c-span. >> the state of the union is strong because you, the american people, are strong. [cheers and applause] >> president biden delivers the annual state of the union address outlining his priorities to congress on tuesday, february 7. his first state of the union speech since republicans won back control of the house. we'll also hear the republican response and take your phone calls, texts and tweets. watch live coverage of the state of the union beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> start your day with "washington journal." your window into the nation's capital. the only nationally televised forum for discussing the latest issues in washington. and across the country. >> it gives the people an opportunity to speak for themselves on the issues that they actually care about. >> join us for a live three-hour conversation with a variety of

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going into the conversation? guest: the most important thing that happens this week. joe biden's position is the position that barack obama had in his second term which is that he will not negotiate concessions for releasing the hostage of the debt limit. kevin mccarthy, the new speaker, new house says you got to negotiate. that's how are democracy works and we've got to find compromises and we need to try to cut spending, reduce the deficit and come to an accommodation and a deal and what the republicans want ultimately is a deal that lays at a path to a balanced budget. when you have $1 trillion in deficits, that's not likely to happen in the next few months. a lot of times, these negotiations start off with each side saying no at each other and then you get more and maybe you

get closer to a deadline and people start getting upset at market start reacting and eventually, you get to some kind of accommodation. it's possible that other things get added to the debt limit like a bill and maybe the democrats will get some things and republicans will get some things. this is something that will be basically of big topic for the next several months until june when the first moment when we might actually hit that cliff. host: we some mitch mcconnell say last week that they seem to be staying out of it. guest: that's what he did in 2011 back when john boehner was there with the new house. they were intent on cutting the deficit and they wanted to pass a balanced budget amendment to the debt limit, it was much more ambitious than what kevin

mccarthy is talking about which is a more modest cap deal on spending. i think mitch mcconnell is in the wings and if the house is unable to get its act together and unable to pass anything, there is a chance that macconnell in the end could pick up the phone to joe biden and try to craft a deal that they think may enough folks in the house would fix it up. host: you and others at bloomberg had a story published about the options that the government may consider when taking care of these issues so what's the genesis of this story? guest: a lot of folks have been talking about ways to bypass the house of representatives. it's very inconvenient with a house of representative that disagrees that you don't want to raise the debt limit. people are saying you could raise cash to keep paying the bills, one of which has been

popular is minting platinum coins and there's an old law from decades ago that gives the secretary of the treasury to mint platinum coins of any dim emanation to theoretically meant a trillion dollar coin. then the federal reserve can credit our account and we can keep paying the bill. her problems with that. you have to figure at how to not have that affected by inflation. it's not really a great thing for economies around the world and it shake confidence in u.s. credit. it's not a great option but it is theoretically possible with another option called premium bonds. this is a way to disguise the size of the debt. you basically would say we will issue new bonds we will pay an extra 100% or something in interest on those bonds.

the value that investors would put on those bonds would be higher and they would pay a giant premium but that won't count against the -- against the debt limit. theoretically, you could find -- finance lots and lots of bonds. it's kind of a shell game and the $31 trillion debt would look smaller but in reality, you are in the exact same financial position, you still owe the $31 trillion, you've just gone through some games to look at dez to make it look smaller and you would potentially also have the rest of the world saying is is not really we dish the economy we all put our money in. there is a potential that could cause higher interest rates because people would have less

confidence. host: that story is on the bloomberg website. you can call and ask questions. legislatively, bills that could be debated this week both deal with the pandemic, one would in the public health emergency and the national emergency declared by president trump relit -- related to covid-19 so what's the messaging behind these bills? guest: basically, the house republicans have several goals related to this and they are trying to say that the pandemic is over, that we should not still be using emergency authorities 2020, that federal worker should have to show up for work, they want to revert to

the leap policies of 2019. a lot of federal workers are working from home these days. they call it does show up to work act. there is also one on vaccine mandates on health care workers. these are all things that republicans have been talking about campaigning on. the problem for them is they only have the house. most of these things are not going anywhere in the senate and even if they did, if you are repealing an executive order, you need an executive to sign your bill or else you need 2/3 to override. they don't have that. it's going to be interesting to see when people put out their pressed releases in their fundraising emails. you see that when the new house takes over.

we've done all these things but until you actually accomplish a law, then it's just a well organized press release. that's for things like the debt limit and the big-budget fight later this year when the year expires september 30 and that to pass a law to give the government operating after that and a lot of these things are going to be in those fights. those are the two moments where you hit the debt limit and funding cliff where republicans have some leverage and they intend to use it. host: let's hear from our viewers, daly city, california, democrats line. caller: good morning. i wanted to talk about the media, am i too late? host: that was the previous segment but if you have a question about what's ahead in washington this week, go ahead.

caller: washington will always play its games and credit is that it and they are using it in america. they are always poor. that's my opinion for that, thank you. host: thank you. guest: when it comes to the u.s. credit, we have something called the 14th amendment where section four of that amendment says the edit of the united states shall not be west you and. it was passed after the civil war were there was some question how they would pay back civil war bonds and they wanted to put it rest to that. there are folks on capitol hill who say we would not default on our debt because of that, the treasury secretary would prioritize paying back debt coupons. that is untested and it's kind of a risky thing to pay because we have a very -- the federal budget is very lumpy.

we have some days when $50 billion is going out for social security checks and other days when money is going up or medicare and other days where you have to met -- make these debt coupon payments and those days don't always correlate when people pay their taxes. we have some months where we have surpluses and some months where we have giant deficit. the idea that you would manage and prioritize statements and have that make any kind of sense for any length of time beyond a few days would be very difficult. host: in maryland, independent line, you are next. caller: good morning. i don't need to be nostra donna's do not -- to be nostradamus to know that it's democrats doing their best to govern and republicans doing performative nonsense. i just wish we would frame the actions is not