shares individuals' information. when the house returns, watch live coverage here on c-span. >> c-span's your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these tfertion companies and more. including media com. >> at media com we believe that if you're here or here, you should have access to fast, reliable internet. that's way we're leading the way. >> mediacom supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> washington journal continues. host: at the start of a new our we are checking in with adam andrzejewski the author of a book. remind us of what you do and why

you do it. >> we believe that we revolutionize politics. we authorize -- the most in american history of documents we captured trillions of dollars worth of federal, and state victories. for the first time in history, we open --spending in california in the golden state. we filed a lawsuit with california superior court. we did not get a transaction we filed a 442 sunshine request on every single california state agency. we compiled account -- california textbook by opening $87 million -- $87 billion -- host: do you think the 118th congress will be more

transparent than other congress is? >> one republican jump ship and voted democrat. every republican other than that voted for -- with the rules package passed last night by the republicans a sickly one republican jumped ship and voted democrat. every other republican voted for and one mcgrath voted against it. there are different rules in the package. summarized in three areas, one is transparency of legislation, spending reforms, and widening and expanding the scope of future investigations. on the transparency of

legislation, the first thing is legislators and members of congress will simply have to show it to cast vote now. they got rid of proxy voting which is voting from home. the spinning reports we advocated for the last two years we run a petition and openthebooks.com to read the bill. people on a bipartisan basis are sick of this massive spin israel's ash spending bills dropped in the middle of the night and voted on immediately it creates a 72 hour window to read the bill. our petition of openthebooks.com had tens of thousands petition signatures on that. i am really excited and proud of our team that now, republican house rules packages have adopted the transparency measure. host: i want to focus on the idea that there are no more --

spending bills have to be voted on separately. it is one of the spinning reforms we put it on the screen for viewers to see what is in the rules package. why is it any better for reining in government spending or creating transparency? guest: it creates the conversation and debate where every subject has an up or down vote. drew the committees in congress, the different lines within that single subject legislation can be defeated. it gives the public, press, and all of us were time to digest and make decisions on what is in the congressional legislation. it is high time we do this. host: why haven't we been doing that? why do we have to have on the abyss spending bills? and do you believe the congress will do all the work in the yearly budgeting timeframe they have?

guest: congress has not done the hard work for a couple of decades now. they will have to belly up to the table and get to work. it is more work to be able to do this process than the spinning process. the massive thousand page and -- thousand page bills dropped in the middle the night are sick things written by lobbyists the top-down control of the house speaker in the appropriations, they bring that in and increase this -- the skids which i believe has led to corruptions with a small seed in federal spending. host: you probably heard of pay as you go on capitol hill. what is cut as you go with the term that we've been hearing with this package? guest: this is a package spending reform. now, they will be on a spending bill. they will be able to target specific federal programs for

cuts. and they will be able to target individuals to be fired or diminished of pay. in terms of increasing the debt moment -- limit that will have to be done by spending cuts. let's put this in contrast over the course of the last 20 years. when george bush took office, the national debt was $5.8 trillion. by the time to time zone -- two terms under bush into terms under obama national debt was $19.9 trillion. donald trump left office the national debt was nearly $28 trillion. today we are over $31 trillion. we are up five times on the national debt in 20 years. it has been republican, democrat , republican, democrat. congress has led the way on the overspending. we are spending too much. it is about time a rules package was put in place to curb this

amount of spending our tax money for political power. host: the u.s. debt c lock.org has over -- this amount posted on the screen. we are taking your phone calls. adam andrzejewski is with us until the house goes in at 10:00 eastern. it is democrats (202) 748-8000 republicans (202) 748-8001 independents (202) 748-8002 as people are calling in, the debt ceiling how concerned are you about reaching the debt ceiling about whether it will be raised ahead of any financial cliff? guest: it is always a fear. this goes back over many budget matters.

the tension has been necessary over the years to put spinning herbs -- curbs in place whether it was in the obama years or after the proper intention -- tension between spending and debt needs to be on the table. host: do you think we will be able to raise the debt ceiling in the decades to come. the rules package we go over here includes an effort to require spending reforms and cuts for raising the debt ceiling. guest: that will be the great public debate on the table. eventually, the debt ceiling will get raised. however the spending cut as to be in place on a long-term basis. it will not be easy. back in 2017 the u.s. senate rand paul had a penny plan. cut 1% of the federal spending. and the budget would have been balanced in five years. today, rand paul's plan is not the one penny plan, it is a six penny plan. you still cannot get traction on it.

any spending cuts, even if these inflated levels of spending, it will be a tough addled but it needs to be a debate. host: do you think we can have a balanced budget in this day and age in congress? guest: we haven't had one in 20 years that is for sure. i think it goes back to the newt gingrich years in house speaker. this is a heavy lift. but look, there is one thing in the house republican rules package they missed, it is a concept of earmarking. we believe earmarks are the currency of corruption in congress. republican leadership refused to have a ban on air marks. nancy pelosi two years ago as house speaker coupled with 102 republicans that took a secret vote to bring back the practice of earmarking. local projects know about the members to get the vote on the spending bill. our former honorary chairman of

openthebooks.com was dr. tom coburn from oklahoma. he called earmarks the road -- gateway drug to the runaway spending bills. the air marks were $16 billion 7500 of the projects in the bill reach the skids. republicans were unfortunately the biggest air markers on the bill that just passed. seven out of 10 earmark were republicans. host: didn't make the process work any better? guest: they put, it was 1.7 trillion dollars. it was 4100 pages. host: we ended up with the spinning mill anyway. guest: the earmarks graced the skin. the -- it was 4100 pages it was dropped at 1:30 in the morning tuesday. the house voted friday.

nobody knew what was in it but decided it is earmarks of the gateway drug for the runaway spending bill. host: plenty of goals for you. if you want to join the conversation as max did out of colorado, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, i realize that the current congress was to keep the focus on spending. and spending cuts, but i think it is important also to say, especially right off the bat on this station that you guys mentioned obama, trump, and all the deficits that occurred. if we can remember, bush started a war we did not need. and at the same time, spinning all the extra money cutting taxes on the wealthy and big businesses. obama ended up having to clean up the mess. that cause more deficit.

that was something we had to do. the next president, trump, and we were coming out of a recession cut taxes for businesses and wealthy. businesses that were still making record profit off their accessor. i understand that spending cuts are important and it is true but having this conversation without keeping a mind the revenue that we have given away is irresponsible. to turn this into what are we going to cut now, what are we going to cut now, does not seem fair. host: adam, you can jump in there. guest: it is a good perspective. we have to go back to when we were ahead of the pandemic. trump was in the white house republicans were in the control in the senate and congress. i came on c-span washington journal and i railed about the

fact that during both times republicans in charge of government were running trillion dollar budget deficits adding to the national debt. then the pandemic came along, so if you take a look at the four years of trump, they added so much debt about $7.7 trillion, it was $24,000 equivalent debt of 24,000 dollars per man, woman, and child in the country. it was extraordinary. host: the debt per citizen in the country if you divide up the $31 trillion at this point would be $91,000 per citizen in the country -- $94,000 per citizen in the country. to make up for the debt. this is susan in fairfax virginia, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. two points, number one, it will be a messy couple of years. speaker was messy but i love

seeing it because people who want to do the hard things were pushing to do the hard things. it is so easy to spend other peoples money. and you are not accountable. i have decades of experience in financial services, financial specialist, i see it over and over, it is easy to spend other peoples's money. what is hard is to say no. we cannot afford it. it is hard for individuals to do that and it is next to impossible for the government to do that. second point, i hear a lot of talk about the -- contrary. but i am beginning to think it really is not a division between liberals and conservatives, republicans and democrats, i think it is a decision -- division between the professional politician class and americans.

-- american citizens. thank you for letting me on today. host: i agree with your perspective. look, democrats and republicans are addicted to spending your taxpayer money. so, we need a war on waste in the country. we can start with the covid a programs. -- covid aid programs. in congressman 40 million people lost their job in the peak of the pandemic in march of april, 2020 when politicians for the first time in the history of the world shut down and economy. they threw $800 billion of unemployment aid at people who had real needs. now we know, up to 50% of that $400 billion was stolen by criminals, crime artists, around the world. it is an open question as to whether chinese and russian hackers funded entire year worth of their military spending on our stolen unemployment aid to.

the chinese military budget has $200 million a year and the russian military budget is $80 million a year. it is an open question as to elements in the chinese and russian military stole enough unemployment to fund their entire apparatus for the next year. this these to be a part of the congressional bipartisan investigation. host: you are an independent organization outside of the government. how have you tried to track those things down? how do you do that in books? guest: with openthebooks.com we look at how the federal discloses data we download it and reorganize it we do it on a forensic basis. we follow the money. the giveon example, in the payment protection program, this is a covid aid row graham that was supposed to help him and pop businesses on the businesses who were shut down during the economic lockdowns. it is about $800 billion

program. when we downloaded the forgiven paycheck protection program loans, they were loans taken out, but forgiven like a grant or subsidy. we look at the biggest law firms and accounting firms that had a forgiven loan and this is what we found. 126 of the largest 300 laura for cash law firms in the country took alone and it was forgiven. the top 10 of the law firms each got over $10 million forgiven. they had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of revenue. their partners on equity payments made millions of dollars. they do not have an identifiable financial need for the money. because congress watched the bill, they qualify for the money, they got it forgiven, and the top 10 law firms each receiving $2 million or more on forgiven ppp that amounts to 100

million dollars right there. congress should investigate. same thing with accounting firms. the top 300 largest accounting firms to the top three firms in the country earned -- ernst & young for their guam location got three point -- three quarters of the million dollars for their loan. i think they need to go before congress and they need to explain themselves to the american people. host: viewers can go to openthebooks.com right now at the top of the cage -- page bears a search bar. 120 million public employee salary and pension records across the u.s.. what do you see people using that for? guest: writing your own pertinence -- principality and township across the country, we have the entire payroll of public employees. and there retirement and annuities. there is a search video that is 90 minutes -- 90 seconds and then you will be up to speed on

how to search the website. and for 20 million employees with salary pensions every year you can search in your own area. you can say who by name in what position is making how much money. for example, in los angeles county, you can look up lifeguards. the top aide lifeguard in l.a. county last year all in made 510 thousand dollars. there is actually 98 l.a. county lifeguards that made over $200,000 last year. those are the types of things you can see become a surge of salaries of pope -- government employees in openthebooks.com . host: you're on the washington journal. caller: good morning thank you for taking your -- michael. i will be watching your face because you smirked.

there are two points on that that i want to discuss. i'm trying to remember i hate to give each away, but but i think the biggest economic boom in the history of the world was when 91% tax -- income tax on millionaires, billionaires, and 70% net made over 100,000 up to $1 million. and some would say wise the tax rate so high for millionaires and billionaires? and it is so the money could be circulated in the economy. and during that time, we built and interstate highways 8 million people went to college for free under the g.i. bill, and we put a man on the moon. i am wondering if it is considered governor spending or the lack of revenue that we have now about 7530 billionaires and 20 million millionaires that have a network according to bloomberg about $163 trillion

that -- back in 2020. yet they only paid 40% of the taxes and they had 95% of the wealth. i think because of reagan-nomics that destroyed our budget. host: we got your point. on tax increases. guest: i was born in 609i did not see most of the 50's and 6 -- i was born in 69, i did not see most of the 50's and 60's. but the tax-cut, the latest one out of the trump administration, let's look at the underside -- the other side of the spending ledger. it shows on a study from the national taxpayers union that from the founding of the country to the year 2000 on inflation-adjusted basis, the u.s. government spent in total about $200 trillion.

sincere 2000, the u.s. government has spent about $100 trillion in the last 20 years. that shows the rapid expansion of the size, scope, power, and spending of the federal government. as we discussed, that pushed out our national debt five times over the last 20 years. and the spending problem in addiction is bipartisan. as discussed, it is republicans and democrats draining the treasury from the left and right. host: do you have a sense of what kind of federal budget you think the federal government could operate on? do you think it is $3 trillion, is it a target you want to get to? guest: i defer to the u.s. senator rand paul on this. to balance the budget in five years, right now, it will take a six penny cut to spending. and if you do that cut on the numbers coming out of the pandemic and covid, you get to a

balanced budget over five years. you can get to a balanced budget sooner or do less cuts if you grow the economy. so i think, if any policy that spurs economic growth and invest in the private sector and unleashes the power -- those are policies that need to be put on the table. host: tax about $4.6 billion a year. -- trillion dollars a year. -- more than $3.1 trillion budget deficit he year. u.s. debt clock.org breaks the numbers down and helps you understand the federal budget. this is colleen out of iowa. republican, good morning. caller: hello, thank you. host: are you with us? are you still there? we will go to john with -- in texas. here on. caller: good morning.

i see the debate going on about spending and the debt limit, one thing that concerns me is if we don't increase the debt limit and we default, that will really hurt our standing all over the world. i understand there is too much government spending. and i don't know for sure how to control it. there has been talk about a balanced budget amendment. which may help. yet, i just want to make one side comment, during the election of the speaker of the house, c-span cameras were not allowed to go anywhere and seek interaction of how the congress -- conference actually works. i think that was a great idea and it should continue more

transparency to the american people of how the american government operates. host: i tell you what, john, there are members of congress who agree with you including arco canon of wisconsin who is introducing legislation to that effect. so we will see what happens with that. but i want to go back to john's comments about the debt mitt as we talked about this yesterday on the washington journal. it was mark sandy of moody's analytics the chief economist was on with us yesterday. he talked about the impact of not raising the debt limit ceiling. this is what he had to say on it. [video clip] >> the debt limit is the amount of treasury that can be outstanding. we are bumping against the limit now. if we hit the limit and the treasury runs out of the cash it has in the bake accounts -- bank accounts it can issue more treasury bonds to help the finance of government spending and tax policy.

someone will not get paid. it could be a social security recipient or someone in the military. or bondholders the people who own treasury bonds you may have that in your pension plan to afford investors bullies investors, japanese investors, chinese investors. if someone does not get paid, that is a bomb throughout the global financial systems. one of the bedrock principles of the well-functioning global financial system is that the u.s. pays its debts and on time. so it is risk-free. you buy a bond from the u.s. treasury, you will get your money back in interest no questions asked. if someone does not get paid because of the bet -- debt limit, that blows that on the water.

it goes skyward because investors will say hey, we are trying to get paid this is not risk-free you will have to pay me more in the treasury to compensate. and that means everything will be worth a lot less. stocks will be worth less and bonds will be worth less, housing, commercial real estate, everything will be less. that goes into your savings it would be catastrophic, so catastrophic that it is hard to imagine that even with the dysfunction we are observing in washington that they would that lawmakers would allow that to happen to go down that path. obviously, that is a significant rising risk of the context of the difficulties we are observing in congress today. host: that was mark sandy on the program yesterday. on the debt limit. and the comments out of the -- out of that. guest: he articulates a lot of the why about a decade ago

michael mullins is the chairman of the joint chief of staff under barack obama under the national debt in the national security debt in the future. we are happy at openthebooks.com that the spending will be on the accounting side of the ledger rather than the tax cut side. tax cuts are at their historic lows or just about, we need to focus on god in taxpayer abuse and we need transparency to do that. for example, the biden administration on agency payrolls when we file the freedom of information act request last year they redacted $365,000 -- 365,000 federal executive agency employees we estimate there is over $30 billion of payroll that we cannot see who is receiving how much. let's put that in terms of context. host: this is national security

staff and names they do not want out there? guest: yes cia and other agency payrolls have always been off the books. he did not have access to that but there is about 141 million of paid employees where we've been able to see who is receiving how much with the bucket for the bonuses. during the obama years, there was 2300 names redacted from the documents and we thought that was a lot today it is 360 5000 names redacted from the federal payroll. we have a hard time even on federal payroll -- you got the u.s. post office refusing to turn over there -- the gao government accountability office has lost $70 billion we want to review line by line spinning and opened the checkbook at the post office, for example. host: you say lost you do not

mean lose it you mean they are in the red. guest: yes, they are in the red. host: anthony on twitter saying they want to see open the book's take on a possible pentagon audit. what are your thoughts on that? guest: under president trump, he major the pentagon is sudden -- subject to an audit. they've had four audits over and they keep flunking it. they were very hard on the department of defense. they look at the contract within the last 30 days of the fiscal year. incredibly one out of every 10 contracts of the pentagon -- one out of every six contracts is left in the final 30 days in the fiscal year in the department of defense. that is no way to run the finest military in the world. it opens it up for abuse of the system. host: about 20 minutes left the

house comes in. adam andrzejewski it is with us from openthebooks.com a lot of the interactive viewers may want to go there. this is chris from wisconsin, good morning. caller: good morning, can you hear me? host: yes, go ahead. caller: adam, the first man they called in ask about if the trump and the bush tax cuts. what you cleverly did you played a trump move you deflected it on covid spending. i want to know directly, did bush and truck tax cuts pay for themselves? the second question -- trump tax cuts pay for themselves? in the second question the child tax care in the u.s., they did an audit on it, they discover that jeff bezos was making billions of dollars and under been he was paying zero taxes

and getting a child tax credit. do you believe that top taxpayers should pay a minimum tax? host: i get this to questions. do tax cuts pay for themselves? guest: under bush and donald trump, the tax revenues to the u.s. treasury the tax cuts actually in -- increased. but where we have the problem was the spending side of the accounting ledger. the spending side increased more adding to the national debt. you need spinning support. host: on the wealthiest americans paying little to nothing and tax. guest: that is to be put on the table. that does not pass the smell test. the tax code is complicated. certainly there needs to be reform within the tax code. host: [captioning performed by thenat, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] >> we're going to leave "washington journal" at this point but you can watch online at c-span.org. honoring c-span's 40-plus year commitment to covering congress