the cdc's website, showing that omicron, as of last week, made up over 73% of new covid cases in the united states. that is the projection from the week of december the 11th through december the 18th. you can see the purple line on this chart showing the omicron variant and how much spread there is over the past three weeks, surging across the united states. it was jeff, talking about omicron spread in the united states. this is what he had to say. >> due to omicron, we expect a

significant rise in cases. fully vaccinated people, particularly those with the boost, are highly protected. but, due to omicron's highly transmissible nature, we will see fully vaccinated people get covid. they will likely be asymptomatic or feel under the weather for a few days. let's be clear, unvaccinated people are at a higher risk of getting severely ill from covid, getting hospitalized, and dying. we are prepared for this moment. the president announced new actions the administration is taking to protect families, communities and hospitals to be safe from omicron. these steps include more support from hospitals including 1000 military troops deployed. hundreds of ambulances to help ensure adequate supplies, equipment and beds. more testing, including new

federal sites, and a half a billion tests will be free to all americans. more capacity to get shots in arms, including in mobile clinics, hundreds of additional vaccinators in the field and tens of thousands of new appointments. let me reiterate what the president said, yesterday. this is not march of 2020. we have more tools than ever before to protect people. vaccinations, boosters, testing and treatments. host: jeff zients, the white house coordinator. if you want to watch it in its entirety, you can do so on our website, c-span.org. let us know, depending on what part of the country you are in, what you are seeing and how omicron is impacting your holiday plans. (202) 748-8000 in the eastern or central time zones. (202) 748-8001 in the mountain

or pacific time zones. a pair of tweets on this. we will be looking for your social media throughout this first hour of the washington journal. new york city canceled everything, worst christmas ever is what paul writes. frank says the new variant has not affected everything -- anything. the last clip we showed you is on the spread of omicron and how much it has spread across the united states. good news on the severity front. this is the headline from the front page of the washington post. signs of omicron optimism overseas. south african cases have subside. as the u.k. suggests, the variants is milder than the -- the variant is milder than the delta variant. this is the voice of dr. anthony fauci over slides which he was

presenting during a meeting. dr. fauci: we get to the idea of severity. this is data from our south african colleagues who have been showing in conversations and in this recent publication that it appears in the context of south africa, there is a decrease in the severity, compared to delta. both in the relationship and ratio between hospitalization and the number of infections, the duration of hospital stay and the need for supplemental oxygen therapy. there was another paper that came out from scotland which appears to validate and verify the data that is in south africa. this is good news. however, we must wait to see what happens in our own population, which has its own

demographic considerations. i would point out that even if you have a dim munition -- a depletion in severity, the fact that you have so many more cases might obviate the effect of it being less severe. that is one of the reasons why the president, in his remarks yesterday, spoke about how we will supplement the capability of hospitals to respond to the possibility that there might be a run on the need for hospitalization. host: dr. fauci yesterday from the same white house briefing. hearing from you this morning, asking how has omicron impacted your holiday travel? what rules will you have in place if and when you gather with family over the next few days read joan in delaware, good morning. you are next. -- few days. joan in delaware, good morning.

you are next. caller: how are you? host: i'm fine. caller: omicron is not affecting us at all. we are fed up with all of the mask mandates and hypocrisy. we see our governor on the news, taking down his mask behind the president of the united states on camera. we are getting sick and tired of unvaccinated people being treated unfairly. and we see a lot of disgusting behavior on tv. i agree with the caller before. host: joan, you say you disagree with and see the unvaccinated being treated unfairly, are you vaccinated or not? caller: why would i tell you

whether i am vaccinated or not? host: fair enough. one of the recommendations from the cdc is testing individuals before they gather before the holidays. some medical professionals, some public health officials are calling for testing after you gather with your family. is something that is -- is that something that is on the table for you and your family? caller: we are taking precautions as far as washing our hands, being very careful around our elderly, and taking precautions as we with the flu or anything else. we are not changing our lives. we have the birth of our christ coming. what are we afraid of? host: that is joan in delaware.

in hawaii, alan is next. good morning. caller: hello. how are you doing? a few items, i will try to pick them up. i hope you are able to get michael on. i know he is no longer a professor at harvard. he is an important figure in the concept of getting the rapid test deployed in the u.s. host: i remember we talked about this, we have tried to get him on and it is on my list of things to do. i remember that conversation. thank you for the reminder. caller: he is a medical advisor for a company. here is the deal. biden made an attempt to get these tests out 10 months ago. he got a lot of money allocated by congress. they were not able to figure out how to do it. the logic was to try to get the

manufacturers to bring the price down so that it can be sold at a dollar a test. the defense production act has not worked well because he has not done it. he is getting started with 500 million. 340 million people in the u.s., that works out to 1 and one third test per person. omicron is doubling so fast, it will be -- we will be overtaken by omicron very quickly. one diagram you should show everybody is a diagram you can pull on the internet, it is the swiss cheese model. it shows all of the different strategies used in public health the tried to prevent this disease from transmitting. one of the items, of course, is vaccines. it is not the only item. it shows masks and it shows

smart testing. this is very important. it will take a while. very importantly, the new medicine needs to be prescribed and even to a person, literally within three days. 36 hours, optimally. three days, absolutely. the only way to give that benefit to somebody is they have to be able to take the test we at home and call the doctor with a picture sent to the doctor to get the medicine prescribed or else it won't be effective. that will mitigate close to 80% of the serious cases from going to the hospital. they are all going to take time. right now, we are having this surge of delta, in combination with the new rising of omicron. host: you bring up a couple of

points. on the first point, you bring up testing. i might point you to cal thomas's column in the. i know your out there in hawaii -- you are out there in hawaii but you can find it online. cal thomas has a lot of questions when it comes to president biden's pledge to move 500 million tests out to americans in the coming weeks and months. he says first, what happens when they run out of the at-home kits? they contain a limited number of swabs. how long will the government pay for those? if so, will continue to pay for them and how long? taxpayers have a right to know, giving the deepening -- given the deepening debt. airport testing sites he has seen in recent weeks charge up to $179 for a rapid test. a trip to italy in october, he

said my wife and i were charged $150 each at o'hare airport in chicago. they were the most expensive q-tips we have ever purchased. this is anne in canyon lake, texas. you are next. caller: thank you. good morning. i just want to say that biden is talking about people who don't want to get tested or vaccinated. i think the problem is dr. fauci. i think that there are so many people that i know, including myself, who have lost all trust and confidence in him. he has contradicted himself so many times that people don't believe anything he says. he is the one out there who is speaking about this. people just don't trust him anymore and they don't believe in him. you can see how he has contradicted himself so much.

there is so much information we are not able to get because it is getting blocked. i have a friend who has worked in a doctor's office for 15 years. her job is to set up appointments for referrals. she is seeing numbers like she has never seen. people who are younger than 50 years old, being referred to see specialists for example, kidney doctors. it seems to me like people are having health problems from the vaccination. but nobody wants to give us that information. host: who do you think is blocking information like that? you said they are blocking information. caller: if you go on google and you do a google search of it, and you find health conditions due to the vaccinations, you can't find anything. everything comes up about covid vaccinations and where to get it and it directly to government sites. try it.

you cannot get that information. people who have had myocarditis from the vaccine, you cannot get that information. you can't get information about the number of young people who have died from the vaccination. that is true. there have been people. you cannot get that information. host: that is anne in canyon lake. this is teresa in tennessee. good morning. caller: i agree with the color that just called in. i had covid in march. i am unvaccinated. i'm not afraid to say it. i will not get the vaccine. i have never been tested, will be tested. don't trust the tests. i will do a different spin from everybody that calls, i am having a big christmas celebration. no one will be wearing masks. no one i invite will be vaccinated. in fact, i don't trust being

around anyone who has been vaccinated or boosted. if you look at the percentage, people who are getting this omicron, they are all fully vaccinated or boosted. host: is there anybody specifically in your family that you would have invited if they had not gotten vaccinated? caller: you mean who i will not invite -- host: is there a vaccinated family member that you're keeping off the list because of how you feel about it? caller: yes, my father. he is vax crazy. i do not feel safe around anybody that has been vaccinated. they are spreading -- look at everybody in washington that has

been fully vaccinated. everybody is getting the coronavirus. i am unvaccinated. i have had coronavirus in march. host: but is teresa in tennessee. this is bernie in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning, everyone. we have to start thinking a little bit. when they come out and they say you have the covid-19, then the delta and now we have the omicron. what tests are they using to distinguish between these viruses? nobody is asking that question. how can they tell if you have omicron, delta or the covid? this is a joke. they are producing fear so everyone will get tested.

we don't know what's in your nose with the swabs. host: what does christmas look like in your house this year compared to last year? caller: 75% of us are still wearing masks and they are afraid of each other. they want everyone afraid of each other except the authorities. host: bill in harrisburg, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: the omicron variant has impacted our holiday plans. i have a parent who is immunocompromised. so, several of us were all vaccinated and boosted. basically, we had one family member who was recently

hospitalized who recently contracted covid read she has been inundated. she was not vaccinated. we are all going to air on the side of caution this year in an effort to keep it light on our health care industry. host: bill in pennsylvania. on breakthrough covid cases, several more members of congress, fully vaccinated members of congress and boosted members of congress, reporting about break through cases. it seems so far that they are thankfully mild. this is from james clyburn, the majority whip from yesterday evening. i received a positive covid diagnosis tonight, meaning yesterday. it is a breakthrough case. i am asymptomatic america is in a new phase of this pandemic. no one is immune. i urge anyone who has not done

so protect themselves by getting vaccinated and boosted. james clyburn, yesterday. chad of fox news reported that a democratic congresswoman from illinois tested positive. it is the 31st positive test since mid july when it comes to numbers of congress. the 53rd member of the 117th member of congress -- 117th congress to test positive. the ninth memo to test positive since december 18. -- member to test positive since december 18. kamala harris was exposed to the virus by a staff number who was close to her throughout the day on tuesday and tested positive. that is according to the vice president's spokeswoman in a statement yesterday. ms. harris tested negative for the coronavirus on wednesday after learning of the exposure. she will be tested on friday and monday. the vice president's office said that staffer is vaccinated and boosted.

this also we found out this week, that white house officials reported on monday, that president biden had been in close contact with a staff member who later tested positive. since the encounter, president biden has tested negative twice, including once yesterday morning as well. back to your phone calls. this is mark in new york. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. yes, the pandemic has affected my family's christmas plans. we will split it up into two small gatherings. we have all been fully vaccinated and boosted. i have a comment about all of these people calling in, saying this is some huge conspiracy. it is sad to believe that all of the scientists and governors and doctors are trying to get you by

making you sick and saying the vaccines are spreading it and the vaccines are killing people. this is just ludicrous. i can't even believe these people. it is beyond me. my suggestion to them is to -- is if you believe this kind of nonsense, stay down wherever you live and do not come to new york. we have enough problems without your silliness. caller: on your two family gatherings, anybody you know who is not vaccinated coming to either of those? caller: no. everybody in my family is vaccinated. my 98-year-old father-in-law is vaccinated and he does not have covid. the vaccine is safe. i just want to ask all of these conspiracy people, do you know anybody with smallpox? right, there you go. host: one more question. what about the recommendation about testing for you go to these gatherings, is that something you will implement? have you been able to find tests?

there is a round on tests of late. -- rung on tests of late. caller: we have all been trying to find tests and have not been able to. we will have small gatherings and wear masks and be six feet apart and celebrate the holiday by being careful. host: testing is an issue in this country, when about half of the top half of today's wall street journal has pictures of folks being tested across the united states. a surge in testing across the u.s. from new york to bethesda, maryland, to los angeles, california. this is monique in washington, d.c. caller: the gentleman who just hung up stole my glory. i was getting ready to say the same thing. everybody in my family is

vaccinated, from my five kids to my husband. we got vaccinated when it first started off because me and my husband are public servants and so are four out of five of my kids. what freaks me out is i constantly tell certain family members outside of my immediate family you have to get vaccinated. my youngest sister lives with my mom, with her two kids. and she fought to get vaccinated. she never wanted to get vaccinated and said i'm not getting vaccinated. three days before thanksgiving, guess who comes up positive for covid? my youngest sister. it cancels the whole thanksgiving, because the house, the main house is my mom's house. that means everybody got vaccinated just for this one

specific day but this one young lady, who is hardheaded as a rock, she turned up positive. people have to start taking this virus seriously. and i just wish there was a law against being able to talk about disinformation, especially when it comes to american life. a lot of those people who are calling in, i think they are loners. they don't have friends, they don't have family. they don't have something for them to feel as though this covid situation is real. host: on the issue of vaccinations, washington, d.c. is getting set to join that list of cities where you have to present proof of vaccination at restaurants or gyms, something that washington, d.c. is moving toward, how do you feel about that? caller: i feel great about it.

it is protecting us against each other. me and my husband, we are scheduled to get our boosters on january the second at walgreens. thank you, walgreens. it was easy to go online, schedule an appointment and get it done. i'm taking it seriously. i love every member of my family. my coworkers, who i have to communicate with on a daily basis, i take this seriously. so, yes, i think what mayor bowser and the councilmembers are doing in washington, d.c., they are looking out for the people who lived in the city. i am behind it 100%. host: monique in washington, d.c. has omicron impacted your holiday plans? what precautions are you taking? how are this year's gatherings looking different from last year's gatherings? (202) 748-8000 in the eastern or central time zones.

(202) 748-8001 in the mountain or pacific time zones. a shot of union station in washington, d.c. as the sun rises on capitol hill , some 110 million americans are expected to travel over the next 10 days. that is according to the aaa projections. it is just after 7:30 on the east coast. we talked a little earlier about pfizer's antiviral pill getting fda approval. that pill made by pfizer seeks to reduce the risk of severe disease by 90% in clinical trials. taken as a pill, soon after covid-19 symptoms start, it is intended for people at high risk of severe disease, including those over 65, as well as people with diabetes. anyone with a weakened immune system. the pill is easier to deliver than previous treatments. there was a lot of discussion

about that at yesterday's white house covid-19 response team press gathering. the weekly covid-19 response gathering. this was jeff zients, talking about the approval of that pill. >> we got good news today with the authorization of pfizer's antiviral. merck's pill, along with pfizer's newly authorized pill, add oral treatment options to our nation medicine cabinet. as soon the merging science shows the promise of the antivirals, we acted quickly and aggressively to prepurchase 10 million courses of pfizer and 3 million courses of merck. we anticipate 3 million treatment courses available for merck at the end of january if the fda authorizes. the pfizer team has a very promising and now authorized

treatment. a pill that traumatically reduces hospitalizations and deaths. we have purchased 10 million courses, more than anyone else in the world. according to pfizer, the chemistry involved in crating the active ingredients in the pill means production takes about six months to eight months. supply of this product will ramp up through the next several months. knowing that these pills take time to manufacture, pfizer continues to increase production plans. and now that the pill is authorized, we will have discussions to explore how we can help them improve their manufacturing capacity even further, by providing any resources needed. we will have 265,000 treatment courses of pfizer available in january. with monthly totals of pills ramping up across the year, and

all 10 million treatment courses delivered by late summer. as quickly as pfizer gets the pills manufactured and delivered, we will immediately provide the states and jurisdictions with distribution. just as we have done with vaccines and monoclonal antibody treatment, we will ensure equity is at the center of the antiviral distribution. host: jeff zients yesterday. taking your phone calls, asking has omicron impacted your holiday plans. daniel. caller: thank you for taking my call. five or six years ago, i would have been taking notes to make sure how my points came across. if this is the omicron variant, it sucks. this is the second holiday since

the pandemic that has been affected. you can hear it in my voice, i have from throat for days. i am about to get a rapid test and get an antibiotic going. it has been a few days of getting worse like this. my family in some regard is going to gather. we have had a small gathering plan. we don't see each other very often with the pandemic. the age of my grandma -- two small gatherings, about 50% of us are vaccinated. 50% of us are not. i have considered a booster. i neglected to get that scheduled. i might be kicking myself in the but in the next day or so. host: how hard has it been to

find a rapid test? caller: it is hard to get them scheduled. i don't know what you know about i.e. bloomington. host: i don't know much. caller: we have a bunch of left and right leaning. 30% to 40% of businesses require vaccination cards. a lot of students schedule tests on the regular so they can maintain academic or work standards. it has been hard over the last four months, trying to schedule rapid tests five times. you might as well stay quarantined for that time. people have to work. thanksgiving last year, i spent it alone. this year, i won't be alone because of close contacts. this year hits a little different than last year. last year was thanksgiving, this

year it is christmas. you never know when you will have the last one with the relatives. it sucks. rapid tests are hard-to-find. sorry to go off on that. thank you to c-span trade it takes a lot of bravery for everyone to call in. -- c-span. it takes a lot of bravery for everyone to call in. everybody's opinion matters and c-span is there for that. happy holidays. host: thanks. caller: good morning. it is disturbing when i hear all of these tv zombies calling in, regurgitating what they see on tv. if they cut the tv off, they wouldn't have anything to think or say. they believe everything they see on tv. they don't think, they don't do research. they want everybody to --

nobody knows what is in the vaccine because the tv doesn't show them. if you want to know all of the variants they plan on exposing us to, go to the world economic form. they have a list of all of the variants they plan on exposing us to. host: who is they? who is behind this conspiracy? caller: you are censoring a lot of information. they are trying to give people information that you refuse to give them! host: this is cliff in texas. good morning. caller: good morning morning to you to -- good morning to you. i've called before. you probably remember me. first of all, i'm very political. as far as my opinions. but in this, i'm not. i just think that pushing the

vaccine for some is foreign, i guess. first of all, omicron and all of the other variants have affected my life and it is affecting christmas and i will not be gathering with my family because we are all kind of afraid. some of my family is vaccinated and my sister and i are not. we will have our own little christmas, the two unvaccinated ones. what i see that is scary, and i think a lot of people are seeing this, is that the omicron variant is an invisible one. because, you have the vaccinated who have a lot of breakthroughs. nobody can deny that. bless their hearts, i feel sorry for them. and then you have the unvaccinated, that are, in many ways, being blamed for spreading it.

if you think about it, it could be out of 100 people, the vaccinated field bullet proof i went for a walk yesterday and walked by dollar general and i saw three or four or five people walk in without a mask. if i was vaccinated or nonvaccinated -- unvaccinated, i would be wearing a mask. i know enough about it that i would want to protect myself. host: do you think in general, unvaccinated people are more vigilant? caller: i do. i do. i think they are scared and they are going to pull back. they are not going to -- unfortunately for the business, they are not getting their business. yes, i do. out of 100 people, i think -- it is not scientific, but out of thinking about it in a scientific way, it could be the vaccinated people are spreading more than the unvaccinated. host: you said we are all kind of afraid right now.

at what point will you feel less afraid and would getting vaccinated feel less -- help you feel less afraid? caller: i'm afraid of the vaccination. this is not political. i personally know three people, personally know three people who had a horrible outcome right after they were vaccinated. they died. that could be a coincident, -- coincidence, who knows? i know them, it's not made up. there is what i would become double with and a lot of people would. get the therapeutics out on the market, asap. if we can get this disease, tamiflu for the old flu, they said it works 63%, the old tamiflu, for this virus. host: what do you make of the data that looks across the united states that has shown

that those who are not vaccinated are 20 times more likely to this than those who were vaccinated? i know you talk about the story of what you have seen from the people you know, looking at data from across the country on this. they look at vaccinated versus unvaccinated and the unvaccinated are so much more at risk. caller: you know what, i don't argue those steps. here is what i know also. there are some people who need to be respected in that they can live a lifestyle and i am one of them, fortunately, i've done well in life. and i can stay totally isolated from everybody. that sounds like a crazy thing. i live in a small town. i'm not around anybody and i refuse to be. i hit golf balls in an open field. i had covid in 2020.

and i ended up as a long-hauler. that is what i want to finish with. i just want to say, you know how many people are missing from the workforce? nobody can figure out where they are. had they had long covid, there is a percentage of the missing workers, who like me, for the last 18 months, i had suffered long covid so bad where i had days it was hard to get out of the house. we need, as a society, i have been an advocate for mental health. i have two books out on amazon.com on helping people with depression. at any rate, i am now getting into where i want to advocate for long-haulers. because there are no official

treatments for it. they have gotten lost in the cracks. it is an awful disease. it is now an immune disease and not a virus disease. you have probably 25 million people and as a society, we just don't talk about it. host: cliff, i will let you leave it there. i would note that we have talked a bit about long-haul covid, featuring some of the doctors from the cleveland clinic, there recover clinic, focusing on studying specifically the idea of long-haul covid. you can watch some of those segments if you did not see them on our website at c-span.org. dave in bedford, new hampshire. what does christmas look like for you in bedford? caller: i guess it will be pretty nice.

welcome, patriots. what about all of this omicron variant that is going around? i guess it has filled up 48 states is what dr. fauci says. far as i'm concerned, dr. fauci has been lying since day one. lastly, dr. fauci said there are only two labs in the united states that can test for the omicron variant. if that's the case and you have all of these thousands of people sending tests in, how can you get them back? host: projections from the cdc is that omicron has made up over 70% of new cases, just last week. and they do those projections each week, based on a certain amount of tests that come in. we showed that data earlier of how those numbers have changed

over the past few weeks. i can pull it up again for you. the purple line on this chart, showing omicron and that two weeks ago, about 10% of new cases in the united states, jumping last week to over 70% is what the projections are. so, with that, you started by talking about christmas in bedford. are you taking any new precautions? are you gathering with folks in bedford? are they vaccinated or not vaccinated? caller: we are not getting the right information from nowhere. you can't find anything on nothing. you look it up, like it has already been all around. people are waking up and we are sick of this. it is time to end it and open the states. host: that is dave in new hampshire. i don't know if you read the new york times. but, a new york times story that

came out yesterday starts by talking about what you are talking about, how people are tired of this. this is by patricia in the new york times. this is just the lead of that story. the omicron variant has turned a thing of joy into one of resentment amid a new coronavirus surge. with days to go before christmas, americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired of reworking plans to adapt to the latest virus risks, searching for at home tests and not finding them and wondering after two years of avoiding covid-19 or surviving it and getting vaccinated and boosted, omicron is the variant they catch. the dread of omicron's rapid spread has swept through northeast and upper midwest, which were swamped with the delta variant. even states and territories like laura, hawaii and puerto rico.

they had, until recently, extreme stay relative virus lull . mccrone is just beginning and americans are already tired. kathy and marilyn, good morning. -- maryland, good morning. caller: good morning morning. how are you? host: i am well. caller: omicron -- yes, i was going to go to a family gathering. now that it is spreading randomly, i have decided not to. i got my booster and my 14-year-old has had both shots. we are protected. we wear masks everywhere we go and make sure that we are social distanced. we are doing everything that was suggested. i listen to c-span and i appreciate you guys. it is so offensive, these people

calling, first calling themselves patriots. and they are the reason, they literally are the reasons why we are still in this mess. when it started and it first came out, they were the same ones that were at the state capital with the military weapons, demanding everything be opened when we were trying to get a handle of it. then, they want to not get vaccinated and go to the super large gatherings as it was spreading and we were supposed to respect them to do that. then, they spread it throughout the community. they are the ones that get upset with people if you ask them to wear a mask. so, how much of their perspective and their rights are we now living in for omicron? it's their fault. you decide not to get vaccinated but sit around and smoke packs of cigarettes a day. host: you mentioned your

14-year-old, how did you feel about shutdowns? was your school district in maryland one of those that shut down for most of the year last year? caller: they had to do at home schooling but we didn't complain. i sure -- made sure he was -- he got up and was ready for class. you want to sit on nurses because you don't get your way. host: would you be ok with another school shut down? is that something that would be acceptable in your mind? caller: if we had to. but, there will be resentment towards those patriots. it would be resentment toward them because it has an effect on the kids mental health. they are watching adults going around, yelling, screaming and carrying on. they have to have vaccines for

going to school. they have to have vaccines for traveling overseas. they have to have vaccines for joining the military. i know, i was in the military with a bunch of my family members. vaccines are not new. this screaming and hollering because a con artist told them to drink chlorine and animal products, and you want to punish us? every heat mail -- hate mail -- everybody says hi to each other, everybody is peaceful with each other, they are the only ones who feel like they need to have and uzi going to starbucks -- an oozi, going to starbucks. caller: this will not affect my christmas at all. i plan on having christmas with my family. some people are vaccinated and

some have not. i have been vaccinated and the booster. but, i don't care -- hello? host: i'm listening. what don't you care about? caller: i don't care if people have been vaccinated or not. [indiscernible] host: we are losing you a little bit on that line. i think we got your point. this is marian in grovetown, georgia. good morning. caller: merry christmas, happy holidays. in my family, this will be my second year that we are having a garage christmas. i keep the garage door open, because i moved to georgia to be near my grandchildren and my daughter and son-in-law. i keep the garage door open so i can have plenty of ventilation. last year, i had a little heater because it was chilly. fortunately, i live in a state

where it is warm. host: what does the weather look like saturday in grovetown? caller: 70 degrees. it will be perfect. it will be wonderful. i leave the garage door open and i put the little tree in their. i take one of the rugs and put it there and try to make as nice as it can be. it seems like everybody loves it. i put a table out so the kids can have treats. host: with that set up, do you require people to wear masks to come to the garage christmas? caller: they don't. i have my chair and i have my very good mass. i'm not going to make them. most of us are vaccinated. the two very young ones are not because they can't be. so, their family, i'm not going

to make them do it. it is so much ventilation. i have a really good mass. that way, i feel protected. i'm going to be close to the entrance of the garage where i have lots of ventilation. and i get where the unvaccinated are sick of it and everything. we have almost 800,000 people who are dead. i think of kentucky, whenever i think of people complaining about what we have to do to keep ourselves safe. all i have to do is think of the people in kentucky. now that is really devastation. and that is hardship. wearing a mask and looking out for our neighbors by doing the simple things like wearing a mask when you go into a store,

those are easy things. we have it easy. we are lucky we have a vaccine. we are lucky we have hand sanitizers. we are lucky we have these things. let's look at what we are grateful for this year and not fight each other. it's just so -- it is so distressing. host: that is marian in groton, georgia. last call for this segment, denise in florida. denise, are you with us? i'll give you one more try. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: yes, i'm at home for christmas by myself. i have not been vaccinated. i don't believe in it. i don't understand. i watch your program all the time read i don't understand why the therapeutics are not pushed. so many people are not aware of monoclonal antibody infusion therapy.

so many people could have been saved if they would have let them take hydroxychloroquine. doctors keep getting shut down. this doctor in texas got reprimanded for treating over 2000 people that they saved. host: you are alone this christmas. are their family members who are gathering? caller: yes. most of them are all up north. several of them have. my niece just got over covid. i just lost a cousin from it. 61 years old. no one ever tries the therapeutics. they don't know about it. and i think so many people could have been saved. it is just a crime. companies just want to make their money on this new merck

pill. people could have been saved two years ago. host: that is denise, denyse is our last call her in this first segment. when timor to talk about, including up next. we will to talk about his book, "i, citizen: a blueprint for reclaiming american self-governance" the last monthly payments for the expenditure out tax credit went out last week. we will talk about potential impacts with samuel hammond. we will be right back. ♪ >> sunday on q&a, catholic theologian, author, and distinguished senior fellow george weigle talks about the people he profiles in "not

forgotten." >> henri hyatt, sargent shriver, and others, lindsay boggs, these were people who went into public life and public service to get things done. some of them were sparkly speakers like henry. some of them were norwegians like scoop jackson. some of them were charmers, but they were all people who wanted to achieve things, not so much for themselves, but for their country, for the common good. >> george weigle, sunday night at 8:00 eastern. you can also listen to our podcasts on our new c-span now app. american history tv saturdays on

c-span2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at two alike p.m. eastern, the ronald reagan presidential inauguration on its 30th anniversary. speakers include condoleezza rice, david faria, and peter robinson. next year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of frederick homestead, the architect most famous for his work on new york city's central park. saturday at 3:15 coverage of a conference of his legacy including his the sky -- his design for college campuses. exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2 and find a full schedule or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> download c-span's new mobile

app and stay up-to-date with video coverage of the biggest political events from live streams of the house and senate floor thank you congressional hearings to white house events and supreme court oral argument, even our live interactive program "washington journal," where we hear your voices everyday. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free today. "washington journal" continues. host: our conversation now with tony woodlief. he is the author of the new book "i, citizen: a blueprint for reclaiming american self-governance" ." he is executive vice president at the state policy network. before we get to the book, explain what the mission is and how you go about doing your work. guest: we are an organization that supports over 65 state-based think tanks across the country and they work on a variety of economic policies and our goal is to restore authority

to states and communities so people can govern themselves more effectively. host: how do you do that? how do you work with those states and do you do much work with the federal government? guest: we do not do much work with the federal government. often we are on the other side suggesting that they stick to what they in solution only required to do -- constitutionally required to do. i'm in some cases, we help people who want to get a -- in some cases, we help people who want to get a think tank started. we show them how to raise money. in other cases, we are doing strategic guidance and consulting with groups and providing all kinds of training and development as we go and mostly helping them connect with each other because often an issue in one state is an issue in another state. during the pandemic we had this desperate need for healthcare workers, we worked with a lot of groups to help change laws or

modify laws so that people who are licensed healthcare workers from other states could provide healthcare in the state they are living in at the time which is ordinarily not allowed. host: reclaiming american self-governance, an issue you argue in your book and an issue for americans in every state. the book is "i citizen," if you want to take a look at it. when did america lose it and where and how did we lose it? guest: that is a good question. i hit at that a bit in the book. i look at how the founders intended for us to govern ourselves and our communities.

over time, what has happened is that we have seen the power that was intended for states and communities re-situated into washington, dc and it settled in the hands of people who were largely not elected. our legislature, the congress does less and less work. agencies do more and more work and interpret the laws as they see fit and the people who are left out our we the people. we do not get a vote on all kinds of things that the founders intended for us to decide for ourselves. host: you argue in the book that we are more united than divided. for viewers who see poll after poll about political polarization, how can that be the case? guest: the first part of the book, i was really troubled by a narrative i hear from pundits on the left and the right, which is that we are bitterly divided nation.

half of us democrats, half republicans. we hate each other. when you get into the polling data, which is widely available, anyone can look at it, reputable polling data, most americans are not that invested in politics. there are certainly not that invested in a political party. they are not that ideology goal. they tend to be center-right. people who are bitterly valid -- bitterly divided our people i call -- are people i called the political flacks. those kinds of people are the ones that are utterly divided. but they tell us that we are the problem but they are the problem and more often than not, their advocates for taking authority from communities and putting it in d.c. so people like ourselves can decide how we live our lives. host: this might be one of my

favorite paragraphs talking about the political class you are just referring to. this is what you write. "i'm going to say some unpleasant things about the political class, politicians, flunkies, spokesmen, and various hangers on. just because i believe the political class behaves apprehensively as a whole, that does not mean i think every single person is reprehensible. there are some fine people in public service caught in a system they want to change just as much as we want to see a change, but there is also a flock of espers. i trust you will know deep down which of the two you are and i invite you to take as much offensive you deserve -- offense as you deserve." how much of the work is involved with people in the political class? guest: often, we are working with people at the state level. we have interacted with folks at

the federal level trying to get them to change laws and regulations that impinge on state and community authority. more often than not, we are working with people of the state level. if you look at state legislatures, they are just as polarized as congress in terms of democrats, liberal republicans, very conservative or whatever passes for conservative for the republican party, but they get along much better than congress does. they are able to pass budgets. they have much more bipartisan legislation than congress is able to produce. in general, you find at the state level state legislators tend to be much more responsive to their communities than congress as a whole. i think you see that reflected in polls where americans have trust in congress and d.c. but they have a reasonable amount of trust in state legislators. host: tony woodlief is our guest. the book, "i, citizen: a

blueprint for reclaiming american self-governance" ." phone lines are open for viewers to join the conversation. (202) 748-8000 if you are democrat. (202) 748-8001 if you are republican. one of the first time you read the constitution? guest: i read the constitution locked in my room by my mother. i can never understand her politics. what happened was my dog got loose when i was about nine years old. i saw my dog across the field and i saw a dogcatcher parking his truck and it became a race between me and the dogcatcher to see who would get to my dog first and i won. i am holding onto my dog and he

pulls out this clipboard and starts asking me questions about where i live, what my name is, what my parents names are and my mother comes dashing across the field and she just let him have it and called him an agent of the state and he has no right to question anyone without a parent present. she just laid into him. i felt bad for him. she scared him off. i never saw him again. she is my hero. she is walking a back to the house and i thought i would get ice cream. instead, she starts yelling at me and she whips out a constitution out of the silverware drawer. what kind of woman keeps a constitution in the silverware drawer? my mother. she said, go to your room and did not come out until you have read the whole thing. you should never just cooperate with the government just because they tell you. that was my first reading of the constitution. i did not quite understand it,

but i have been interested ever since. host: in cooperating with the government, how has that translator your view on that in a time of covid, of vaccine mandates, showing vaccination cards to get into restaurants and gyms, a trend that is increasing in cities around the country. what is your feeling on those public health mandates? guest: at a broader level, i have learned an anti-authoritarianism from my mother. i came to believe that authority is a good thing when it is earned, when it comes from competence and good intentions. the reality is most americans when you ask them do you believe your government intends well to argue, has your best interest at heart, most do not believe that and i think was good reason. -- with good reason.

we are desperate for people who have the competence to help us navigate things like covid and recession and wars and rumors of wars. we are desperate for people who are competent and well-meaning and the truth is that time and again our public officials, especially at the federal level, have failed us in that regard. they look at us like we are the ones with the problem. the truth is we are happy to trust people who show competence, who can be relied on to tell the truth and not manipulate and i think too often we have gotten the opposite from public officials and we are fed up. host: plenty of callers for you. we will start with jb out of arkansas. good morning. caller: good morning. it is interesting that this man would be on right after this discussion we just had about the vaccine and who wants to take it and who does not. his point of view, is anti-authoritarianism, is that correct?

guest: i believe in authority when it is earned and well-intentioned. caller: i often thought that trying to run america would be like trying to herd cattle. contrast that with china, a communist country. they have one government. everybody is a communist. they have one race of people. they are all chinese. over here, we have mixed races and groups. look at china today. that is where this covid started. but you never hear anything about china having it anymore. all you hear is they have defeated covid over there and i maintain the reason is they do what they are told to do. if they don't do it, they will

wind up in mongolia. host: would you prefer that system? caller: no, i would not prefer it. i am contrasting that with america. the reason we cannot beat this stuff over here is because everybody is going in a different direction. but over there, they are one group, they are told what to do and they do it. guest: the first thing i think of is alexander spoke to me some years ago, he wrote that he wished people in the west would distinguish between the russian people who are under the sum of their government and the soviet government and i think that applies to china. i'm trying to think in terms of the brutal oppressive chinese communist party that rules that country. that is multiethnic. and the people who have to comply where they are brutalized. in terms of the chinese government as having a lot of problems, i think you have your

finger on something. it is incredibly hard to govern a diverse country. one of the strengths that the founders imparted to us if we would just take advantage of it is federalism, the ability for communities to make decisions for themselves and when we look at the record, especially when the team members cool, we look at the record on covid, we will see incredible failures at these centralized federal institutions like the cdc, the fda, inability to produce a test in time, bottlenecks, lawsuits against private providers tried to come up with their own versions of testing and therapies. our previous caller mentioned trying to force everyone into one kind of approach to dealing with covid versus an open approach with therapeutics and everything else. i think that we see when we centralize these kinds of solutions, we get worse outcomes than when we allow for

problem-solving. host: gary also in the tar heel state on the one for republicans. go ahead. caller: actually it is gray. i am one third of the way through mr. woodlief 's book and he had me on the reaction to a french opinion piece in the atlantic. anytime we can go against the twitter class, i think we are doing great things for political discourse in this country. i think that the echo chamber that the district has become is kind of scary. you can look back sometimes and envision how this thing like the hunger games started because the way the world's view inside the beltway compared to the way it is viewed in the rest of the nation, the way mr. woodlief described, it is dark and we need to be more like the hinterlands and less like d.c. host: the want to talk about the

reference to the interview that the caller referred to? guest: that is a great name. a very north carolinian name. i talk a bit about, the average french -- david french and as recline, they each wrote a book on polarization. they have a very grim view of regular americans. they both seem to believe that we are on the verge of civil war and the problem resides with us. what i have seen in the data is the problem is not regular americans. they are not on the verge of civil war. they are not going to pick up their guns and start shooting each other. what bothers me about both of their books, they are both incredibly smart and gentle, nice people. but it did not seem to strike either of them that their roles as pundits, as advocates within the two major parties might have

helped stoke some of the polarization that we do see among the roughly 1/5 of americans who are hardcore partisans on the left and the right. instead, they seem to think that the problem is inherent and americans themselves, whether it is some kind of deep-seated anger or racism or whatever it may be. i think that the political class , the pundits, and people who lead us would benefit from some reflection on their role in this country has become and maybe do a better job of leading us out of this place by first fostering some tolerance and generosity of spirit toward the other side. host: florida, this is cheryl on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. this is cheryl. i am from florida. i am not embarrassed about my name. i had the moderna shot, one shot in three weeks later, i got the

infection around my heart. am i on the air? host: you probably turned down your tv because it is easier to talk through the phone. what is your question for tony woodlief as we talk about the topics from his book? caller: my question is i had one moderna shot. i ended up with -- i have a masters degree. i had one shot of moderna. three weeks later, i am in the hospital with an infection. they found the virus in the enzyme. i had a mild heart attack. they had to put two stents in my heart. my kidneys are failing. i now have cancer back. what is this question -- i cannot get a second shot and i am to take those pills because i do not know the contradictions. where am i now? host: cheryl, tony woodlief

worked at the state policy center. not a medical doctor. mr. woodlief, is there anything you want to address? guest: first of all, i am sorry that you are going through this. i cannot imagine how difficult that is. we dealt with cancer in my household this past year and covid takes it far worse -- makes it far worse. with all of the isolation, you feel alone. the only thing we have to fall back on is what is in our communities, friendships, families, churches, other kinds of groups we might be part of. that is where our help will lie. one of the things i'm am encouraging people to think about in my book is how can we rebuild these local communities and relationships, turn off rtd's, not this program of course, but turn off our tv's

and start relating to our neighbors because that is how we are going to start figuring out how to deal with the tragic letter inherent in our lives. -- the tragedies that are inherent in our lives. host: when it first came to the house and senate, was that a good thing? guest: i can tell you have read the book. i am of two minds. on the one hand, i believe you shine a light and you see what is going on so i do like that aspect of what c-span has done. what i talk about in the book and i recommended the c-span archives to everyone because it is fascinating. you can see contentious debates. it is so much fun. what i point out in the book is that when we begin to televise the proceedings of congress, we promoted a certain kind of behavior. we begin to reward a certain kind of behavior and republicans and democrats began to take advantage of that. you begin to give an advantage

to what we call the show horses over the workhorses. now we have reached a place, a lot of other changes in how we do politics, where the show horses can go out and raise money, and they do not need c-span so much to do this. they can raise their money from high dollar and low dollar idea logs on the left and the right and those of the people they feel compelled to represent, the extremes versus the mass in the center that is not that interested in that ugliness that we see more and more of in congress. i would not blame c-span. it would be more appropriate to blame all of the other kinds of changes in how we do politics that facilitated the show horse but you can see the beginnings of the show horse and in one of the very first televised speech is that you can read about in

the book. host: you can watch on c-span archives, al gore with that speech on the floor of the house. the debate around cameras in the supreme court, what are your feelings on live coverage, life cameras -- live cameras? would that be a good thing? guest: i think it would be a terrible idea. i cannot remember which justice said just recently. he or she pointed out that they can go to the grocery store and most people will not recognize them and that is probably for the best kind that they have some semblance of a normal and quiet life. when you read about the supreme court, you see the efforts from people who are appointed by democrats and republicans to maintain a commenty with one another, to get along and try to protect the constitution. once you put cameras in their, you create -- once you put

cameras in there, you create temptation that you don't want to create. host: we should note some the c-span archives, tony woodlief's appearances, his first dating back to 2010 when he was talking about interpreting the u.s. constitution, talking about the bill of rights and the constitution. that you can watch or you can give him a call this morning as he appears about 11 years later here this morning on mr. hammond ." -- here this morning on "washington journal." caller: i have two statements. the united states with your philosophy, we would still have slave states. a patriot puts the united states, not the state of texas, not the state of florida. if you can remember, texas at one point during the obama administration wanted to secede the union. what you are saying is

impossible to credit. guest: first of all, referring back to my point about china, i think you have to differentiate between whoever has the majority in texas. i do not they get anytime a majority of texans have wanted to secede. i suspect the people who talk about it or not that serious about it either. there is plenty of room for federalism without going back to the horrible practice of slavery . one of the things we modified the constitution that we put in the 14th amendment and the 13th of may meant -- the 13th amendment was a way to extend the rights of the founders intended for all human beings so that they applied to all human beings and there is still work to be done there. when you concentrate power in the hands of people in a distant city who are mostly unaccountable to the electorate, that is when you are going to see continued abuse of regular

people of all races and creeds. what i am advocating is a democratic approach where we put authority back into states and communities and let we the people make decisions while respecting individual rights, of course. but allow communities to make decisions in a democratic fashion. one of the things i talk about in my book is a law passed by congress. federal agencies past 27 regulations with the full force of law and these are unelected people and that is not how this country is supposed to be governed. host: roy on twitter. "is there any country in this world that has become so enamored with libertarianism that they have abandoned the idea of it takes a village to raise a child? his rugged individualism the right approach." guest: two separate and fascinating questions and i hope i do not bumble them both. i am not familiar with any libertarian country that has

thrown away the ideas of community and common good and those sorts of things. we have different ways of talking about them, of course. you are talking to somebody, like i said at the beginning, i am raised by a libertarian and anarchist. i consider myself a conservative. i am an independent. i do not think you can get away from community. even my most libertarian friends still need community. where they differ is how much authority people should have over them. of course, the tension is to be in community is to bind yourself to other people and to create obligations for yourself. and most people choose to do that because the benefits of humidity are tremendous -- the benefits of community are tremendous. the more authority we can place in communities, the more choice we have.

if you don't want to live in san francisco with the kinds of regulations and rules that san franciscans would like you can move to austin, charlotte, greensboro, north carolina and be among people who want to govern themselves the way you would like and we have that opportunity under federalism. but you do not have that once you've got a one-size-fits-all rules, from unelected people in the imperial city of washington, dc. host: tony's question maybe think of this passage. "political identity is a distant priority behind identifiers like parent, child, sibling, parishioner, neighborhood, even bass fishermen. too many of our citizens are political class and make political identity all-encompassing." what is the blueprint to fix that? guest: what i tried to get at is -- and we can talk about it here , there is a minority of

americans for home their political identity is extremely important by their own report. my fear is that that is growing, that number is growing. once you get to a critical mass with those kinds of people on the left and the right, we are in trouble because there is an intolerance. they are more concerned with beating the other side than doing what is right. how do we resist that temptation when media rewards it, money rewards it. the most contentious kinds of people succeed in american politics today, how do we resist that? what i argue in the last part of the book is we have to reach out to our neighbors. the very first thing i say is love your neighbor and i talk about what that means because love is not just a feeling. it is what you do. truly, love your neighbor. get to know your neighbors. and extend that into your communities and into your towns

and cities and figure out how to begin to solve problems together because then you are thinking in those other identities, neighbor, friend, townsmen, we are getting past the idea of democrat and republican and thinking about citizenship, which is what we are supposed to do and the ironic thing is i believe when we begin to gather together and have arguments about how our communities should be governed, that is when we begin to bond more closely. when we are locked in disagreement, we begin to bond more closely as fellow citizens versus shouting at each other across the divide and letting the partisans in d.c. decide everything for us. host: the book "i citizen." this is ann out of arizona.

good morning. caller: i'm not sure if you are affiliated with the american legislative exchange council, the agency that is writing the legislation in the states whereby the state legislatures have decided that they might overrule the will of the people. despite the results of an election, they might send their own slate of electors and ignore the will of the people. what is your position on that? i understand what you are saying about we should all be citizens, but it is very difficult to be living in an environment where some people are fed the kool-aid of fox news news on a daily basis and they are living in an alternate reality where 5g networks are going to infect as and the socialists are going to

rain down communism on our country. what is your position? according to the constitution, there is no real popular vote for the president of the united states. do you support that and do you think state legislators should be able to ignore an election and appoint their own electors? i have a little bit of experience with our legislature in this area. guest: i did not want to speak authoritatively on what is going on in arizona because i do not know. i can tell you that some of the research that i have done and some of my colleagues have done into election laws at the state level more broadly, we see widespread support among americans for both doing what we can to create maximum access to the ballot. that means extending hours that the polls are open, allowing for mail-in ballots, those kinds of things. a large majority of americans favor that to her and they also

favor things like voter id to confirm that it is one person and it is being properly counted. it should not surprise us. they want some of what the democrats are arguing for and some of what the republicans are arguing for. what we see from the parties on the other hand is talking about elections, but really it feels to most of us like what they are doing is trying to find a little edge over one another because for them, the most important thing is not represented the people, it is winning -- not representing the people. it is winning. when you look at how the founders set up elections, and they did not set it up so that you have a popular vote for president. all through the constitution, what they are trying to do is empower people and communities to govern themselves, to not have a king, but we the people, but at the same time put in roadblocks so that at the passion of the moment and we are at our natural prejudices, we

have roadblocks to slow us down and to guarantee that we have the broadest possible majorities deciding things. that is some of the reason you have this indirect election, state legislators deciding senators. the thought was if you put state authorities in charge of some of these things, they would better represent the interests of the full state in those decisions and if you have a popular vote, winner take all approach to every single office. host: this is gary out of east brunswick, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you kindly. i appreciate what you are doing, but let me state something. i live in jersey which has something in common with north carolina. what does it have in common? both governance one of the

democrats, one of the republicans in north carolina. they do not represent my values. the state has a right to do what they want to do. in new jersey, the sitting governor is a retired investment banker. he does not represent my values. i spent 40 years in critical research. in north carolina, the sitting lieutenant governor was in the newspaper, a local newspaper, making an anti-semitic remark that the juice controlled the economy. you say we the people, we the people. you have a governor in new jersey, a republican, a very nice man. but now you have a democrat, a retired investment banker who does not represent the people. host: do you mind if i ask, you mentioned your values.

how would you describe your values? caller: they are capitalist. why do i have to pay $6,000 for care that is not covered by medicare? i do not believe in the electoral vote. i believe the popular vote. you have written a great book, but it is we the people. not we the state legislatures. guest: there is a lot going on. i have to correct the record and i appreciate your passion. the governor of north carolina is a democrat. the attorney general, i am not familiar with any anti-semitic statements. he is also democrat, but it would not surprise me if he said anything like that. i think back to the question of popular control. from the founders point of view, our state legislatures are supposed to represent we the people so we send them to the state capital and they are going to make the decisions and we trust them with that.

if we don't like it, we can kick them out and they are easier to kick out than a member of congress. that was the reasoning behind having some of these roadblocks and not just having pure democracy. one point you are getting at and i think a lot of people feel your frustration. we look at who is in office. we say, this person does not represent my values and quite often, we are right. you mentioned your medical cost. healthcare cost is the leading cause of bankruptcy for households in america. the two major parties give us either government run healthcare or none. most americans want something. let's have a solution, but the two parties cannot figure that out. why? because they tend to recruit candidates who are not like us, but who are like them, more extreme, and they tend to serve the interests of the activists and large party donors that control what they are doing. on many problems, immigration,

healthcare, crime, we see this. it is very clear. americans favor a centrist solution. neither party will compromise to give us that. host: throughout your book, you are pretty down on federal agencies, but there is a couple of federal agencies that you advocate for more resources to be put towards. what makes the congressional budget office, the government accountability office, what makes those different? guest: what i am getting at is i have mentioned a massive increase in rulemaking by federal agencies. congress is supposed to oversee their activity. i tell a number of stories in my book that are outrageous abuse of regular people in america by federal agencies with no intervention by congress whatsoever. congress is not doing their job. part of the reason they are not as they are tremendously outnumbered by the number of

federal agencies and their employees. what we saw unfortunately in the 1990's and this was largely under republicans, was reduction in manpower and budget for the independent agencies that are supposed to provide research and data for members of congress can do their jobs. we also saw that memories of congress began to hire fewer policy experts and more communications experts so they can do the show horse thing inside of the workhorse thing. they largely aggregated their responsibility. one small thing we can do, with a relatively small amount of money, is to beef up agencies that can provide information to congress about what the federal agencies are doing, how they are spending their money, how they are interpreting the law. that would correct the imbalance of power we see right now

between the congress and the executive branch. host: this is dorothy out of raleigh. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to give you a quick suggestion and then i will ask a question. you know what would be really good if you all would have someone from your network to do a survey and see what the people actually want. not the ones that are doing fine , but the ones that say that the seniors need hearing aids or people saying what they need. get what they say they need and bring it up as to which politicians are talking about fixing it. not just talking in general, but who was talking about fixing it. to go back to the gentleman, what you are saying, i agree with. but just like the people said, it seems like the politicians are picking us. we are not taking them. they are telling us what they think we need, but we need to

tell them what we need and then they need to give us solutions. not generalizing, we are going to give you healthcare. we want solutions. how are you going to do it? how are you going to give the seniors enough money to get hearing aids or teeth or eyeglasses? can you put it in there? we all pay taxes. all of us. even children if you go to the store and buy something. we keep allowing politicians to choose us instead of us choosing them and we are not choosing them for the right reasons. we are not choosing them. when we have problems, we don't make them tell us -- just like if i go to school and take a test to be a doctor. i have two tell how i am going to do things. i have to explain it and have a plan, a serious plan. we do not let that happen. that is why politicians divide us. guest: i had to restrain my

amens. i agree. i need to take notes. i think you are right. we see for example the party leads, there is research that shows they tend not to recruit candidates for office so the farm team that becomes your congressman, your senators, they tend not to recruit people that are like us. they recruit people who are more extreme or temperamentally extreme. if you think about the presidential debate, we used to have substantive debates for hours. they would question each other and have opportunity for remarks. now it has been reduced to this comedy where you have to get your soundbite in niskanen center -- soundbite in in 15 seconds or less. what we are doing right now is an exception to a goes on and television in terms of the discourse in this country. we have made everything a soundbite and that favors the

people who do not have solutions because anybody can dance around for 15 seconds and look good on camera. but when you have extensive time explaining what you want to do and having a smart person asking hard questions, that would really root out some of the show horses and maybe give us more candidates who actually have some solutions that will work. host: just a few minutes left in the time we have. thursday, you are a bigger fan than the state government -- bigger fan of the state government than the federal government. i wonder how you feel about states that are going through the redistricting process and the gerrymandering that we see on both sides every 10 years in that process. much of that people feel is politicians picking us. guest: that's right. there is a good argument for having these districting decisions be made by bodies that

are ultimately accountable to the voters. there is a good argument for putting that power in the hands of legislatures. the challenge, because our state legislatures are just as polarized as congress, the challenge is that these party animals, what they see every 10 is the opportunity to adjust the boundaries to benefit themselves for the next decade. they are not thinking in terms of what is the best way to represent the entirety of the state, the liberals in texas, the conservatives in new jersey. how do we construct our districts so that we can give full and fair representation to everyone in the state? it is a conundrum and it comes back to the reality that the two major parties are largely steered by small minorities of ideologically extreme people who are more concerned with establishing the dominance of

their party and beatty the other side than with representing the people they claim to represent. host: the book once again, "i, citizen: a blueprint for reclaiming american self-governance." the author is tony woodlief and has been with us for the past 45 minutes. come back and talk to us again down the road. guest: thanks for having me. host: up next, we will talk about the child tax credit payments. the last of those payments going out last week. congress leaving town without extending those. we will talk about what it all means with samuel hammond. stick around for that discussion. we will be right back. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing the latest nonfiction books.

at 8:35 eastern, in her book "bad news," the author argues that journalism has become a profession for elites with radical ideas who are out of touch with mainstream americans. at 10:00 p.m. eastern, journalist farah stockman talked about her book, "american made," which examines the impact of u.s. companies moving overseas. she is interviewed by the executive editor of the economic hardship reporting project. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2. find the full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. ♪ >> next week starting sunday, the summer 26, watch "washington journal" special holiday week

author series featuring live segments each morning with a new writer. on sunday, jonathan alter with his book. monday, former democratic turned independent senator joe lieberman with "the centrist solution." on tuesday, economist and activist heather mcgee with her book, "the sum of us." wednesday, former presidential candidate andrew yang with "forward: notes on the future of our democracy." on thursday, dr. scott discusses his book "uncontrolled spread." on friday, community activists bob woodson with his book, "red, white, and black." be sure to watch "washington journal" next week starting

sunday december 26 with our special holiday week author series on c-span or on our new mobile video app c-span now. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: we turn now to the future of the expanded child tax credit. our guest samuel hammond, the poverty and welfare policy

director at the niskanen center. explain what the niskanen center is and how you are funded. guest: the niskanen center is a moderate think tank in washington, dc founded in 2014. we come from a heterodox perspective with folks from the left and the right. i do not want to attest for my fellow think tankers, but we have moderate republicans, centrist democrats, and we try to find trans-partisan policy solutions, things that can bridge the gap rather than split the difference. host: how is your group funded? guest: predominantly by foundations. we are fully committed to funding transparency unlike many other nonprofit organizations. just go to our website and on the about page, we have a full list of our donors from the

largest to the smallest. host: samuel hammond, the poverty and welfare policy director there. the expanded child tax credit not continued to go past the new year, expected to end december 31. what does that mean for folks who have been receiving those monthly payments? guest: it means a lot of uncertainty. i have been a longtime advocate of the child tax credit going back to my opening remarks, as a trans-partisan policy solution to bridge the gap between left and right. on the left, you have the anti-poverty advocates who appreciate the power of the child tax credit. early estimates put the impact at 40% reduction in child poverty rates. some actual real data, 30%, but still significant. on the right, you have had folks like senator mitt romney propose their own version of the child tax credit, very similar to what

the biden proposal has put forward, but from a more profamily perspective to say this is a way of showing up families, making them stronger and reducing divorce rates. we saw during the pandemic a spike in child abuse and neglect, from income instability in households. that is one of the many ways where a benefit like the child tax credit can help by making families more stable. that stability comes from the fact that it is predictable. it is a monthly payment at the middle of every month. that makes it easier to plan, is he, easy to pay rent. -- easy to budget, easy to pay rent. people do not know the ins and outs of why the credit is expiring and maybe they will pass an extension and do it retroactively. in the interim, there will be people who wake up in january and say i am expecting money and why is it not arriving.

and that is going to sew uncertainty. host: a quick refresher on the child tax credit, it boosted the tax credit that was already available from $3000 to $2000 and that was just for the 2021 tax year. establish monthly payments beginning in july and expiring this month. the second half of that payment comes when families file their 2021 tax returns. the mild -- the amount of money, if you get the full credit, $300 a month for each child under six, $250 for each child 17 years old. in terms of impacts on families, what do we know about what that has meant for families who have received it for the past takes -- past six months? guest: the first payments began in july of last year or this year. the very first census, the

survey counted a three percentage point drop in food insecurity. we know from other studies that increasing the child tax credit leads directly to expenditures on childcare, rent, food, retail goods. that leads to improvements in child educational outcomes, health outcomes. it is particularly important during the pandemic with school closures and daycare closures as parents rushed to find alternative forms of childcare. the flex will benefit of the child tax credit has aided families in having a full range of options. with this expiration, there is an enormous amount of uncertainty and going back to my previous point, the stability factor of the child tax credit is one of the most underrated features. it is one of the reasons why it is a monthly benefit, it is much easier to budget than if you are

just expecting an annual tax refund. with that expiration, there is going to be new sources of household instability. the first order is the gains in poverty reduction will be reversed. 30% reduction in child poverty rates. more importantly, the broader effects, not just how we measure poverty in some statistic. the effects on internal household well-being. many cities have pointed out the effects on maternal mental health, the parental rate of depression and exciting decrease when you expand the child tax credit. very few positives. host: we have heard from viewers on the child tax credit. interested to hear your story. that number (202) 748-8002.

otherwise, call in on phone lines regionally. (202) 748-8000 eastern and central time zone. (202) 748-8001 mountain and specific time zones. democrats trying to move a larger extension of the child tax credit in the build back better act. that has not been passed. how much discussion was there about pulling the child tax credit out? how much support does this program specifically have? could it be enough to pass on its own? guest: i definitely think so. the challenge that democrats have faced with the build back better plan is they are trying to do half a dozen things with the money for only two or three things. there has been this internal debate, do we do a bunch of stuff only partly funded or do we do two or three things really well?

it is one of the points of contention that senator manchin has raised, but it is a valid point. if we expect the child tax credit to be a permanent fixture of social policy, funding it for one year and pretending we are not going to renew with the next year does not make a lot of sense. the real struggle has been internal to what gets cut and instead we have this number, $1.75 trillion, that they are trying to fit everything into under that relatively arbitrary line. they will fund things in a more permanent way and they will have to make sacrifices. there has been a debate about what gets cut. the child tax credit has bipartisan support. it was most recently expanded by the trump administration. that double date, a fairly -- that doubled it, a fairly similar increase.

that goes back to the child track -- to the contract for america. there is strong bipartisan support. you could see senator romney push for his own plan. senator romney tweeted the other day, let's get this done. the child tax credit is too important to let go by the wayside due to internal fighting. let's do something genuinely bipartisan. i would love to see that. host: you mentioned senator joe manchin. he was on metro west virginia news talking about the child tax credit and some of his ideas for maybe changing who and how that credit is distributed. this is joe manchin. [video clip] sen. manchin: there is nothing about accountability. there is no work requirement. there is no testing to where you are talking to people who really need it. do you believe people making

$200,000 and $400,000 would get the same child tax credit as people making $60,000? we have children living with grandparents and with the assistance that we give through the welfare system, don't you think we could target that child and make sure the money follows the child so that the grandparent who is raising the child, they are getting the money and if the parents are not capable? so many things we can fix but they will not even talk about. we have been way far apart philosophically. host: on some guest: i think there is a bit of internal tension to the two things he mentioned. he also mentions ensuring the credit for the child should go to the grandparents raising the child.

many grand parents don't work. this has been one of the tough notes to crack. how do you impose a work requirement on the 8% of kids being raised by their grandparents. the real revolution and policy behind the child credit has been making it fully refundable. receiving almost relative same amount regardless of income. that allows the credit to go to students, to grandparent, to households headed by disabled vehicle -- disabled parents, folks without normal taxable income. that has been really important. any policy that any kind of test that you bring in will inherently be difficult to administer especially on a monthly base this. this is one of the trade-offs that had been made. i totally agree with them.

$200,000 to $400,000 does not really need government assistance of any kind. that child credit was part of the jobs act and was a trump era expansion. the biden expansion is concentrated on households making less than $150,000 a year. most of the relative increase has been on the bottom quintile. host: let you chat with a few callers. michael is up first on the line for families who have received the child tax credit. caller: thanks for having me. for me, i can say personal experience, the cdc has been probably one of the greatest things to come out of washington or a very long time. i am in school, i'm in the reserves and that extra $250 a month goes the distance.

every penny helps. the fact it is going to end in december, it breaks my heart and hurts. it makes tightening the belt a little bit harder. host: what were you able to do over the past six months with that that you don't think you will be able to do come 2022? caller: it went to childcare, groceries. i'm going to have to -- my grandparents are going to have to help more which is going to take away from stuff they need to do. my in-laws are going to have to help more. they work full-time. they are a dual income household. a ripple effect is going to affect everyone's lives i don't know.

i don't want to put words in people's mouths, but it seems like a very easy policy to keep going that has clear good benefits and people would rather play football with it instead. host: thanks for the call. guest: as you mention, he is a student. this is one of the big misconceptions about poverty. framing the top -- child tax credit is an antipoverty measure. it is but it is not only an antipoverty measure. when you frame it in that way, i think it is framed with this kind of rhetoric and there surely is a population of generational poor who need all kinds of generational services -- and it kinds of services. most people with zero income are not poor at all. there are people who are in school, out of the labor force for valid reasons and they still have childcare costs. it is one of the arithmetic of

having kids. the market does not pay you more because you have kids but you have this extra dependent you need to feed and educate. it is something governments have long recognized needs additionally. i think the very first allowance was a simple -- similar concept. the u.s. has been playing catch up in this respect. we have had a child tax credit for a long time but has not always reached households it needs. if you're 21, 22, 23 having kids, you are not necessarily paying taxes that need a tax credit. we need a way to direct the resources to help told -- household the child tax credit is a really elegant way of doing that.

the u.s. government in particular is not the most confident -- competent organization in the world but there are some things the government does well. sending out monthly payments is one of those things. i don't expect the u.s. government to centrally plan and economy, but they can definitely get payments and money in the pockets of ordinary americans. host: how much does it cost to run the program for six months? what would it cost to run the program for 10 more years? guest: the all in annual cost of the child tax credit is about 100 billion dollars. for budgeting reasons, there is a lot of technical details that we can get into because of some of that money is already budgeted. some of that money like the budget number can be reduced. as a rule of thumb, think $100

billion a year. host: david, you are next. caller: i just have a couple of quick points so please don't cut me off. i like this program, it sounds very good, but i have three quick points. where does this government assistance and -- end? we have the earned income tax credits, food stamps, where does it end? why don't you have this program and cut out some of the other programs? they relabeled food stamps called snap so there is no stigma. you get a debit card so you don't have to plot the food stamps while you are in line. even talking about $150,000 cap, that is way too high when the median income is about 52,000 a year.

my third point is, where is the work requirement? you're just going to keep giving people money? this is going to make them dependent upon government. since when is it the government's responsibility to finance your kids? this has got to stop at some point. host: thanks for the comment. guest: i think the caller makes very valid points. i did a little work on senator romney's proposal and it was paid for by cutting and consolidating other programs. i think when you do a big expansion like this, that is the opportunity to do some cleaning up of existing programs because you have an opportunity to make sure everyone stays whole.

in some ways democrats are squandering the opportunity because they are taking a purely additive approach. the childcare piece in particular and i have been very critical because i think they're poorly designed. one of the virtues of the child tax credit is it leaves the paternalism to the parents. it leaves full choice. you can pay grandma, hire a babysitter or church daycare. this is one of the chip -- tricky things as we learned early on it was going to be very difficult for churches and other faith-based organizations to access that money because of red tape. giving parents money directly is often the most efficient and easy way to get around those problems.

i do think it is important that the credit extend well into the middle class again to extol this is not purely an antipoverty program but recognizing family per se. $150,000 is well above the middle class. i think it could easily come down. one of the other solitary things about the child tax credit is it is this broad-based flexible benefit in contrast to programs like snap. i think there are benefits to having low income folks, middle income folks and higher income folks all be benefiting from the same common program just like we do in social security. then we pull our stakes together.

for some families, they turned to traditional welfare not because they are poor, not because -- the big difference between being poor and broke, i was broken college but we were not poor. we were high earners not yet rich. we had a lot of upper mobility. at that point in time, we did not have much money in our pockets and that is true for a lot of families. 25% of people who turned to welfare programs do so because they have a child and having a child should not be a risk factor for falling into poverty. this families are just broke and need a little bit of extra money. the child credit is helping triage those resources to people who need it because many families just need income

support, the extra money in our pocket to make a budget. other families need those social services that traditional welfare programs can provide. as to the work requirement debate, i think it actually -- i think it is a very valid concern. we saw from the old welfare program that a poorly designed program can lead to dependency. the issue with the old welfare program and this is what some folks get confused by is it was not the cash assistance per se that was causing dependency but if you earned a dollar, you lost a dollar. in some states, the rate was 90 to 100%. any earnings you received in the market came directly out of her welfare benefit. i'm one of those people who both favor a child allowance and inks

welfare forming in the 90's was necessary. that is a flat benefit. you don't lose the child tax credit if you earn more but you will start to lose it if you are earning well above $100,000. we know from empirical studies that the child tax credit does not discourage work and that it can even be work enabling. when the benefit was expanded dramatically in 2016, it was about twice the size is our day. they saw single mothers increase their labor participation by one percentage point. that is a pretty dramatic increase.

studies in the u.s. context -- that can be work enabling because you have somebody sitting on the sidelines. the child is making it very difficult for them to go and hand out resumes. host: i've got just about 15 minutes left with you and a lot of callers. let me get to a few of them. caller: good morning. i'm on disability and i get disability and i work at buffalo wild wings. i hope -- i'm on food stamps. what do you do about that? host: might be a little bit

different issue. guest: i think i understand his question. some benefits the u.s. government provides our taxable. unemployment insurance. many people got sticker shock when they realized after receiving months of unappointed insurance they actually had to pay taxes. the child tax credit is a tax refund. this has actually been a big piece of outrage to get people to sign up because people are worried that means they will lose eligibility. there should be no where on that account. caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm just interested in stuff and

how much money i spent for health insurance which is $22,000 a year but so many people are getting it for free and i see that all the time. as i understand from doctors, basically, you don't have to pay for having a baby when you are an illegal immigrant. if anybody gets free insurance, everybody should get free insurance. i have to ask you because you may or may not know and i don't believe anything the government says period. and if it is not true, it is just forgotten. my question to you is, to what

degree when we have so many illegal immigrants and i think we have almost 100 million in our nation, if they all have children and they don't pay for anything -- i make about $200,000 a year. am i going to be paying taxes that will support all of these illegal children? host: i think we got your point. guest: i dispute that there are 100 million undocumented immigrants in this country. that sounds too high to me. i think you raise a valid concern which is in programs like health care we have a very fragmented system. low income folks on medicaid who may not be paying anything in then people slightly above and may receive a tax credit through

obamacare. if you or someone just above the line, you looking down at people maybe not working at all and they are getting government benefits. so that we don't have these artificial divisions in our society. with the immigrant issue, this has been one of the bigger points of contention with the democratic opposable. the tax reform brought in a social security requirement tax credit for the parent. an immigrant family that had citizen children could still

receive the credit but noncitizen children could not unless they had a valid social security number. that was seen at the time as an important measure for enforcing the integrity of the program. when democrats are going to do with the ball but better plan is return the requirement for what is called an eye 10 identification number. these were created in the 90's to allow undocumented immigrants to pay their taxes. i think it is a little misleading because it is not something going back to the pretrial status quo because we are also making the child tax credit this unconditional benefit. there are no countries on earth that i know of that allow and document immigrants or even legal immigrants in their first year of residence to receive unconditional tax benefits. i think regardless of the policy

merits, this could easily inspire backlash. we dummy people popping out babies like the guys said as a fertility rate has taken a disturbing decline. it is important we build a wall around our welfare program. and not to induce any migration for non-valid reasons. host: this is linda. caller: good morning. if they just take what the american citizens want, they could get it through. host: what do you think the american citizens want when it comes to this issue?

caller: not all of this pork and all the crop that they want. i have got a friend and she is a single mother and because her husband because he could claim him on his income tax, he did not get nothing. her ex-husband gets it. she called the irs and those were the very words he told her. how is that possible? caller: -- guest: i don't know the specifics of this case. all i can say is in the case of the child tax credit, some of

the important reforms are in the build back better plan. under the status quo, to receive the child tax credit or receive the impact payments or tax credit, a child has to live with you or reside with you for six months of the year. for many families, that is just not the case. some families have split custody, have a child live with mom for three months, dad for three months, grandma for three months and the reforms would make it easier for credit to fall to the child between the households and reflect who is the caregiver at any point in time. i don't know the specifics of the anecdote, but i related to ensuring the benefit is better administered and can follow the child.

host: out to california. this is jim. caller: good morning. i would like to say that my firm belief is that this is a great program and should have regulations. i will give it an example. i'm 15-year-olds old -- i'm 50 years old and have been working on my life. i can no longer work because i have to take care of my mom. i have no job and it is tough for me to make an income and i can't afford to put them in an old folks home. people are not even making enough to give a standard of living wage and have the limits up so high and then you have people who come on like joe manchin and have work requirements which is crazy.

if you make too much money, you put 10% of what you make back into the program and you get people off the streets, you get the health insurance, money to pay for the rent and so forth. even a conditional living wage would be something we could focus on without having saul of this -- having all of this infighting. they all work for whoever is paying their bills. host: your thoughts? guest: in some ways, i strongly agree. you think about child allowances as a guaranteed income for kids. i would not go as far to say that we need a full andrew yang freedom division, but when you thing about the programs we have and why, we have social security

for retirees, people unable to work due to a disability, unemployment insurance for people who lost their jobs through no point -- no fault of their own. when you think about what is a common feature, these are programs that reflect people who through no fault of their own are unable to earn a market income or retired or who have dependents as the caller was mentioning that they have to care for and their dependent as modern-day market income. one of the primary rules of the transfer system is to provide income support to households who are unable to generate an income on their own. the capital system is amazing and creates the wealth and opportunity that allows us to afford these types of programs and i am fully in favor of it but we also have to recognize markets don't on their own

supplement your income just because you have a kid or a grandparent you are caring for. there are very strong high barriers to entry and once you're in the program, very strong incentives to exiting the program because it is conditioned on you not working. it also does not taxi or remove the benefit if you're working. it makes the administration -- host: time for one or two more phone calls. -- is going to be talking about his book next wednesday,

december 29. one more call for sam hammond. this is janie, evansville, indiana. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was just wondering if you guys were going to be seeing stimulus . my wife and i live under 10,000 -- $10,000 a year. you seem to be an intelligent guy and that is why i ask you. host: do you think that is better or worse? guest: with the inflation data that we have, all signs point to demand and the economy being very strong and most of the issues today are on the supply

chain rises. shortages of semiconductors and chips. as you mention, he lives on less than $10,000 a year and is drawing this ability insurance. many programs will have a dependent allowance. they tend to be $20 a week. one way you can think about the child tax credit is just doing a dependent allowance directly. we have other programs like

disability which should see an increase due to the relatively high rate of inflation. your next adjustment should be on the order of 5% or 6%. that is really just treading water because prices are also rising. a little bit of relief. caller: hello. this is ann from fresno, california. i believe some of the people that are coming in that i really confused about this child tax credit along with the senator that refused to go along with okaying it. the thing of it is that people are not getting paid off of this free money the way you guys are making it sound like the government is just putting out

payments to anybody. it is all based on your income tax return for your wages or pension retirement where you have the income between a spouse or whatever your assets may be. host: we will take a plane and give sam hammond the final minute and a half or so. guest: you do have to file a tax return. this is one of the collateral damages to the program not being renewed even if it does get renewed later next year. there will be a lapse in its administration and the irs has put a lot of effort into making applying for the child tax credit as easy as possible.

and to iterate on the design to make sure that bugs are being fixed and everybody who is eligible for the program is receiving it including through large overreach efforts that are enlisting nonprofits, community organizers, folks in the field to try to make sure everyone is aware of the program and knows how to apply for it. one of the things that is at jeopardy in not renewing is having those efforts hit a wall and having to redo it all over again in march or april. that is very disappointing. not the end of the world, but to me, it shows a little bit of a lack of seriousness on the part of lawmakers because we are doing this big transformative program but they cannot renew it because of petty infighting. there is a solution in sight if folks generally compromise and

learned that we cannot have every ring, that we have to focus on a couple of key priority issue areas and properly fund them. i think we will get a bill but it will look a little bit different than the bill we have right now which has six or seven different things and it all poorly funded. host: we will have to end it here. plenty more to talk about down the road. sam hammond, you can see his work at niskanencenter.org. host: just about 30 minutes or so left in our program today. we will end as we often do turning the program over to you. it is our open forum. you can start calling in great as usual, by political party. lines are on your screen. if you want to hear any political issue, go ahead and start calling in now and we will get to your calls after the break.

♪ >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. here many of those on c-span's new podcast. >> season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson. hear about the 1964 civil rights act, presidential campaign, the march on selma and the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly, johnson's secretaries knew because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. in fact, they were the ones who made sure the conversations were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's.

-- theirs. >> you will also hear blunt talk. >> i want a report of the number of people who signed kennedy the number he died and my mama less, i want them look -- mine are not less, i want them less real quick. i will stay behind these black gates. >> find on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> c-span offers a variety of podcasts for every listener. every week, book notes plus has in-depth interviews with writers about their latest works. the weekly uses audio from our immense archive to look at how issues of the day developed over years. our occasional series features

extensive conversations with historians about their lives and work. many of our television programs are also available as podcasts. find them all on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> sunday night on "q&a" catholic theologian and distinguished fellow george weigle talks about some of the people he profiles in "not forgotten." >> henry hyde, scoop jackson, sergeant schreiber and other portraits here, lindy boggs, longtime member of congress. these were people who went into public life and public service to get things done. some of them were sparkling speakers in which like henry hyde.

some of them were utter charmers like lindy boggs but they were all people who wanted to achieve things not so much for themselves, but for their country, for their constituents, the common good. >> george weigle sunday night on c-span's "q&a." you can also listen to all of our podcasts on the new c-span app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: once again, turning the program over to you in our open forum. let us know a public policy issue, political issue you want to talk about. phone lines as usual, republicans, democrats, independents. as you are calling in, two stories of note. president biden citing the pandemic said yesterday his

administration had extended the moratorium on student loan repayments by 90 more days denying that relief measure that began nearly two years ago under the trump administration. and then this story from up here on capitol hill, the house committee investigating the capital attacks asked congressman jim jordan to sit for interviews with investigators. it is the latest step in your time rights in the panel but members of congress played. two stories of note. we want to hear the stories important to you on our open forum lines. rita, independent, you are up first. caller: hello. i just kind of want to vent because i want people to start getting prosecuted for the insurrection. it is going to be one year and i don't want people to just get

five months probation. i think they should go to prison for years. treason is treason and years ago, i guess people were hung for pre--- for treason. that is kind of what i wanted to vent about. host: we heard yesterday at the white house press briefing that president biden is going to be marking the one-year anniversary of the attack on the capital on january 6 of 2022. no details yet released by the white house, but jen psaki sang yesterday he will market in some way, shape or form. what do you think would be appropriate for president biden to do? caller: i think what would be appropriate is to put some of the jim jordan and all these other ones involved in this, put them in jail. lock them up. host: that is rita in wisconsin.

this is victor in maryland. republican. caller: good morning. d.c. is the latest where you have to show your papers if you want to go to a restaurant, bar or gym. i thought i would never live to see this happening here in the usa. i know it was done in communist countries when i was growing up. i am sick and tired of this. i have had it. i won't wear a mask period. also, if the five none ministration thanks they are going to use this to postpone or stop the 2022 midterms, they have another thing coming. people are not going to stand for this. host: do you think that is in the works? caller: i would not put it past this administration. i don't trust them as far as i

can from my house. host: this is moses out of new york. line for democrats. caller: good morning. host: it is our open forum, what is on your mind? caller: i would like to know why c-span never deals with the core issue in this country which is satanic soulless jews. host: alright, we will move to jeana. caller: hi. i want to talk about this tax credit. i agree people who are working should get it but why are people getting welfare getting this money because it is free money, they don't hire -- file taxes so that our pay taxes. my problem is my husband has worked his whole life and cannot

even retire because he can't afford to. he just got informed that his health insurance was going up to $800 a month. we cannot afford it so we had to drop it. right now, he does not even have health insurance. i want to know why the workingman cannot even get decent health insurance but welfare people can get everything for free. it is not right. it is not fair. my husband is also a veteran. and it is not right and i cannot understand why the government is doing everything for all of the freebies and people who don't work but does nothing for the workingman who pays everything. host: this is herbert out of michigan. caller: good morning. i just have a couple of comments. the first is the first lady that called on this insurrection, i agree with her 100%.

i also don't think people should be able to sue to stop the investigation about them. as far as all of the inflation right now, we had this for three years now. this was all because of trump's tariffs. every product in this country in my opinion with through the roof because of this. this is why there is over 180 of the largest corporations in the country have sued the trump administration and the suit is still against the biden administration to remove the tariffs. people don't realize what happened. that is about all i have to say right now. host: ernesta. turn your television down and speak through your phone. caller: i'm calling from augusta, georgia. my concern is i am really praying for america and i am not

much of a religious man. to see somebody tried to overthrow the government and is still walking the street with a chance he could do it again, people, the uneducated -- maybe we have to blame the educational system. for people to be so ignorant. a man thinks someone should go to kill the vice president and walk the street. and nothing should be done. a country without law is no country. it is like haiti or the like russia. very sad people talking about communism. our blessed democracy, i'm really praying for the country. as i say, i'm not deeply

religious, but something to educate the people. i just cannot see how a man can be on the tv and agree with the man trying to overthrow free elections and government. host: got your point. here is -- in texas. caller: i want to know why you keep the republicans on top at 8000. i want to know why you leave them on top. host: we rotate which phone number we promote first. on a monthly basis. the first of every month, we promote the republican line first and the next month the switch and we promote the democratic line first. it is just an attempt at fairness. does that not work for you? caller: no, that does not work

for me because you did not have them up there for the last three months on top. host: i promise, we rotate it. it is literally what we do at the beginning of every month. thanks for the call from texas. john in little rock, california. caller: good morning. i just want to talk i am concerned about getting the vaccine but apparently, my health insurance company won't turn over the records. they tried to murder me. they offered me a lot of money and i never got nothing, lost my job after 20 years. and i still cannot get the vaccine because they will not turn over the records. this is kaiser permanente. host: what are the records and have you tried walking into a cvs? caller: i have been walking into those places for 40 years. host: alright.

pennsylvania, good morning. caller: i was definitely laughing at the call on the phone numbers. i don't know how you kept a straight face. here my topic. i think we are heading toward a political civil war. january 6, i was there myself in costume and it was quite an entertaining day. we are definitely heading for another political civil war because there are no two parties. it is pretty clear it was just one party. that was clearly election fraud at the local level in various states. we are in serious trouble heading for political civil war. host: why do you call an

entertaining day, january 6 the echo caller: i think it was in -- january 6? caller: the corporations and the dirt democrat unit party, they don't like to hear the people speak their voice and they don't like the people protesting anything. i thought it was totally entertaining. i was there from 9:00 to 2:00 just before the insurrection started. i saw antifa people on the street, democrats, republicans, i saw everybody protesting the corporations and uni-party. host: did you go up to the capital? caller: i did not. i headed back to pennsylvania and heard it on the radio. i kind of sensed the whole thing was over and the people were marching. again, i was there from 9:00 to 2:00 and enjoyed people -- watching people express their political viewpoints. my point is, there is no two parties in the country. election fraud clearly occurred across the country and there is no meeting of the minds anymore

between the people. you can see it and tell it by the phone calls this morning. i really do think we are heading for a local civil war. where it goes from there, i cannot say but i can tell you can sense in all the people, does not matter what party they believe in. host: this is donna in virginia. caller: good morning. host: let me pause you for a second, can you please turn down your television because it makes the conversation easier if you do that. caller: there you go. i'm calling because first of all, i am on disability and i am 65. what i want to know is, everybody is getting money for this and that, but what about us that is on disability that gets less than $700 a month and your

rent is over $800 a month so you're still trying to scrape to pay your bills and everything and that is all you have coming? just no help from nobody. host: did you get the stimulus payments during the last year during the pandemic? caller: i did and i paid off my bills and was broke again. right now, i get less than $700 a month. i am still trying to struggle to make it. my significant other passed away in february. it has really been hard. i have been without my gas at one point worrying if i'm going to lose my place to stay or anything. i just don't have anything anymore. host: what does 2020 to look like for you? caller: it don't look that good.

it just don't. host: donna in virginia. this is dave in orlando. caller: good morning. glad to see you on, i enjoy the show. i hear a lot of people calling and complaining about this and that. just pushing all of this fake news stuff. i'm so tired of those who call in with gloom and doom all the time. they call covid a hoax, the president is a liar, fbi is a liar, cia, science, jews have space lasers, liberals eat children and drink blood, all of the news is fake except for fox news, the vaccines kill people. clorox animal medicine is a safe as long as you take vitamins. listen to yourselves when you call in. have a good day, john. host: before you go, are you optimistic about 2022? caller: i'm always optimistic.

i try to be as optimistic as i can. i've got family members who don't take the vaccine, i just pray for them every day. i just pray for america every day. we are so divided, there is so much hatred on the news and on tv and you can't even walk into a grocery store without somebody making a comment about if you wear a mask or if you don't wear a mask. i am optimistic. i have belief in god. host: do you mind if i ask how old you are? caller: i just turned 70. i retired. my wife and i, we do ok. i would like to see a lot of the programs for these children they are talking about. i have children that we watch their grandchildren because they have to work. host: being 70, do you remember 1968? a lot of people point to america being as divided as it ever was

in 1968. do you believe now is worse? caller: politically, yes, it is. everybody has their own opinions of what america should be. i have been hearing for 20 or in 30 years they are going to take our guns. i have never seen one person come up to my door and say all i want is your guns. and your money and everything else you are hiding in your house. like some of the other colors have set -- callers have said. people promote doom and gloom and when you have a leader like our former president that projects that hatred and greed, other people are going to follow. i just feel sorry for america in certain ways but i do have hope. host: kathy in pennsylvania, you are next. caller: hello. i'm calling from pennsylvania. i'm just calling to say, i agree

with that woman about the stimulus. she says they are helping everybody else out there. now with inflation getting bad again, china's locking down again. they should help us out again with stimulus. my husband is in the hospital again. early summer, he had his right kidney taken out. we did get the stimulus checks and it was very helpful, but that money is gone and he gets social security disability and it is rough. they should give us more money to help us out. biden knows that. if trump was still in, he should be still in, he probably would have helped us out. since biden got in, everything went downhill, you know that and they blame poor trump for this insurrection. i'm so tired of hearing about this that they blame him for that. host: are you talking about wanting another stimulus, we just had a whole site and about the child tax credit and the

payments that went out to families under that expanded child tax credit. would you be supportive of that program continuing? caller: i don't have any children, so if the children needed, but this one family, somebody told me they have eight children and they got the stimulus check. they said they have so much money left over they put a pool in their backyard for those stimulus checks. that is not right. they should give us more money to help us out. i am boosted and everything, my husband is and is in the hospital now. we have hospital bells -- bills and it is really rough. that administration is really -- it is going to be bad. host: stephen is next out of illinois. democrat. caller: how are you doing? host: doing well.

caller: my main point is starting with trump. he promised to be the most transparent president ever and we still have not even his tax records let alone those -- mcculloch mccarthy blame everything on trump and a couple of days later, suddenly nothing happened and trump is an essay and all of this. they all need to be locked up. i guess that is about it. host: mike in florida. republican. caller: good morning to you. i found out in 2016 election time that neither of those parties really represent much of the people. i think they are for themselves and not too many other people are invited to the party. one of the things i would like to say is that congress gets an

idea that they are going to pass a bill and then they put all of these other things into it. i would like to see if they say ok, we are going to do an infrastructure bill, do the infrastructure. and that is it. don't keep tacking on all of this other stuff that is not related to it. if you need a bill for taxes, do taxes. if you need one for child care, do child air. -- childcare. don't keep piling all of this stuff in there together that makes the bill so i copy and both you can't even follow it. -- so incomprehensible you cannot even follow it. host: about five minutes left. we mentioned the news yesterday of the fda authorizing pfizer's new antiviral pill. that is being celebrated at the white house. another tool in -- to fight covid in the united states. more news today from federal regulators who authorized a

second pill to treat covid-19, adding another option to the arsenal. the food and drug administration offering cash authorizing a five day course of treatment of the new pill. it is a treatment for patients 18 and older who are at high risk of severe covid-19 and for whom alternative treatment options authorized by the fda are not accessible. the pill cut the risk of hospitalization and death in high-risk patients by 30% in contrast to pfizer's antiviral drug which reduced hospitalizations and death i nearly 90%. that news coming this morning on the antiviral pill front. this is rick in tennessee. republican. good morning. you are next. caller: good morning. i've had a couple of quick

questions for you. one, if you get vaccinated and boosted, you can still catch covid, correct? host: there are breakthrough cases, yes. guest: and you can also still pass it onto to other people, correct? host: that is the concern in these gatherings which we talked about in the first hour is holiday gatherings. there is continued concern about gatherings during the holidays. how is your family gathering? what are you doing? caller: i'm just going home for a couple of days to see my mom. she broke her hip and is in the hospital. host: any rules about gathering during the holiday? caller: no, there is no point and i will tell you why. if you can catch it, if you are vaccinated, you can pass it on while you are vaccinated, then

everything you do just has to do with yourself so what is the purpose of showing a vaccine card to do anything? host: the concern as laid out in the white house covid-19 briefing yesterday is that if you are fully vaccinated and boosted, you are a lot less likely to transmit it although there are cases in which that happened, and with as was pointed out yesterday, if you are vaccinated, you are 20 times less likely to die of covid. caller: but that does not affect anybody else but you. host: ok, that is rick in tennessee. this is kathy in wisconsin. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span and merry christmas, everybody. my thing right now is we are so divided as a country.

our president is getting vaccinated -- hitting vaccinated against on vaccinated. i'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything but i kind of have to agree with the guy on the unit party. i believe it is our politicians who are creating a lot of the tension in our country. i'm so disheartened by everything, insurance companies, to the medical to the government. people are hurting and it is certainly a shame. host: our last color today but we will be back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. in the meantime, have a great thursday. ♪

♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> i think it is absolutely critical that we separate the financial incentives so the law enforcement does not stand to directly benefit from the seizures they are making. the dea officers that stopped mr. warren at the airport and took money from him, we don't get to put money directly in the pockets but you better believe they get promotions based on how much money they sees. they get evaluated based on how much money they seize because they are part of the airport interdiction program, and that interdiction program exists to take money away from travelers. we need to put an end to those sorts of programs, and the best way to do that is to make sure

the money that is taken through civil forfeiture goes to the general fund and not to the doj asset forfeiture fund or the treasury forfeiture fund, which are funds that can only be spent on law enforcement and are controlled by law enforcement. that is the fundamental thing that drives all of this abuse. >> legal experts testified on law enforcement seizing property they allege was involved in a crime without charging the owner of a crime, also known as civil asset forfeiture. house oversight and reform subcommittee members discussed the burden this puts on citizens and the need for federal reforms. watch tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, online at c-span.org, for the new c-span now video app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government presented by these television companies and, including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. that is why chte