7:00 eastern saturday morning on c-span or on c-span now, our new mobile video at. join the discussion with their phone code -- phone calls, video calls, texts and tweets. quick sunday morning nasa's orion returns to earthfter orbiting the moon. watchive coverage as mission contl guides the unmanned aircraft entry dissent in/down beginning at 11:00 a.m. on c-span, online at siu said.org or with our free video app c-span now. c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington, live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings with hearings of u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more for the world of politics all at your fingertips.

stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span's tv network and c-span radio, plus a variety of compelling podcast. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. download it free today. c-span now, your front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. this is marc goldwein, he is with the committee for a responsible federal budget as the senior vice president and policy director. good morning. guest: good morning. host: talk about your organization, what is it and what focus do you have? guest: we are a nonprofit organization in washington focus on budget issues. covers tax policy, health policy, some of the leading issues on the left, right and center and we are there to provide information to congress, the press and the public. host: in recent days, the

organization put out -- calling on them not to -- can you tell us the reason? guest: inflation is the highest in 40 years, our debt is approaching record levels and all we are asking is for the next 3.5 weeks for congress to not make the situation worse, host: what do you mean specifically? guest: we keep passing new tax cuts and spending increases, and lower taxes and higher spending are fine but we are not paying for them, so who is? it is being put on the national credit card. ultimately we need to reduce deficits. we need $7 trillion of -- the first step is let's not make it worse for the last 3.5 weeks of 2022.

there is defense -- host: there is consideration for defense spending for ukraine, disaster relief. guest: many of those are worthy of funding. it is good enough to have and to pay for. they put more with ukraine to raise spending elsewhere. some of the things they're talking about frankly are not a good use of our scarce dollars. host: such as? guest: such as the talks about bringing back the medicaid sequester. -- medicare sequester. we so during the pandemic we will give everyone the 2% raise. even though the pandemic recession is over. host: our guest is here until 9:16, if you want to ask oceans

about the debt, particularly the budget. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, and independents at (202) 748-8002. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. the senate broke down three categories when it comes to debt reduction. you referred to tax extensions for this year's budget, can you give us what this means? guest: there are a few tax cuts every year. but there are talks of canceling the job cuts that raise money. there are talks of canceling a change that would advertise research expenses, companies would have to conduct research expenses over five years except one.

there is talk of getting rid of this paid for around productive ability. if we did this all together it would be something like $4 billion of tax cuts for corporations. host: so that is the criticism, they are to corporations? guest: it is not necessarily a great use of money but the bigger problem is they are not figuring out how to make up the revenue elsewhere. it is a good case that we will continue to form the corporate tax code so you can reject -- conduct more tax breaks -- without paying for fewer tax breaks. but say they have more to afford on the national credit card. it is not working and that is why we have such high inflation and why our debt is approaching record levels. host: there is a debate about the child tax credit. there was an op ed about putting

it on the table. the argument is 40% of households were able to pay down debt. some of the participants spend it on credit or food and these are good things, as far as the taxpayer, what would you do? guest: the problem is not the tax credit. we want to give them the tax credit and make them pay for it in the future as we are adding to the debt. there is this thing that happens in washington recently, one party adds to the deficit and the other party response to ok, so long as we get to add the deficit for our thing. that is what may be happening here. republicans get a tax break for corporations, democrats get an expansion of their child tax credit, same thing. the kids today are not willing to pay back in the future. instead we should be negotiating how do we have a package that is fully paid for, we cut spending,

tax breaks or we raise taxes elsewhere. host: it sounds like you are advocating for the raising of the budget or demands for that. guest: right now the deficit is $1.4 trillion. i would settle for let's hold it and work it down towards $1 trillion. we don't need full balance but we can't have is the debt continuing to grow faster than the economy. it is unsustainable. host: marc goldwein is our guest and you can call on the lines. we start with keith in ohio on our independent line. you are on with our guest, good morning. caller: good morning. we have been doing this i think for about three decades. we have been running up the debt. i don't know if there were even a trillion dollars when bush senior was president. so how long can we do this? i understand. pretty soon we won't even be

able to pay the interest. when will it be recalculated when interest rates go up and we need to redo however that works? how long can we do this? i guess we are in uncharted territories. can we sustain this for more decades? i think we are going to collapse. guest: you bring up a great point about interest costs. as they rise and we are paying off more debt, it is eating the rest of the budget alive. next year we will spend more on interested we spent on the larger level. than a decade, interest will eclipse the defense budget. within a quarter-century, it is on course to be the single largest program, larger than medicare, sustainability. that is unsustainable. i don't think we can point to it and say this is when things break what we are on a path that cannot continue and we need to stop it. host: if the path is as you

describe, are there ways to avoid or reverse it? guest: there are many. we need to come together, bring in new revenue and support stronger economic growth. you can't do it with any one of those things. we put out a $7 trillion framework, not perfect but to try to get the conversation started. it takes on income taxes and includes a carbon tax. it is not going to be easy but the alternative is not sustainable. host: one thing you had an analysis of, take a look at discretionary spending. where should these stand as far as your opinion? guest: social security and medicare are towards insolvency. social security in the early 20 30's. if we do nothing, there will be across-the-board cuts. for medicaid there so much we

can do to put -- get more value from our dollar and medicaid advantage, better incentives around prescription drugs and everything else. with social security we will make some adjustments. people will pay a little bit more, especially at the high-end. we may want to adjust, i think we should adjust the retirement age gradually. it is not going to be easy. but i promise it will be better than 22% across-the-board cuts scheduled to occur. host: do you think they should be a proper use of the discussion you brought up? guest: we need to raise the debt ceiling, this is not up for debate. but in the past it has been used as an opportunity to reassess our fiscal situation. so long as nobody is threatening default, i think there is opportunity to raise the debt limit and to start making progress on our unsustainable fiscal situation. host: you advocate against that but for raising the debt ceiling, can you explain?

guest: that is like saying i'm against overspending but i should pay my credit card bill. if we don't pay our bill, if we default on the debt, the same costs of debt are going to occur in rapid time because interest rates are going to go, people are not going to trust us anymore. we can pay the bill and then we have a plan going forward that we are not adding so much to the debt year-over-year. host: from california, independent line, this is greg. caller: good morning, c-span. i have been watching you for many years. my question is concerning the fiscal budget. and the revenue decline with the legislation, the respect for marriage act. my question is twofold. i'm considering adopting a dog. i would like to know, will i be able to marry that dog? host: we will leave it there.

let's go to tim in arkansas. >> good morning. i would like to know, once default happens, do we still have to pay the money back? we are taking care of the world's problems. basically we spent all that money to take care of the world's problems. so i would say just ended. guest: i don't think we are going to default on our debt. our funds are the backbone of the global economy. if we did default on our debt it would cause problems around the world, the global financial system. it might put us into a recession and if we do default, we will immediately regret it and come out and want to pay all that money back. the truth is we are going to want to borrow again. we're not going to be a country as much as some that is running a balanced budget every year.

and we will need to do some borrowing for emergencies. if we default we lose our credibility to do that borrowing. host: you're talking about interest payments, on twitter, someone is asking who does the interest on the debt get paid too? guest: that is a great question. about a third of our debt is owned abroad. china and japan are the largest owners but all sorts of countries on it. some of it is being paid outside the country. some of our growth gains are going out there. the rest is a mixture of the federal reserve who bought bonds to support the economy during covid and ordinary investors of the united states, whether it is mutual funds, pensions or your grandma bought you a savings bond. it is going everywhere and people are collecting interests. the bad news is we have to pay it and we are paying it at the expense of education, defense, lower taxes.

it is a real cost and it is a cost for things we already have in the past. host: paul in louisiana, republican mine. >> talking about super thing social security does, by birthdays in august and when i got my first check i had to make -- wait a month, two months. i did knock it until october. november i get a notice in the mail telling me i'm going to get a raise. i forget what it was, only two digits, i don't know what it was. why do they do stupid things like this? some nitwit democrat is going to cobble in and say i ought to just give the money back but i'm talking about the holy enchilada. host: from twitter as well, samantha makes the case that the rate of social security and inflation, saying it is an automatic increase, adding that inflation is hurting american families. go ahead on the larger question.

>> both are true, social security increases for inflation. the method used is inflated so they should probably use a better measure. but either way, seniors and all of us are falling behind because of the very high inflation in the overall economy. we've got two years of extremely high inflation eating into our cost-of-living and making things more expensive at the grocery store and the gas pump, you name it. high deficits are partially at fault. all the borrowing we did in 2020 and 2021, some necessary and some unnecessary, has made the situation worse. host: from ohio, dennis. good morning. caller: good morning. the previous caller stole my thunder here but i have basically the same question. it seems like every time i turn around, somebody is getting help. people with families are getting

help, people with different disabilities are getting help and i understand that. i agree with that. i am a senior, i'm 75 years old, my wife and i are both retired and we are on a fixed income. we are not getting any help. social security is going up but nowhere near covers inflation. if this keeps going on we are going to be in the hole every year and i don't know why the government is not helping us. that is my question. guest: here is an irony when the government tries to help with inflation. government spending to put more money in the economy makes the inflation situation worse. you hear about a lot of state saying we are giving you rebate checks, checks to pay for inflation. in doing so, they may be treating the symptoms but they are making the disease worse. unfortunately the best thing the government can do to help in this situation is sometimes not help. host: a headline from the washington post, inflation starting to lose its grip.

it highlights the federal reserve and the recent analysis about rate hikes. do you think there is a lessening of inflation and what you think about the federal reserve's role? guest: inflation is coming down, toward 5%, we may get down further than that. but to get all the way where we are supposed to be, the fed targeted 2% will require more pay than we have seen. the federal reserve is raising rates, anyone trying to buy a home right now you know how expensive mortgages are. how expensive loans are as well. inflation is coming down, the question is will it come down enough and how much pain will it require to get back to normal? host: as far as the announcement that the rate cuts may not be as severe as we have seen before, do you buy into that and think that is a possibility? guest: the fed has been raising rates by 75 basis points.

next meeting it will probably be half a point. after, maybe a quarter. they're not cutting or stopping, they are slowing the increase of the rate. that makes sense because it takes a while to make its way through the economy. rates are already high enough that i think they can afford to pause a bit and see what is going to happen with inflation. host: i want to ask of the possibility of the recession. the treasury secretary was on cbs the late show, i want to listen to what she had to say and get your thoughts. >> j.p. morgan, meta, disney, paramount have all done big cuts. with the recession, one does not seem to have shown up yet, who is right? your counterpart in england says they are already in recession and it will be the longest since the great war. >> i believe there is a path to bringing inflation down while maintaining a strong, healthy labor market. >> you think it is possible we

are not heading into a recession. >> we have rapid recovery, growth is slow down, i expect the pace of job creation to go down. that is expected when the unemployment rate is the close to the lowest in 50 years. i think we can take the heat out of the economy and russia is conducted, a brutal war against ukraine. that has caused gas prices to spike. it caused food prices to spike. it is creating hardship all over the world. we are really trying to address those strains, we can know the reason inflation went up and we are trying to hold that down. host: the treasury secretary, what you think? guest: janet yellen is right, there is a path to get inflation the control without closing

inflation but it is an arrow gap. if congress and the president want to help, the best thing they can do is start using fiscal policy to help the federal reserve fight inflation. write out the federal reserve is fighting by itself. congress and the president are making it harder. they are looking at ways to get health care costs down, ways to get deficits down. back and get some spending out of the economy and reduce our likelihood of a recession. but it is a narrow path to get inflation under control and not cause a recession in the process. host: our guest marc goldwein running us from the committee of a responsible federal budget. let's hear from kansas, rob. caller: i want to know, when russia defaulted on their debt, how did it hurt us and why? that is all i want to know. thank you. guest: russia has recently had

some sporadic defaults. i don't know if you are referring to that or the review in the -- the event in the 90's. what it is a global market. anything that affects one market will affect others. the united states is large and rich and russia is small and poor in a financial sense. smaller countries have less but it is not zero. we are seeing this cascading because of a one-time war but if we were to start seeing countries around the world having to repay their debt that could lead to a financial crisis. host: if you are asked the question about the target inflation rate of zero versus 2% but i will ask what is the magic? guest: there is nothing magic about 2%, but it is low enough that inflation could go to zero and 3% might be better in theory

because it gives us more room to cover rates during a recession. but the -- right now it seems like the fed can't catch 2%. it is tough to navigate changing your target. host: from california, roberto joining us there. thanks for calling, go ahead. caller: good morning. in the discussion of deficits, i would like to point out part of the deficit is reduced income and the country is at the culminating decades long arch to cut income taxes on the extremely wealthy and then pursuing handicapping the irs in its quest to collect money from the tax to -- i think there should be some concentration on

large potential t reduce the deficit by making an effort to increase income. guest: i totally agree. we have had a series of tax cuts that make it harder and harder to fund government. the last large one was in 2017 but we have had several since. the good news is we have recently funded the irs, $80 billion to ramp up enforcement. that is something that by the way has historically had bipartisan support. every president from ronald reagan to trump to biden has supported more funding for the irs and more changes to the tax revenue then they were owed. on tops of producing the tax gap and get the money we are owed -- even by -- either the shift soon

art. >> is way to know their pain with this should. >> -- it would be tedious and costly but that does not mean we should not try to reduce it. right now, the -- this was true. because the biden administration is depending on that -- we are running deficits before any new spending. >> and fine, thank you. caller: my question has to do with the statement the former

vice president made about as long as your national debt grows slower than your economy you really don't have a problem. the criticism is they never give us a way of measuring national debt to the size of the american army and i have the impression the national debt when you look at it in terms of our national economy expansion is actually going down and i'm curious what the actual answer is to that. guest: i wish that were true. because if we can get our debt going slower than the economy, that would be fabulous. historically debt has been about half the size of the economy. coming into covid it was about 80%. now it is 97 or 98. within a decade we will probably be back -- at about 115%. in two we may be at 200%. our debt is growing much faster

than the economy. we don't need to pay down the debt or balance the budget. but we need to do it slow it enough that it is declining relative to output. host: when using employment numbers and others do they encourage you, show signs of strength? guest: we are in a weird economic time where strength is weakness and weakness of strength because getting inflation under control requires the economy to grow more slowly. so more jobs are good, we want them. but it also means higher likelihood that inflation is going to persist. the best case scenario economically is that jobs stay safe but wage growth slows. i don't know if we get that. it is a weird economy that we are fighting on the one had very high inflation and on the other had a risk of recession. host: in north carolina, you are next up. caller: good morning, thank you

so much for accepting my call. i've got a concern. the government secured that money they never pay back and that is why they're trying to get rid of it is because they don't want to pay it back. giving money back that you have taken. in the student loans, president biden one for president and that was part of his help for the united states people, was to help the students, the unfortunate and some of the fortunate, that can pay those loans off. that was part of him getting voted into the house. he is not doing anything wrong. he is doing everything correct. i want you to listen here. trump said he wants to run the united states like prudent ones russia. that is exactly what he is

trying to do. he is trying to run the united states like russia. it is not right. we need micro see. -- democracy. host: are suspending student letdowns responsible? guest: i do not think it is responsible at all. the government said they will put a pause on collecting loans because the economy was in a freefall rate it made sense and 2020 in 2021, and right now the unemployment rate in college graduates is 2%. it is adding 20 basis points to inflation. we need to do this fairly and with warning but it is time to restart student debt payments and we should be canceling student debt across the board.

instead we should look to get higher education costs under control in the first place and have an income driven repayment system that provides the safety net that nobody gets burned with unpayable amount of student debt. host: in eastport michigan, you are next up. caller: good morning. i would like to talk about $31 million, paying interest and we never considered paying off the national debt. we should set up a program where hundred years would pay off 1% of the national debt and our great, great, great ran children will be debt free.

it can only be done if we stop all deficit spending first and make the top line items, a double jubilee investment and pay off the national debt. even as i have seen this, it shouldn't be keep his serious. host: thank you. guest: if we are balancing the budget, that would be great. but we need to take incremental steps and the most important is that the debt grows slower than the economy. this would put us on a sustainable path and support stronger economic growth, higher wages, lower interest costs, all of these benefits even without balancing the budget. host: what did you think about

the effort of congress on the rail strike issue? guest: it is a little outside of my purview. it avoided another spike in inflation. i think that unionization is down on the historical trend but i think that workers are exerting power and that is great for wages but in the sense of the macro economic, what will this mean for prices? host: from florida, republican line, this is scott. caller: my question is this, if we didn't have all of the trillions of dollars in debt that we do have that we are having to pay interest on, basically that we had no debt, would that make our economy much stronger or worse or how would

it affect our economy? guest: debt itself is a burden on the economy. the main reason it is a burden is people buying u.s. government bonds are doing it instead of investing in the private sector. there would be more investment in the private sector, or buildings, factories, machines, technologies and stronger growth. with that said, every instance of a borrowing may be good or bad in its own right. it was good we borrowed early in covid to help us through what could have been a very devastating recession and so borrowing feels good in the moment and may be good in the moment and you need to weigh it against long-term costs. host: we have a viewer asking who profits when the minimum wage is raised. talk about where it comes in with the debt and deficit. guest: minimum wage has very

little effect directly. higher wages mean more taxes coming in and more benefits for social security and more to the earned income credit but it is not related to the deficit but it is related to how fast the economy grows and how we want to distribute those gains. there is a healthy, ongoing conversation in not only washington but all 50 states. right now we are at a place where the minimum wage is different everywhere. in some states it is $15 and in some states it may be seven dollars. host: is there a sweet spot when it comes to minimum wage she would advocate for? guest: you don't want to go so high that you are crowding out workers. short of that, it is a national reference thing. there is some trade-off, higher

minimum wage means higher wages but mean mean higher unemployment and lower business profits. there is no magic number but i think right now the minimum wage is $7.25 at the national level and has been that at a long time. i don't think it would do harm to inflation. host: next caller. caller: do you think economic social problems in the weakening of the southern border is reminiscent of the fall of the roman empire? guest: i think we have some things in common with the fall of the roman empire. i used to work for senator tom coburn who pointed to a lot of those. we have an outstretched obligation around the world and our debt is out of control. one of the reasons rome fell is it started debasing its currency

and started printing money for what it couldn't do. i don't think we are there but i don't want to get there. host: if you are asks if there is a mechanism to prevent business moving out of the united states to prevent higher taxation? guest: we passed some legislation to make inverting or other ways to leave the country more difficult. what we have is not perfect so the biden administration has imposed some taxes and we should look at international tax reform. countries should incorporate -- businesses that should be in the countries that make the most sense. host: is the biden administration holding onto the tax cuts under the previous administration? guest: they have not reversed any major tax cuts from the trump administration.

they supported most of them because the president said no tax increases on anyone make it below $400,000 a year. most of the tax cuts were for those making below $100,000 a year. the idea they will have to pay 100% is not going to work. host: how much of the previous tax cuts add to the debt and deficit? guest: they are costing $250 million a year. if we get reversed to half of them, that is a trillion dollars over the next decade. host: park from las vegas, you are up next. caller: -- mark from las vegas, you are up next. caller: the trade with the farmers, is that part of the debt? guest: after imposing a variety of tariffs, president trump also

used his authority to increase farm subsidies. at this point, there is a lot of money going to farmers, a lot temporary and making our fiscal situation worse. host: stephanie in tennessee, let's hear from you. caller: yes sir. i heard him say something about money that we all. this doesn't sit right with me. we are taxed on our income from working, taxed when we buy things from the store, taxed on everything we buy. how is this even possible that we are so far in debt? we need to lessen what we send

to other countries and support our own first. guest: maybe 1% or 2% of the budget that we send it to other countries, it doesn't mean there isn't room for cutting. there is room to rethink how we do foreign aid, but if we are going to get the budget under control, there are either increasing taxes more or cut spending we are paying to ourselves. we can do it through better medicare programs, but there is no easy when that we just cut foreign aid or just give texas, we just grow the economy and not solve this. we are so far beyond easy wins at this point. host: you think any of these efforts will be taken up by the republican majority next year? guest: i hope so. in 2011 when we subdivided, --

when we saw divided, we got the budget and created a commission that unfortunately didn't work. we did have the ballasts -- balanced budget act of 1998. hopefully we can come together and start making progress on fighting inflation and addressing our debt. host: this is tom in illinois. caller: good morning. this is not high math. you can go to any business site and bring up a chart of the federal budget deficit and the trade deficit and overlay them. they go up almost exactly together. last year more than $1 trillion left our economy and trade deficit. the federal budget, they had to

replace that money. with borrowing and inserted into the economy. this is not high math, until they bring the jobs, industries and profits back from china, this is going to continue. you can look this up. host: ok, color. guest: -- ok, caller. guest: they are closely related but it is the budget deficit that is driving the trade deficit. when we borrow $1 trillion from the economy, we take more of it from abroad. 40% of it is directly coming from abroad but the rest is indirectly coming from abroad how it changes the economy. if we want to be less supported on other countries, we need to lower the deficit. host: marc goldwein

>> c-span's washington journal, every day we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day. we discussed poly issues that impact you. coming up saturday morning, cq calls a john donnelly discuss the 2023 national defense authorization act. in our spotlight on podcasts, author and journalist robe bryce talks about the power-hungry podcast and vulnerability of our eleric grids. watch washington journal live at seven eastern saturday morning on c-span or c-span now our new mobile video app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets.