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journal with your calls and comments live on the air. and the brookings institution. senior fellow randy albert discusses the u.s. economic outlook and recession concerns. and michelle sager discusses the gao's latest high risk. they highlight programs vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse. washington journal is next. ♪ host: it is a washington journal for mace to -- may 2. there is a question of if society should show greater respect for social and moral boundaries. and more than have responded saying the u.s. should have a greater tolerance for people with different lifestyles and backgrounds. there are cultural wars,

abortion, guns, and other political issues. this morning you can tell us what you think of the cultural wars and if they are too dominant in american politics. if you say yes, they are too dominant (202) 748-8000 is the number to call. if you say no, (202) 748-8001 or perhaps you are not sure give us a call at (202) 748-800. and you can post on our social media sis at facebook and twitter and follow the show on instagram. the nbc poll w conducted in early looking at issues when it comes to social values and how it may impact the political spectrum. you can find the poll on nbc, but to show you the findings the poll respondents wrote, half of the americans, 50% expressing that leaves society should promote greater respect r traditional social and moral

values. while 42% say social -- society should be encouraging of greater -- that has been stagnant. to promote traditional social and moral values. and 67% of democrats wanted greater tolerance of diverse backgrounds. and 41 sent making traditional values and 41% siding with greater tolerance. and the poll also found when you look at the issue they talked about and ask on a political spectrum, it was three and four republicans -- three in four republicans saying the country should should vote -- should promote traditional social and moral values. 67% democrats had greater tolerance for diverse lifestyles. 41% siding with greater tolerance. that is some from the nbc poll. when it comes to larger aspects of cultural war and if you think

they have impacted or dominated in the political system. if you want to call and let us know what you think if you say yes, they are too dominant (202) 748-8000 if you say no, (202) 748-8001 and if you are not sure perhaps you can call (202) 748-8002 . or you can text us at (202) 748-8003. how this is playing out in the united states, stories from the associated press but it is out of oklahoma the oklahoma harold. the headline oklahoma's top education official embraces cultural wars. writing that the republican head of public schools campaign for the job last fall and ran on that form fighting woke ideology in public schools. banning certain books from school libraries and empowering parents with the school choice in getting rid of radical -- claims. and while the strategy was

successful and ryan walters won the election, they expect him to pivot more it's a -- pivot toward more substantial education policy. instead they are writing that walters is a former public school teacher from mcallister and has doubled down on his political rhetoric and focusing his energy on cultural war issues like targeting transgender athletes in schools and banning books and fighting what he calls joe biden's radical agenda. we get that out of oklahoma. this is from a cross-country website in washington state. they say that washington transgender youth bill targeted international cultural war. writing saying the state senator markley is -- marko liias

faced heated crowds at an olympic event last month. more than 100 people gathered to oppose the bill chanting usa. one person held a sign that read ways are not girls and the 250 -- between the two groups there were barricades and washington state patrol troopers to mange -- make sure they remain peaceful. that is just some ideas of this idea of cultural wars in the country. if you think it is too dominant, you say yes, (202) 748-8000 if you say no, (202) 748-8001 if you are not sure facebook.com/cspan -- if you are not sure (202) 748-8002. or you can text us at (202) 748-8003. we have bob as our first

color. aller. caller: this is america, not russia, that is what putin is trying to do getting us -- basically. host: with the things you mentioned they are not at the forefront of american politics, do you think? caller: yeah, it is, but you have to understand that is what we call this country the united states of america. that's why many people from many countries there are 200 countries on this planet0 . this country respects everyone regardless of race, religion, ideology. host: ok let's hear from john on

our tennessee line. hello. caller: one of the other things not mentioned in the cultural war aside from sexism and racism there is overwhelming ageism. people have such a presidents -- presidents -- prejudice against older people. [indiscernible] there's a lot of diversity in those people forming in their older age. henry kissinger published his 44th book last year at age 99. this bleeds over into the prejudice against mr. biden about assuming that just because you are [indiscernible] elevated in age that [indiscernible] simply isn't true. if you look at his speeches

state of the union and the white house [indiscernible] content is very top of the game [indiscernible] host: only going to stop you there because you are cutting in and out as far as the reception is concerned. you could probably add to the definition of what you think the culture war is but if you think it is too dominant in american politics you can call (202) 748-8000 or you say no, it is not too dominant you can call (202) 748-8001. some of you responding by facebook and texting and other means. this is j on our facebook page saying -- way from the fact that the republican party has no

intention of helping average americans area and david fox from facebook adding absolutely but how else can republicans get people to vote for them when they do nothing for the average person. and a similar sentiment from camillo. it is a reaction to keep the american public [no audio] hoarding all their wealth and the rest of us struggle to even buy a house. that is the thoughts from our facebook page you can post there at facebook.com/cspan or on twitter twitter @cspanwj or if you want to text you can text us at (202) 748-8003. and this is michelle. host: good morning. -- caller: good morning.

the culture wars are dominating every aspect of our lives. everything from our schools to our politics are being affected. they say there is no poor and in our schools and there is -- no porn in our schools and there is. the fact is they do not want to tell the truth. it is sideswiped i wind entire side the mainstream media. how many people in new york that do not have children in school that are unaware of what is being taught in school. it is because of programs like this where a color can call in and ask -- on anything they said -- a caller can call in and ask -- on anything they said. i do not agree with porn being in our schools. i can pool a book and read that material if you would like. you guys use that and you are

manipulating that american people. half of our elderly people do not even know what is going on of how the banks are crashing and how covid -- host: ok you are straying from the topic a little bit but we appreciate your call. we are moving to ray. tell us your thoughts. caller: with the schools and everything else going on, why doesn't the federal government keep their nose out of the state and local government? let the mayors run the city. if they need help, go to the state. if the state needs help, let them ask the government. host: are you saying that the culture wars are for dominant force in american politics. tell us why specifically. caller: well, it is because of the way they are running it.

the government wants to run everything. they want to run every state, county, -- the mayors job. they government wants to do everything. they will not let the local government take care of nothing. and if they do not take care of it then the federal government should step in. it is on the schools. the federal government should not have anything to do with schools. they want to stick their nose -- they cannot even run the country. do not let them run your city. they can't run the country. host: let's hear from mark in indiana on our no line. caller: i don't think they are too dominant because when you look at the culture, we have lost 70 million plus citizens to

the loss of life because of abortion. this has impacted our whole country including social security the system going to a deficit and we are importing people from the outside. so it is all a cultural war. and one thing it says in the bible that the unrighteous are an abomination to the righteous and vice versa. and you never can mix evil and good together and compromise. like you can't cut -- like just cutting the arms off of the child and letting the rest of them be alive is a compromise. even solomon had that much wisdom. host: mark in indiana.

tony texting us saying the culture wars did not seep into our politics, they were injected forcibly as a wedge to separate us and create leverage for ambitious politicians. the text number is s at (202) 748-8003. we have the so-called value in the united states, a poll and those responding found the term woke is well-known wit76% of americans saying they are familiar with the term a 22% are not familiar with it. the party is divided among partisan lines of what it means and if it is positive or negative as a concept. in the poll finding 48% of americans believe the country has gone to for in excepting -- accepting transgender people. they believe that the country has not gone far and -- far

enough, 43%. it is a divide within the poll's margin of error. if you want to go to the website of nbc you can see the results of the poll. and asking you about the so-called cultural wars. you can put a definition to that as you wish. you can tell us if you think it has become too dominant when it comes to american politics. you say yes, it has (202) 748-8000 you say no it is not, (202) 748-8001 or perhaps you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. eldon brown says culture wars are part of american democracy. that is from twitter you can post on twitter @cspanwj. let's hear from jerry in maine on res line. good morning. caller: -- our yes line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling to let you know that santos and donald trump

would be great for president and vice president. john santos as -- and donald dickey trump. host: that is not part of our conversation today. if you want to comment on the culture wars you said yes it is too dominant but tell us why. caller: yes it is, it is showing all the time everywhere. we thank you. host: before you go tell us why specifically you think it is too dominant. caller: it is people being overshadowed by the republican party. and they are picking up on trump's direct moves. they are following him right to the end. i believe the end is going to be the end. host: let's go to christina who is going to join us -- joining

us from wisconsin. on the no line. caller: hi, i don't think, it has to do with the culture but i believe it is systematically kind of done. i've been watching -- i am not into politics and since the pandemic i have noticed a pattern of -- they have triggered people and it seems like that is what the people in our government -- and they have, i don't know if they all believe in that here, or what is going on but i did not believe it has to do with culture itself i think it is intertwined and has been twin -- planned. host: when you say it is intertwined what do you mean by that? caller: systematically planned out. that is what i mean. it is logically kind of laid out there for you, but they have really -- i don't know what you want to call it if it is

brainwashed or what -- you are watching people being divided and divided and divided. they are playing on the emotions of these people. i don't think it is culture i think it is seriously systematic. host: you don't think the issues of culture play into this idea that you express that people are divided over? caller: i do but i do not think it is just culture. i think that is what they want us to focus on right now. host: when you say just culture what do you mean, what is an example? caller: it is just culture i do not think it is just culture i think it is everything. when you have a speaker go to a school and these people they don't even know why they -- go say trump in some places. people don't even know why they hate him yet, but they are full force and passionate about it. and they are playing on their emotions. and that creates this big

culture thing that is going on in all different directions. host: ok. let's go to steve in south carolina on our yes line. caller: i think it is too dominant everywhere. throughout society in general. of course in politics and now it has become a political football where people use it as a tool to gain votes, but the sad part is, -- let me give you a little demographic description of myself. i'm a conservative white christian and i don't care what anybody else says and that is me. i am a heterosexual i know liberals and conservatives. i don't really care what you do with your life. i don't care if you're transgender or a drag queen, but i do not want to get carried into certain places. i don't want it carried into schools. you can't turn on a 30 minute news show without it popping up.

it is too dominant. i am sick of it. leave it alone. i don't care if you identify as a horse, but do not push it on me. i will not push my conservative values on you. leave you alone with it and i will leave you alone with my views. and it is getting kicked around all the time and people are sick of it. as a christian i am concerned and i think we are living in romans one right now and as a christian i am concerned about their souls and eternity but pay attention to your business and i will mind mine. keep the signs out of the street and we will be good to go. host: that was steve in south carolina. our cultural wars becoming too dominant in american politics? people responding on our facebook page. this is yes sheena she says that in florida this is all a

politician has. we had an event on c-span and he talked about efforts to change laws on education policy when it comes to certain things taught to children. you can find more on our website but this is a portion of the speech from last month. >> the education stuff is important because as a governor i know how important it is to the future of our state and country. i see that clearly, but i see these issues of -- through the lense of a dad of a -- of three children. and my wife and i believe that kids should be able to be kids without having somebody's agenda shoved down their throat. it is wrong to teach a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body. it is wrong to teach students that gender is a choice. we do not allow that in florida.

the left did not like it and the media did not like it and disney did not like it but we govern the state of florida and not them. we have done what is right to make sure our education is sound and that children and parents are protected. we also had to do things like protect women's sports which i am happy to do but it is sad that we are even having to do that. and it is sad that we are having to do puberty blockers and sex change operations for minors. who would have thought that would be something appropriate. now in florida eight when you do that as a physician you lose your medical license. we have more to come with our medical legislature. host: when it comes to governor desantis, with his issues with disney, this is out of orlando days after he's -- disney sued the board a governor for what

was opposing the states don't say gay bill. they filed a lawsuit monday against the entertainment giant. the board members voted to defend itself in tallahassee where the company filed its lawsuit last wednesday. just a follow-up there. we are giving your -- getting your thoughts on culture wars in the united states. if it is to dominate of how politics play out whether it is federal are state level as well. if you are from florida, this is gordon in planned city who says no. hello. caller: i'm sorry i was trying to call on the yes line because i am republican. i want to give my yes answer would you allow me to do that? host: go ahead. caller: in any case i am from florida. i want to tell other people on c-span -- i am the guy that

nearly one the terry shiloh case. i am both fiscally and morally conservative. but you call in on every line and don't -- host: ok go to the point of the question please. caller: we are being too dominant on the social issues and here is why. our debt limit is about to crack and we are tracing down these things and over 2 billion of our debt is stewed in that and politicians will not do anything because they are chasing social issues. all they need to do is return bankruptcy or force the department to stop lending and they won't do anything. it will be a miracle or student loan debt limit. it's going to crash the economy. everybody is a liberal, and most americans are liberal. we will need a miracle or student loan they proceed to

make the department stopped its irresponsible lending. host: let's go to steve in illinois on the yes line. hello. caller: i think it is to debt -- dominant and republicans pick a minority to demonize periodically because they do not care about these people. this time it is the trans people and on a lesser degree they don't care about like people and erasing their history. this whole thing with woke, it just means you are aware of other people's existence and their feelings. the whole idea that they are going after these ideas relates back to the idea that these are white, christian, nationalist that do not want anything other than what they believe in. and the other point is that they always talk about freedom, but they cherish conformity. more than anything else they want everyone to think the same way. and let me close with an old line i remembered that republicans like to tell their

constituents that democrats think you are stupid but the republicans are counting on it. host: that is steven they are in illinois. some of you posted on our twitter feed at twitter @cspanwj . one said yes they used gender wars and culture and brace to create wars. -- another says the word warriors have equated -- joni saying culture wars have crept into the republican party with the thinking that only one man can save america like their trust is placed with donald trump who bankrupted every business he has been a part of. that his comments at twitter @cspanwj if you want to comment they. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003 or you can call us in you can pick the line that best

reflects your belief. if you say has, culture wars have dominated american politics you can call (202) 748-8000 if you say no, (202) 748-8001 or if you are unsure you can call (202) 748-8002 . next we have edward in new jersey on our no line. caller: good morning. i went to my local news fox five, the first thing on the local news is about migrants being shipped or bussed from texas and florida to new york city. the new york mayor is so upset. i go to c-span to see what is on this morning. i do not feel like the cultural wars are on the front burner enough. they are not dominant enough. the thing with migrants being shipped from any place in our country to another place is so

unfair. it is abhorring and i think the fire should burn loud and no one should be able to turn their backs against it. the issue with lgbtq, the gender expression in our country is an issue of human rights not being recognized. the fire should burn and no one should be able to turn their back. what has happened in our country is we are allowed to turn our back and we are not -- we have to be responsible for our people. i do not think there is enough of a cultural war facing us. this woke view is not enough as a black man. i feel like my rights, a human rights -- my human rights have to be protected. studied in education and so forth. there is not enough and i think you forgiven me this time. host: ok. this is alley in virginia on our yes line. caller: good morning.

i feel like i have living out the culture wars and they are dominant. what i do not agree with is that the politicians are causing it. i think we, the people, and the politicians are just taking advantage of it. i agree with the gentleman from north carolina. i agree with him. just leave me alone let me live where i want to live because i am from west abington i have seen what culture wars due to this. and in this country, when one day culture wars will create a problem for this beautiful country that i would give my life for. thank you for taking my call. host: we've taken about a half-hour of your calls s. we will continue if you think culture wae dominated american politics. all the phone numbers are

available to yyou say yes, (202) 748-8000 if you say no, they have not, (202) 748-8001 and if you are not sure (202) 748-8002. and you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. the results when it comes to and the term.pecifics with race 50% -- term woke. 50% believe society should promote -- promote greater respect. and the background perspective has stayed almost stagnant when promoting traditional moral values. 67 percent of democrats want greater tolerance of diverse lifestyle. independent want 41% attrition -- traditional values and 41% saying they want more support of

varied lifestyles. you can factor all this into the idea of culture wars of however you want to define it. coral in oregon on our yes line you are next. caller: thank you for accepting michael. i -- my call. i want to probably find a some kind of agreement with most people's agreement -- most people opinion even though it is hard. it was hard to find culture in our society. i know just what is in my family, i have a diverse, multi language, not language, but multi -- different countries originally. i am half irish and other

europeans, but we have people i have people that are from latin america, in my family, i have different religions and i have all kinds of people. we all try to get along because we are all related. but it is kind of like the whole deal in america. we are all made up it is a melting pot. we have to accept differences. it is difficult really to find things in agreement and that is why a think it right now especially is it is difficult to get people united. and it is very difficult -- i keep trying. i am hopeful, but yeah, it does seem to take a lot of effort and compromise. host: alright that is carl in oregon. and then we have nancy in florida. caller: good morning.

i wanted to first of all make a comment that pretty much you can detect just by the tone of the voice whether you are republican or conservative or not. just by the tone of voice without even knowing. that tells you a lot. yes, i think the previous caller said it correctly. it would be better to compromise and try to find common ground. host: do you think your governor applies that when it comes to how he tackles these issues? caller: no, i wish she was more reasonable -- wish he was more reasonable and compromising. i think the world needs to get together. how does it help to divide people? in a marriage, if you are always fighting, how does it help? you have to find answers and a way to make it through.

in a family, you are in a country, you have to find a way. you cannot be fighting all the time. host: that is nancy in florida giving her thought on the idea of culture wars in the united states and if it seeped into american politics. one of the things you see play out last month on the house side was the passage of a bill that would protect female athletes in certain sports. that was under title ix and it was after that debate and vote that mccarthy spoke about what he thought the real intent was and here is a portion of his thoughts from april. >> i believe in the fundamental goodness and decency and integrity of the american people. for me, this is not about politics, this is about being there for all of america's children.

including transgender children. who just want to be able to live and to belong and to make friends. that is something that all americans, i believe, all decent , kindhearted americans fundamentally support. and extreme mag republicansa are trying to sensationalize an issue that does not really exist in the way that they are falsely pretraining -- pretraining portraying. if this is about elitism in sports, let's allow the relevant organizations involved in elite sports competition to do what they do. to set the framework and the boundaries and the rules of engagement.

you know what? many of them already have. the ncaa already has a policy as it relates to this issue, so does the international olympic committee, so does the track and field association, and many high school athletic associations have this. issue addressed. so what this is about, again, extreme maga republicans doing everything possible to jam their right wing ideology down the throats of the american people. host: we have more of the speech available at our website at c-span.org. if you want to check it out there. again culture wars in the united states are they too dominant in american politics? on our yes line. hello. caller: i would like to change. i am born and raised in florida. and only 30% of the people that

live in florida were raised and born here. they came from other countries or other cities or whatever, i would like to say that everybody always says that they believe in god is this and god is that, but if they believe in god, why did they want to take the rights of the human being? god made all of us as one and we should think as one. i think governors desantis is a sick person i think he needs help and i think if he believes in god he should go to god and ask him to forgive him for all the wrong he has done in this state. thank you. host: a page on the washington post about the lost art of tolerance and how americans need to rediscover it. he wrote this in part to untangle the destructive compilation of church and state -- the evangelicals -- no

religious creed was intended to be government policy. the bible reminds believers to not be concerned with things of the world. progressive americans must adjust as well by exhibiting tolerance for conservative social and religious beliefs rather than disappearing -- disparaging such views as bigoted or hateful. people who are asked to reject beliefs and practices for their communities have sincerely held for generations. yes, sometimes the courts must intervene, all sides need to accept their decisions, but we must accept things that we disagree even if they offend us. more there from the column of americans need to rediscover the lost art of tolerance. we can read that into the conversation when it comes to culture wars so to speak.

if they have become too dominant in political society. we set aside a line for those who are not sure which is (202) 748-8002. that is where joe in maine is on our not sure line. joe in maine? caller: yes, it is not a cultural law it is a fact war. republicans lie repeatedly about everything, right? and block any kind of -- progressive move of any change to the immigration laws. they had four years within control and absolutely -- did absolutely nothing about the doca. i have to ask you what is your number of how many miles of law was built at me guess. i will let that go. host: i go back to the idea that

you called in on the not sure line. but you sound pretty sure. caller: i am sure that it is not a culture war. it is a fact law. -- fact war. individuals can stand up and live through their teeth and nothing happens. they lied in front of congress and there are no results. there are no consequences. now here we are, the very first time i called, you were here. you know what the conversation was about? whether trump had his ties made in china. so i don't know pedro cut me off. host: i will stop you there because i think you have strayed from the topic but michael on chicago, illinois. hello. caller: how are you doing today? host: i am well thank you go ahead. caller: all of this going on is about race. everybody has to understand there are decent people in every race.

they have good and decent people in whatever race you are and they are ignorant people in race as well. when you see people turn up all the cities and all this looting they want to put it all to the democrats that is not democratic, that is the ignorant people in our races doing this. once these mag peoplea stop trying to put all of the emphasis on race, that is the problem. when the two planes if you were republican or independent they attacked because you are american. we need to understand that. thank you. host: culture wars are low hanging fruit for politicians to pick these and use earning issues because the wars are easily grasped by people. that is one vo. and the culture war is another

form of discrimination, racism, and hatred. just put in a nice little title like culture wars. -- this is another viewers saying it started with tolerate homosexuals and then bake the cake or else and now porn in schools and sex and kids are ok. -- you can express those things on our twitter feed at twitter @cspanwj. on our not sure line we will hear from chuck in florida. hello. caller: hello there. how are you doing this morning? host: well, thanks. go ahead. caller: ok. i am not sure if it is too dominant or not dominant enough. one thing i have learned in my 64 years on planet earth here is that we are involved in a extreme battle of good versus evil.

until people start to figure that out, this could get worse, it could start to get better. but, until we figure out the difference between good and evil, we are headed in a bad direction. anybody who cannot see it is blind. host: when you say good versus evil what examples would you use? caller: what examples what i use? good -- this whole thing started when they took god out of schools. i think we need a lot more people like ron desantis standing up for the good to fight evil. this is another floridian in winter garden the no line. good morning. caller: yes sir.

the issue i believe comes down to one thing. is -- now this, is a struggle. [indiscernible] liberal. but between large rural and urban because for many years, on the tv programs, they would tried to remove any program that had rural background. rural background as if to say that that wasn't in keeping with the americans they want. well, i -- i believe this way. that if a person wants to follow their particular pattern, their particular [indiscernible]

don't push it on me and i won't push mine on you. host: that is arthur there. and if i may ask winter garden, florida. would you describe that as more rural for urban? would -- did that impact your comments this morning? caller: when i was growing up it was a very rural area. host: ok that was our caller from florida giving us his thoughts. if you want to share your thoughts in the last 50 minutes of the segment. the term woke was used in a poll by usa today. it was saying republican presidential hopefuls are vowing to wage a war on this. but they found the majority of americans is a positive attribute and not an ab -- negative one. 56% of those surveyed says the term means to be informed

educated on and aware of social injustices. it includes not only three fourths of democrats but more than one third of republicans. 39% say it reflects what has become the gop political definition to be overly politically correct and police others. u.s. ape paul saying that findings raise questions about whether republican campaign promises to ban policies at schools and workplaces -- contender in the party's primaries and it puts them at odds with the broader public and the general election. this poll came out march 8 of this year. if you want to read it more specifically some of you mentioned that during the course of this hour. joyce is up next. in georgia on our yes line. you are up next. caller:hi, i thought it was ironic that you put up congressman jeffries talk.

he started out with extreme maga republicans. later on in that part, extreme maga republicans. there is your culture war. hate and division, extreme maga republicans. why are they hated? do democrats even realize what extreme maga republicans stand for? even the president calls this extreme maga republicans. they are dangerous to democracy. no we aren't, all we want our -- is the constitution to be enforced or -- for the laws to be equal for everyone, and one guy said earlier, just leave us alone and let us live our life. we work, we pay our taxes, and

then even our president is criticizing us. and having people hate us. anything that is ok? host: ok that is joyce in georgia let's hear from tom in kansas on our yes line. hi. caller:hi, i have to go on with what this lady said and the guy that spoke before. i believe that we are being -- stuff has been shoved down our throat like transgender and stuff operating on kids, little kids not in -- old enough -- when i was young i would could ride my bike anywhere i wanted to go there was no fear of being abducted, raped, or anything like that because that is the way things were then but it is not that way now. but i would say people need to

wake up and put the weight off of kids. god designed our chromosomes and dna. that is the way we came to earth. who knows what the plan is? host: tom in kansas giving us a call. one of the things in the term culture wars when it came out in a recent hearing that featured congress taking a look at the pandemic when it came to the closing of schools, one of the people testified was the head of the american federation of teachers randi weingarten. she had an exchange with the republican of ohio with the issues here is part of that. >> i've just got a minute. the same paragraph page 12, you say most americans disapprove of the culture wars that have saturated education policy. who started the culture wars? >> i know that when you have banning of books, like a book

about roberto clemente, like a book about ruby bridges, that is wrong. >> those things let me ask this. boys should compete against boys in sports or boys can compete against girls in sports. which one of us started the cultural war? >> when i talk about cultural wars i am talking about things like boot banning and stopping teachers from teaching honest -- >> is it starting a culture war if you think literacy should be age-appropriate? >> i believe literacy should be age-appropriate as well. >> ok. host: there is more on that you can find that on our website at c-span.org. let's hear from les in oregon on the not shoreline. -- not sure line. hi. caller: hi, i believe that

things should be let alone. what i mean is, if you are gay or want to be, that is your choice, but i believe not pushing it upon children. also, i do not know where they get these people that say that republicans are racist because i belong to the nra. there's all different kinds of nationalities and they are republican. there is black, hispanic, chinese, japanese, i do not get this -- i grew up [indiscernible] host: i apologize for that but

your connection is degrading. i apologize for that but you got your point out. thank you for calling. before we finish this i want to let you know about a hearing that is not related to the topic of hand but it is related to the issues of ethic when it comes to the supreme court. they will hold a judiciary committee meeting on the supreme court ethics standards. justice neil gorges salt land to a law form that has cases before a hive -- high form. they ask him to come to this hearing but he will not be in attendance. the hearing goes on nonetheless that will be at 10:00 this morning on c-span right after this program. you can also follow on our app c-span now or watch on this app -- on the website at c-span.org. we asked the question from --

are culture wars to dominant in u.s. politics? caller: i say yes, african-americans know that words do not hurt me so much. i think the culture war is more about a subversive war between the agenda and the very few who control the media, politics, houses and so forth. i think they are basically dividing congress. they are turning men against women women against men they are talk the fighting between the genders. and all of a sudden if you are not someone who is totally comfortable with a trans person treating your kid you are misogynist or something else. i am a conservative young man and my point is i believe in the unity between man and woman but i did not like the culture that has gotten it this far. i think it is a subversive

culture, it is more about the agenda of the few who are trying to dismantle us and bring us down to a point where we would be a third world country in all kinds of respects. host: that is robert in maryland. politics from senator cornyn the senator from maryland announcing he is retiring after three terms of serving in the u.s. senate. that is the headline from the associated press. scott in dallas, texas. on our yes line. hello. caller: hi, i believe there is too much of it in politics. i graduated high school in 1974 and i grew up with prayer in schools. i witnessed bibles being passed out in math classes and mandatory religious ceremonies you had to attend in the

auditorium. i graduated from the dallas independent school district and now in texas they are talking about taking taxpayer dollars and funding private schools with those dollars. i believe anybody should believe how they should believe, that is not my concern, but i do not like the idea of having somebody's ideology forced down my throat like the previous caller said. and there is no such thing as nondenominational prayer. host: ok kirk is next in alabama. on our yes line in. good morning. caller: good morning i would say hell, yes to the point of the media, you guys, hollywood, advertisers, educators, everyone is pushing angst called culture that i call wickedness, depravity, iniquity, sodomy --

where is the line and the limit of what should be tolerated? when you consider those things as what they actually are. it is wickedness, the culture, the media, the entertainment, the halftime shows, the grammy awards pushing this stuff on children. to what end? all great societies fall. america is still -- standing as those that preceded it through right around with wars unnecessarily, through social depravity and failure, because people tolerate too much. what is the limit and to what end it should we continue to tolerate what everyone that is a human being that has a soul will recognize what this

culture actually is. nobody will remember what who and -- who or what america was when it is buried under the water in the sand like all other societies that have followed this path that have been allowed themselves to be so blatantly wicked. host: are not sure line. fairfax, virginia. caller: good morning. the perception of war is all created by the people in charge. like many callers have said. politicians and those that are profiting off of this. look at your own life as americans, we all live, work, go to school. people are different from us. nobody lives in a bubble anymore. you feel like you are at war with people you associate with? of course not. so do not be a youth -- useful idiot, the war is between those who are in charge who are propping up and stirring up all of the conflict.

as the previous caller said the real war is us flooding the world with weapons and bombing everyone. host: when it comes to the culture wars who is profiting from it do you think? caller: my god. all the shows that talk about it, the publishers who write books about it. this is media frenzy all the movies about it, politicians who get donations from those who are spun up about we need to support you because the other side was so evil. it is profit galore from the cultural wars. if you open your eyes it is so obvious that the rich are getting richer and the people are just at odds with each other. it is all perception. host: alright. that is run in fairfax, virginia and finishing off this hour of calls looking at the culture wa to all of you that participated thk you for doing so. i have two guests joining me

today to talk about topics of matters of economics. we will be joined by wendy atul >> dr. medford is a well-known historian and an expert on andrew jackson and abraham lincoln. she recently appeared before an audience at purdue university. over the past 20 years she has served as a member of c-span's advisory team. dr. edna green medford.

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there is something for every c-span fan. shop now at any time at c-spanshop.org. listing to programs on c-span through c-span radio just got easier. tell your smart speaker to play c-span radio and listen to washington journal at 7:00 a.m. eastern. weekdays at 5:00, catch washington today. listen to c-span at any time, tell your smart speaker to play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. "washington journal," continues. host: a discussion about the economy with wendy edelberg of the the brookings institution

. good morning and thank you for joining us. when it comes to the latest news, the treasury secretary releasing a letter about a june 1 deadline, could you put this in perspective what this letter means in the discussion it will foster for the debt ceiling? guest: it's not good. the way to think about the debt ceiling is like this. the u.s. taxpayer owes people money. we owe investors money who have bought securities, we owe federal workers who have been working on behalf of u.s. taxpayers. we owe medicaid and medicare doctors money and we have obligations to people who expect to receive their social security benefits. these are obligations that are already in place because of loss

that have previously been passed by congress. for a long time, the u.s. government has spent more than it has brought in and difference needs to evaluate -- be made up. congress tells the treasury ed has an obligation to make spending payments but at the same time and put a cap on the amount the treasury is allowed to borrow. those three things cannot hold at the same time. we are in a position where we have hit the debt ceiling. the treasury's not allowed to borrow any more money. they are moving money around to pay the bills but it is now possible that by early june because of what has happened with revenues and they are not as strong as we had hoped, by

early june, we will not have enough money. host: by june 1 it has to be made, biden wants them to have these discussions on capitol hill. what should the conversation center around? guest: they have to raise the debt ceiling. it is a no-brainer and most of the people who are involved in these decisions understand that. i think some people are getting for a crisis to see what would happen and who would get the blame if the treasury had to juggle payments and some people did not get paid. at the same time, there are budget decisions that have to be made. congress has to make decisions about how much they want to appropriate for defense spending, nondefense spending. i am guessing those concessions

will be wrapped up in debt ceiling conversations but they don't have time to make all of these decisions between now and june 1. my hope is the first thing they do when they get in the room is less raise the debt ceiling and commit to each other to make longer-term harder decisions on what we want spending to be over the next fiscal year. host: the democratic leaders of the house and senate, the house speaker has another perspective where he wants to see cuts in spending before those things happen. guest: what is frustrating is that there a bunch of republican lawmakers to put forward bills or talked about the idea of having treasury commit to making interest payments or other kinds of payments. but telling them, we want you to

postpone other payments. we want to see how things unfold at the debt ceiling -- it is dangerous, it is foolish. it's not good for the economy. is not good for the federal budget. i am worried that not everyone involved in these negotiations actually has the protection of the credit rating of the u.s. government as highest priority. host: our guest us with us until 8:45. if you want to ask questions call on the lion's (202) 748-8000 free democrats, (202) 748-8001 four republicans,, (202) 748-8002.

host: what is going on at the office now that they have received this news from the treasury? guest: they are looking at federal revenues and coming to the same determination that it may be in early june when the coffers run dry and they don't have enough money. in some ways it's uncharted terror raise -- waters, sometimes not. host: as far as the treasury, what is the plan of what gets paid first? guest: they have not been forthcoming about that. if you look back at what they have done, what we have from

previous go arounds it looks like there game plan will be making interest payments on this debt first and foremost so there there's no accent to which they would've defaulted, then they would make nondistressed payments until they delayed for long enough that enough revenues come in that they can be sure they have enough money to make interest payments and they will make each day's non-payments when they have enough money. that way they don't have to prioritize between paying this federal contractor or this

medicare provider. host: what is the current state of the u.s. economy? guest: we got information about what happened in the first quarter and consumers continue to spend. the information we got for cool -- she wasn't. parts of our economy are too gloomy and one of the reasons we see inflation uncomfortably high the strength of consumer spending on its own contributed three percentage points. that is a strong economy in that regard and that is very strong spending. other parts of the academy --

economy help bring the gdp down. with regards to the consumer, the consumer still spends like gangbusters. in the second quarter things are slowing. consumer spending has bid out a torrid pace. we have come off highest from 2020 and 2021, particularly in good spending. we need consumer spending to come down to. host: what are the boomy parts? guest: inflation remains high.

information shows inflation the stuck up 5%. the primary reason why the fed has been taking the action it has been taking by raising interest rates. there are a lot of factors going in to those inflation numbers but one of those has been the strength of consumer spending and spending overall. in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, our mix of consumer spending. we stopped spending on services and went all into goods. good spending has come down but it is still weirdly high. if you draw a line where good spending should be, it's based

on what we saw in the 2018, 2019. we are 5% above that level. if you are a seller in america selling goods to consumers, it is like christmas month in and month out. it's not possible for our economy to keep up with that level of demand. one of the reasons we are seeing the inflation numbers we are seeing is that sellers are facing demand they can't keep up with. host: wendy edelberg joining us in this conversation. caller: thanks pedro. i appreciate your guest this morning. there is a quick way of putting this into perspective to what we are actually doing.

when you talk about a 34 trillion national debt in consumer spending in the way i am seeing this. if you go back to the clinton administration, we left there with a 320 billion surplus. the cheney and bush administration, 750 bases around the planet, the resupplying of these institutions and we keep coming back to the national debt that even out a trillion dollars, i don't see any consideration being able to pay off that national debt. what is the national debt at this point in time and what are we going to accomplish by putting the burden back on the american people? caller: we value a lot of things

that the federal government does for us. guest: social security does a lot of good and is extraordinarily popular. the federal government as a central part of our health care system in a way that does a lot of good for a lot of people. the federal government helps to pay for schools. it helps to pay for abroad insurance system. as one of the reason why we weathered the pandemic as well as we did. we just need to pay for those things. in my mind, we are an under taxed country. we have extraordinary resources that are available to pay for these goods and services that the government is doing for us that we value. host: from kentucky, this is jack. caller: i have a question.

if congress can't pass the debt ceiling will that affect social security? guest: it may well. the game plan that is widely expected is that the treasury will make principal and interest payment so it's not in default on the debt but that it will postpone making other payments until it has enough resources to make each day's payments without having to prioritize and that will mean delays and payments on social security benefits, paid to federal workers, pay to doctors who see medicare and medicaid patients. the way to think about it, if

the federal government makes interest payments but puts -- delays making those other payments. we are talking and 25% cut in all of those other payments. a 25% cut in federal spending on social security recipients, those doctors expect to get. the cuss will be bigger an amount over time if treasury wanted to make sure that it had enough money to make interest payments no matter what. let's be clear, if this day comes to pass and treasury is not making all of its payments,

this is a crisis that will quickly mount in severity. as much as much as i can sit here and say if this persist we will see 25% cuts in those cuss will mount and payments will get increasingly delayed. i don't think this could last more than a handful of days before we see a big severe crisis in financial markets. host: we have people on twitter asking about the law on the debt ceiling in the first place and if it comports with the fourth amendment. guest: i'm not a lawyer so i can offer a position on the fourth amendment. i will say it is stupid.

the idea that we separately tell the u.s. treasury that they can expect to receive revenues based on tax law so we have passed. they have obligations to make payments because congress passes laws and they don't let the treasury decide legally to pay this or pay that. congress is telling the treasury you have to make the payments based on the laws we've made and you can't borrow to make those payments. it is a stupid thought. host: let's hear from james, virginia, independent line. caller: good morning pedro. my question is, at the end of the month i don't have the money to pay my bills, it doesn't mean i get to write a balanced check. i can't print the money. it's in our laws.

why doesn't the government have to follow any of the laws that we do? gm had to lay off a bunch of people because it has to save 2 billion dollars. disney is laying off people, our government creates these problems. you can go back to your archives how many times the government is going to shut down in the sky is going to fall. every year we hear the exact same thing. spend less money. guest: i want to draw a stark distinction between the issues around the debt ceiling and a government shutdown. they are both stupid things that your federal government can do that they are very different. congress enacts laws that keep

the government open. appropriation laws that tell agencies, you are obligated to do this that and the other and we have set aside money to make sure that you are funded to be able to do that. and then there is the issue of paying bills from past obligations. the issues on the debt ceiling, is paying bills for past obligations. congress still has laws in place for this fiscal year saying this is what the federal government can do because congress has told the federal government it has to do the following things. treasury does not have the authority to willy-nilly say, i

am going to shut down this agency. i will tell that defense group that they should not be working. i will save money by not paying those people. you don't want the treasury to have that ability. congress has that ability and it has told those agencies that they have to work. if the debt ceiling binds in the treasury's not able to pay the bills, it doesn't mean the government shuts down it just means that workers still get paid. host: the rate that have been out there but the federal reserve has a meeting today and tomorrow. they are expecting another interest rate hike, tell us what could happen if the hike takes place. guest: i think it would be a huge shock to markets if the federal reserve did not raise interest rates by .25 percentage points.

all eyes will be on what statement comes without information about forward guidance. does the fed hint that with the information that they have on hand this might be the end of hikes for a while? ed thinks there are one or two hikes left to come. they will leave themselves room in that statement because everything they have been doing has been dated dependent, not just what they see in the economy but the financial system. for the most part when it comes to economic information, we have the same information the federal reserve has but it is safe to assume that they have information we do not have about what's happening in the

financial and banking system. there will be a lot of attention with a hint of what is to come. host: what are the primary sources of information that they look to? guest: first and foremost they have been laser focused on inflation they are drilling down a particular measures. there also focusing on what's happening in the real economy. the labor markets have been incredibly strong, unsustainably

strong. if you look at what we know about population growth, long-term trends in labor force participation comparing that to the hiring we have seen. hiring is three times higher than is sustainable. the labor markets have to slow. i don't want to say it is math. each piece of the information that the federal reserve is getting with the labor market, i know it is pouring over. one of the first places we see.

we have seen what is happening in mortgage rates, people's ability to refinance their homes, they are looking broadly at the housing sector because it tells them about how healthy household balance sheets are. but also because it is the bellwether, with the effect has been of monetary policy and they can see if things are following historical points. we can go through all the sectors one by one. host: wendy edelberg is head of the hamilton project, what is that? guest: you would think i would

have a faster explanation. we work with academics and other experts around a wide variety of fields and we say you have studied this for a long time, you know all about this problem. let's work with you to come up with policy proposals you want to put in front of policymakers to fix the problem. we work with them mostly to help them get their best ideas in front of policymakers so when they make decisions they have the most cutting edge and useful research in front of them. we do that with an eye towards making the economy stronger but also making sure that economic growth is widely shared. everything we are doing is

through the lens of a strong economy but also an equitable economy. host: let's hear from mark in oklahoma. on the independent line. guest: i don't think i heard the question. caller: what about making cannabis legal and taxing it? guest: there are many sources of potential tax revenue that the federal government could tax. you have highlighted one of them. i think it is one of many areas

that should be on the list. host: let's go to florida, with francis on the democrat line. caller: a comment and a question. i am not real pleased. i am 70 years old. i think -- we talk about a budget. we should clean -- pass a clean debt ceiling, no one is going to do a budget. i know what a budget is, i'm on disability. i know what i can spend on. this is not a budget this is a wish list. we just spend what we want and borrow to make up for it.

and now we have 34 trillion in debt and nobody seems to think about how we will pay it. i can understand why they are worried now, something must be done. for the 50 years that i have been following this. i have never known the cbo to be correct. guest: there is no compelling reason that the government

spending should be constrained. there are lots of good reasons that the government should run a deficit. i know it's enticing that the government should run like a household. is not a very good comparison. most households do borrow for the future but is not a good comparison. it is highly inappropriate that the government is borrowing. when congress does get together and pass budgets for the fiscal year puts put someplace tax policy that is set in law for several years.

those are all the budget. it really is a budget. even when congress says this is the best you can do? even that's a budget. there is a ton of information on the website of the accuracy of his projections. host: from maryland, on the republican line. caller: thanks for taking my call. you are clearly very intelligent and experienced anyone who

pushes against the narrative will sound less intelligent. people are starting to wake up that this is an idea. we have the right to borrow more money. that is a fallacy. there is enough money that if we did enough prior to the station -- prioritization. we absolutely should prioritize our payments. there is enough money coming in each month for us to pay the important things. for quite a while, we got

payments covering the important parts. at what point do we say, enough is enough? sit down and create a proper budget. everyone is high on drugs with the stuff and our children and grandchildren will have to pay for it. the working people of this country don't receive bailouts. we are taking a hit. we don't have to bail the banks out. they can bail themselves out. guest: i entirely understand your point. here's the thing. the suggestion that you are making that the treasury has enough money coming in from revenue.

congress has not told the treasury how to prioritize that money and so the best the treasury can do, this is just a short-term solution to a set of bad outcomes. we will only make interest and principal payments and everything else is going to get cut by a third. what you have in mind, is you want the treasury to make social security payments, defense contractors, there are two problems with that. the other parts of the budget that the treasury would not be making payments to are going to

see substantial cuts. let's say we left to the side federal contractors, people doing contract work with the government. if you want to pay them, we make the bucket of money even smaller necessitating bigger cuts. these are obligations that we as tax owners own. we don't want the treasury deciding who gets paid first and who gets paid maybe never. congress has the power of the purse and they say pay everyone

whose obligations are due. you don't want them to decide who funds this agency and not that agency. we don't want it and is not legal. without a law in place telling congress to make this payment and not that payment, it does not work. host: i want to ask you about the latest news with first republic? how much concern should the public be about these banks? guest: so far this seems pretty well contained. you never know. so far, so good pretty well contained. i can look at each one of these failures and understand them

through particular issues with those financial institutions. first republic not only had a very large share of its deposits above the uninsured limit. if you are keeping a million dollars in the bank you will be upset if the bank looks like it will fail. deposits over 250, there has been a lot of telegraphing by officials that even deposits well above 250 are not guaranteed. it makes sense that the pauses in excess of 250 thousand and are more likely to be pulled

from those worried about a bank failing. also, if you look at the number of depositors that first -- what that tells us is that not only did they have a very high level of uninsured deposits, those deposits were huge. they had deposits in their bank accounts of millions of dollars. those are depositors who pay close attention to a first republic will go south and move their money somewhere else. that is not a normal institutional framework for a bank of that size to have.

so far, each one of these failures signature, silicon valley, first republic, seems to have done something uniquely irresponsible that got them into this position and it does not suggest to me repercussions in the larger economy. host: should they raise the level of deposits from the fdic? guest: it is not a panacea, that would cost money and it has its own trade-off. i think there is a case to be made that these regional banks should be more effectively regulated even when times are going well. the board put out a report on

silicon valley and it should lead to improvements in regulation down the road. it is hard to tell institutions, yeah but. it is hard when the market is saying one thing and a regulator is saying another. we have to believe are regulators. host: let's go to michigan, this is david. caller: good morning. the republic has been blindsided on all the essential items. i want your opinion, i can't speak for the banks, would a windfall profits tax help wash

out the cost of some of these essentials, fuel and living quarter allotments and everything. can you speak on profit taxes of any kind could influence the economy. thank you. guest: i am sympathetic to the idea of a windfall profit stock. we know that oil prices rose for a bunch of reasons over the past couple of years and the result was that our domestic oil industry made a lot of money. it's not dissimilar to the fact that we all over the course of

the pandemic, really love buying things we can hold in our hands at seemingly any cost and the result is that retailers have raised the prices and they too have made a lot of money. i'm sympathetic of them wanting to tax our profit back. in the case of retailers, a windfall profits tax seems like a great idea until you start thinking about how people will change their behavior going forward because they will know that you have a windfall profit tax in your tool book. i totally get where the ideas coming from but there are better

ways to do it. host: one more call, from david in pennsylvania on the republican line. caller: we keep hearing this consumer spending cuts. one of the driving factors of consumer spending, if you read the second line of the cpi report it was food and energy. with food and energy it will be 7.1%. if people want to eat food in the major driving force is on transportation costs. transportation costs, gas and

oil need to be more available for the american public and or domestic production has to go back up to the 2020 level. we turned around and bought russian oil, russian uranium and coal. what a disaster for american business. the biden administration talks about unifying success in america. we buy all these products from overseas. the state of new york is buying indian gas and diesel which is refined from russian oil. they are dancing around the russian embargo. host: what would you like the guest to address? caller: transportation costs. guest: first off, i would like

to say i also like to eat. when i was talking about how much consumers have been doing i was adjusting for inflation. i am thinking about how much stuff we are buying. the amount of stuff we are bringing into our homes has been running hot. that is what i'm saying. the issues around how much money we are spending, thus a separate thing. i am literally talking about how much stuff we are buying ns more than retailers tend to like. host: wendy edelberg from the brookings institution. thank you for the conversation. coming up on the program we will be joid by government accountability office's michelle sager taking a look at

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talk about the supreme court when it comes to a lack of ethics rules. we are taping that at five, dick durbin, the chair of the judiciary committee asked john larson to testify and he pushed off on that invitation. but the hearing will go on. you can watch those starting at 10:00. you can follow along on our app and you can follow along on the website. it is open for them, we will start with matt in dearborn, michigan on the democrats line. caller: i would like to talk about the culture wars. this country was founded on the culture wars.

just before the country was founded, there was a disagreement between the loyalist and patriots. they said we cannot break away from england, we have to have a king. it's in the bible. thomas payne wrote a book saying that no, we should have the right to self determine our government. the bible is full of superstition and dogma. thomas payne helped to start the revolution more than anyone. host: what does that mean for today? caller: i think all americans should go back and read history books. to understand what this guy was saying, it's the foundation of

this country. it's a beautiful thing this guy did. it explains where we came from. host: let's hear from jim in boca raton, florida. on the republican line. caller: i am just calling to push back a bit on the previous guests comment. she was asked about windfall profits tax. i find that to be rich, i would like you to push back a bit on that concept. this country was energy self sufficient and the prices of energy at the pump are $3.50 in

boca raton. we were paying $2.89 under trump. the policies of biden have been to attack the fossil fuel industry. we are full of energy in this country and that speaks directly to energy subsidies and are independents of foreign oil. the windfall profits are right of the alley of marxist-leninist. host: trump has decided to consort with cnn, and whose

reporters he chastised while in office. a major moment with politics and the media. part of the political strategy the trump team is now adopting. this is ray, on the independent line. caller: i would like to hear some discussion about subsidies. subsidies for the oil and gas industry, subsidies for the war machine. subsidies for other countries, farming subsidies. where does the money go and why does it go to some of these places? why is our government picking winners and losers? and then of course a lot of it has to do with the fact that the

ultrarich can buyer government and now it is coming out that they can buyer supreme court. more discussion about subsidies and following the money. that's basically it. host: the washington times has a story about the supreme court in a case they decided to take yesterday. supreme court takes a case to review industry tactics. it is between herring fishers and the marine service that wants to charge them $700 a day to monitor what they are catching. the 1984 supreme court ruling, judges are required to give wide difference in the agency's decisions. they are asked to overrule the chevron case.

you can expect that court takes it up for the next term. more reporting on that. joanna is from florida on the independent line. caller: good morning can you hear me? host: i can hear you just fine. caller: good morning, there is a group in wisconsin, they've been working for 20 years, we need to have bankruptcy protections restored that were taken away from all student loans. student loan prices continued,

that is what we are working towards. ultimately, the second goal would be to get debts canceled by executive order. you can go to student justice.org. host: sinead and illinois on the democrat line. caller: my concern, i would like to hear his similar suggestions from callers or guest speakers. how do we get to a balanced budget? it is been a topic my whole life and i would love to see it happen. it's become so politicized but something should really do something to balance the budget.

in a 20 year term, how can we all agree on something and get a balance? host: how to start the process? caller: i will leave it to the next generation because i am older and we didn't do a good job on it. i don't know how we are going to get there. i really hope the next generation will think more clearly and not have all this baggage that we did. i think it will come down to the independents who will be smarter than we have in the past. i'm hoping for the next generation to, to finally get a

budget that they can hand over to their children. because we have done a lousy job of it. host: let's hear from wanda in california on the republican line. caller: i am calling about the crooked election we just had in 2020. between 2017-2019 the senate had hearings about how easy it would be to hack an election. testify was senator rod whiteman , klobuchar, warren they talked about how dangerous it is to have computers run our elections but now they seem to have forgotten all about that. our elections are totally legitimate and it did not happen.

even though one of the computer experts was talking about how voting machines could be hacked within seven minutes of the election. host: douglas is caller: good morning. i heard president biden and other politicians talk about efforts to reduce costs of drugs and medical treatment, but i've hardly heard any politician talk about drugs or medical treatments by adopting lifestyle habits. something we can use to keep ourselves healthy and strong with less dependence on government, first by the american heart association. understand your risks to prevent a heart attack, eight things you can do to prevent heart disease and stroke.

how to help prevent heart disease at any age by the cdc. strategies to live a heart healthy lifestyle, heart disease fax, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the united states. host: what is the message to government then? caller: we can help to keep our country healthy and strong by keeping ourselves healthy and strong. host: the washington post reports on house speaker mccarthy traveling overseas, he rose asked at a press conference about if the prime minister will have an invitation to washington. mccarthy is quoted saying it has been too long, if that does not

happen, i will invite the prime minister to come meet with the house. he is a dear friend. the office did not respond for comment. president biden he says no immediate plans to invite the israeli prime ministers to the oval office who returned to power four months ago, seeking rebuke for the new controversial push. that is in the washington post on a speech that was televised yesterday, speaker mccarthy talking. one of the topics was the topic of iran, here's a portion of the speech. [video clip] >> it seeks to destabilize iraq, and wants to entrench missiles in syria. it empowered a terrorist organization and is fueling a brutal civil war in yemen. among all of this aggression, it seeks to encircle israel with

hostile forces. we cannot allow iran regimes people campaign to succeed. [applause] to deter iran's dangerous behavior, our nations must continue to stand together. we, the united states, integrated israel into our command and are continuing to carry out military exercises together. as long as i am speaker, america will continue to support fully funding for security assistance in israel. host: the full speech is available on our website and our app, if you want to see it further. in florida, republican line. hello. caller: thank you for c-span.

i want to talk about the debt reduction. as long as joe biden and the democrats have ink and paper, they will continue to print money that is not backed by anything, just the full faith and credit of the u.s. government. he will continue to do that, lessen the dollar. we have to address this, we cannot kick the can down the road any further. i am hoping that this meeting they're going to have with the heads of congress, that some sense will be talked into this man before we all discovered the ink and paper is worthless. i am hoping that something will come from that, somebody has to deal with this. i just hope that somebody in washington has more sense to do

that. host: politico reporting when it comes to the meeting that president biden requested leaders of the house in the senate, saying the debt crisis ceiling has arrived on president joe biden's doorstep and left his administration with less time to anticipate a default, do not expect the white house to change tactics anytime soon. officials on monday insisted that president biden has no plans to drop his demand for a clean debt ceiling increase, even after the treasury secretary's warning that congress may only have until june 1 to avert a default. the new calculation raises the stakes of the ongoing standoff of the nation's debt limit, expecting a months long political fight into a brutal four-week brawl with the fate of the u.s. economy on the line. politico is where you can find that story. we told you earlier about plans

by a democratic senator to step down, they help except the story about who might be interested once the senator retires, saying democratic sources indicated three possible candidates and leave the pack of contenders to replace him. two democrats of maryland and a prince georges can executive are the big ones. also adding that brooks has more than anyone else when positioning herself to run to replace the longtime senate democrat, i have heard names floated. let us hear from bob in north carolina, democrats line. caller: i am trying to figure out why robert f. kennedy, jr., who just announced, why he is not getting more attention from the media. he is up to 21% of all democratic voters in the latest poll, he is running against

fear, pharma, war and censorship and he is not getting any attention whatsoever. it puzzles me. host: i think you can see his speech on our networks when he made his announcement to run for public office, you can check that out on the website. marianne williamson will be on the program this coming thursday , expected to be on the program thursday at 9:00, to answer questions about her candidacy and effort to go to the white house. john is next in pennsylvania, independent line. caller: good morning, c-span. i would like to comment on the mention of senator kennedy being not so prominent in mainstream news media. i have seen his endorsements and agree with a lot of his platform, it would be nice to see him on the front pages.

when we talk about the front pages, what i wanted to talk about was the problem with school shootings that we have. i have two kids in school right now, i could not imagine them not coming home today. i feel and pray for the families who have that pain and i think going forward for us to help solve the problem, that is once again not in the mainstream news media headlines today, but it will be someday soon. we keep these stories out of national headlines as soon as they happen, because they want the ratings. they want you to tune in to look at it, it does not matter to those people across america in that sense. this community needs our support and healing. going forward, i would like to cs take pride in securing our schools. i think we need to have a presence for some type of

reactionary force. it does not need to be someone all military doubt, one responsible person can and counter the threats that is not nine minutes out, they need to be on the scene, just like a sprinkler is in the same room as a fire. we need to have on seen people that are trained and capable of countering the threats. host: giving us thoughts on school shootings, you can continue on as far as open forum, making that your comment or something else. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans and independents (202) 748-8002. silver spring, maryland, republican line. go ahead. caller: social security --

someone like me, it is difficult to get social security. i went up to an office, nothing was social security and social security has not changed at all. how is someone like me able to take care of three kids? i would love to hear what candidates think about the situation and what they decide to do on it. host: ohio, democrats line. you are on. caller: i just wanted to call about how they keep raising the interest rates to curb inflation , they say inflation is too high, bringing the costs of everything up.

i think when they keep raising the interest rates, they are hurting regular working people and people buying houses. if they want to curb inflation, they need to start adding competition and higher productivity. when i go into hot rods and stuff like that, holly's bought all of the competition out instead of building good products and marketing them and having people want to buy them. it is all these corporations, they by the competition out. my cable bill is $350, there is no competition. when i buy parts that used to cost $100, there are 300. all of the competition has been bought out and it curtails productivity. when baby formula ran out, we got to companies and all of the u.s. that make that and i think

they need to start breaking up these companies like they had to do when we used to have ridiculous phone bills back in the day. we broke the companies up and all of a sudden the cost went down. i do not see anybody doing anything like that, that is all. host: one of the businesses that was not mentioned but is on the front page today was the bank first republic, this is a headline from the new york times. both relief and jitters as jpmorgan chase acquires first republic. the situation concerning the bank was one of the discussion points that president biden had yesterday at the white house, particularly on the federal government's role facilitating the first republic fail. here's a portion of that from yesterday. [video clip] >> regulators have taken action to facilitate the sale of first republic bank, ensure that all depositors are protected and

taxpayers are not on the hook. these actions will make sure the banking system is safe and sound , that includes protecting small businesses across the country who need to make payroll for workers and their small businesses. let me be very clear. depositors are being protected, shareholders are losing their investments. taxpayers are not the ones that are on the hook, as i said earlier. host: here is mark in maryland, republican line. caller: good morning. i wanted to actually bring up what you were talking about in the 7:00 hour, the culture wars. i wanted to point out that politics is downwind from culture wars. more often than not, people vote with emotion. one of the problems with our culture is, for the last 80

years, our culture has been dominated by the political left. hollywood, academia, and the media. what i wanted to point out was a lot of times, the narrative has been changed by lies of omission . to give you an example, a lot of young people get emotionally jammed up over ideas of racism and bigotry, which are horrible things. but democrats lie by omission by bringing up adolf hitler as being one of the worst figures in the 20th century. what they failed to tell young people is that hitler's was a leftist. they make him a right-winger. all you have to do is look at adolf hitler's 25 point plan to realize it reads like a wish list for the dnc. hitler's offered universal

health care, guaranteed minimum wage. he was going to fix infrastructure and was going to go after the 1%. we all know how that turned out. they also lie about systematic racism. what they omit, what they do not tell young people is that it was their party that put that systematic racism in place. the fact of the matter is, if there is one life -- there is systematic racism left in the country, i would point to one law that is the most systematically racist law we have on the books today, that is the minimum wage law. host: to regina in new jersey, democrats line. caller: just a quick response, hitler's was a liar and a fascist. in that respect, i would say he more closely resembles the mac a republican party that we have come to know than any leftist ideology. biden will not negotiate on the

national debt, it is important to remind republicans who are calling in that $7.8 trillion, close to 25% of the debt, was incurred under donald trump's administration. it caller earlier said we should prioritize what we spend on, but there seems to be a failure to understand we are in international monetary factor. there is a domino effect that will take place. uncertainty and our markets is enough to do massive damage to americans. losing the faith and confidence of our government for americans, if nothing else is going to prove to people that maca republicans are bent on destruction. perhaps that is what it is going to take for this country to see who is holding the whip. host: georgia, independent line. caller: i want to emphasize the

importance of free speech and free press in this country. i did not hear word for word, but i did not hear the jamaal mentioned. c-span is so important, i tuned in in the middle of the night and there was a replay of the talk on the stage about the situation in iran. we cannot take our eye off of that, we need to stay focused. there is no time for people to say good morning and how much we love c-span and all of that, no offense to everybody. we need every segment to count because it is free speech that will save the world, if only people will participate and take advantage of it and not waste time talking about how pretty your tie is today. thank you for letting me talk,

end of message. host: pleasantries are part of it, we take pride in being a network that lets people to call in and talk with us, not many people do. let us hear from roy in georgia. republican line. caller: let me make two comments. first of all, for those that believe in the bible, they would note a country was normally destroyed because of immorality. israel did not receive the land until the people that lived on the land, morality turned so bad that god sent them into destroy them. israel was exiled because of their immorality. today, we talk about transgender. the problem with the transgender is they are going after our youngest kids. it child does not know he is a

boy or girl at age 2, 3, 4 and five. the transgender are going to teach kindergarten and try to convert the kids over. gays are not born, they are made by the people that lead them to that type of lifestyle. even gays are against the transgender for grooming our children. now the transgender are taking up arms against christians. our country was based on the bible -- host: you made the point. one more call from maryland, democrats line. caller: i appreciate this, things for the opportunity to talk. i wish i was calling to become clement tree on what is going on, but when i hear the outright

lies of things like adolf hitler was a leftist -- he was not. nazi-ism, fascism is a far right political ideology. it always has been. trying to equate nazi-ism with socialism is totally false. the nazis went after socialists, that is fact, historical fact. to the gentleman who just called who said there is a war going on with transgender versus christians, i am sorry. again, that is nonsense. that may be an impression he has , because very recently, a transgender person shot people at a church that they used to attend. i do not know that we can say with certainty it was because they are anti-christian. we do not know how they were

treated when they went to this church. we do not have any of that back story. there is not a war going on between the left and right, except the war that is a war of words because it gets eyeballs, clicks and attention on cable news. host: jonathan finishing off this set of open forum, thanks for participating. next, we are joined by michelle sager, who will discuss a new repo from the gao about programs at risk for waste, fraud and abuse. we will be back with washington journal. ♪ >> healthy democracy does not

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view of what is happening in washington, live and on-demand. keep up with events of floor proceedings from u.s. congress, white house events, the courts and more from the world of politics. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span tv networks and c-span radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available on the apple store and google play, download for free. c-spanyo n front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> live on sunday, philip k howard is our guest on in-depth to take youcalls on government and legal reform in america. he has written six books, including the collapse of the common good, life without lawyers, and his bestseller, the death of common sense. his latest book is a critique of public-sector unions.

join the live conversation sunday at noon eastern on book tv, c-span2. >> washington journal continues. host: this is michelle sager with the government accountability office, thanks for coming by. guest: pleasure to be here. host: we will talk about the high risk list, but before we start that conversation, explain the work of gao for those who do not know what you do. guest: it is sometimes referred to as the congressional watchdog, we evaluate federal programs, conduct financial audits, investigations, sometimes big protests. all of this with an eye toward more effective and efficient government. we are objective, fact-based, nonpartisan and independent. we make recommendations to federal agencies and to congress

to make government work better. host: how did the high risk list come about? guest: it has existed for more than three decades, starting in 1990 as a way to focus congressional attention on an oversight agenda to call attention to the areas that are at greatest risk of waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement, or in need of fundamental transformation. we started the list in 1990. we've been issuing a new update at the beginning of every new congress, so congress can be aware of what the core issues are that command their attention. as we do that, we are highlighting areas being added to the list, areas that are being removed from the list. for each of the areas, we are showing what progress has been made. are they meeting the requirements we set out? is there more work to be done?

if you go to the website, you can see all of the underlying work that informs all of this, everything on the list. if you want to dive deep, there is a lot of detail. you can see recommendations that we have made to federal agencies, as well as areas where congress can take action to improve government operations. host: what gets a program on the list? guest: there are a combination of factors that go into deciding what goes on the list. these include qualitative and quantitative factors. darting with quantitative, it has to be something that is $1 billion at more that is at risk of fraud, waste or abuse. may be improper payment has occurred or is at risk of occurring. on the qualitative side, things at risk of threat to life, health and safety. national defense, national security. looking at all of those factors in combination, as well as

ongoing oversight of federal programs. and foresight for things that we think are on the horizon that congress should be paying attention to, that all goes into the determination of what is a high risk area. host: some of the broad categories would include coordination of public health emergencies, enforcement of tax laws, management of human capital, improving and modernizing disability programs, starting with the first one when it comes to public health emergencies, was this specifically covert related, or were there other factors? guest: we have all lived through public health emergencies, that is part of it. this area we added out of cycle, in the middle of a congressional session in 2022. we thought it was important for

congress to be aware and we wanted to focus the agency's attention on this area. looking at the department of health and human services, leadership of and coordination of public health emergencies, as well as responses and recoveries from national disasters, this is informed by the most recent experience. it goes back more than a decade as we look at sica and ebola and other public health emergencies as well as response to natural disasters, where we saw the need for greater coordination within the department of health and human services and across the entire federal government, and with state and local government and private sector entities. host: how does that relate to looking at the pandemic issue? guest: it plays any number of areas. another area we added out of cycle and 2022, we added unemployment insurance benefits. this is an area we had done a

broad range of work on over many years, there was a spotlight on this program during the pandemic because there were millions of people in need of unemployment assistance. as that was happening, there were a lot of difficulties in providing administrative operations for this federal state program to provide assistance effectively and efficiently. there was also a fair amount of fraud along the way, where people who did not qualify for the benefits were receiving the benefits. so we added that to the list last year. host: i imagine some of the response from various agencies, they were doing this in the heat of battle. it will be sometime before we realize what we have done as far as putting out money or things we should not have. guest: there was an emergency, congress provided assistance and agencies wanted to act quickly. at the same time, you need to build in the accountability at the outset and have some kind of

smooth certification system that requires documentation to make sure the people who really need the assistance receive and bad actors do not receive it. host: entities have put up money that should not have been put out. what is the potential of getting it back? guest: it is ongoing. we work closely with agencies and federal agencies inspectors general. when appropriate, we also make referrals to law enforcement agencies. some funds have been recovered, some unfortunately will probably never be recovered. these efforts are ongoing. to identify fraud where it happens but also recover whatever we can at the federal government. host: taking a look at the high risk list, you can find online and on c-span's website if you want to look at the categories. if you want to call and ask

questions about what they have discovered, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans and independents (202) 748-8002. if you want to text us, you can do that at (202) 748-8003. one of the other categories, it is getting a lot of discussion lightly on capitol hill, tax law. particularly the enforcement of tax law. what did the gao find? guest: this was added to the list in 1990 and has remained on the list. even for some of the areas that were charter members, if you will, there's been incredible progress in various ways over the ensuing decades. there are two areas that we are looking at. one is something called the tax gap, the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid, trying to narrow the gap so funding due to the federal government as people file taxes

is received. the second scenario is identity theft refund fraud, where people are claiming others refund when it is not their refund. we've been working with the irs on a number of areas, including these. we have a number of recommendations. the agency recently received new leadership, so he is in place as the new commercial at the internal revenue service. they also have a new strategic plan that is playing out as we speak. congress provided about $80 billion to the irs through the inflation reduction act and those funds will help to fill gaps that have been created through budget crunches for more than a decade. they've hired 5000 people, they have plans to hire 5000 more this year alone. they are also working to implement open recommendations. host: how does that generally work? what is discovered?

guest: the refund fraud, there's a number of efforts put into place. if you are a worker with a w-2, that becomes available sooner than it did a couple of years ago. that allows you to file for your taxes sooner than you might have been able to say a decade ago. that's been somewhat successful. another thing underway is, as we have recommended, the irs is taking action. but there is more work to be some -- done in terms of digitizing paper returns that allows the return to be tracked if it goes through the review process. host: as far as the tax gap, it is -- is it finding people who owe taxes and making them pay them? guest: it is a complex partnership where you have multiple entities that are part of a corporate return, so it can be very complex. but also the individual tax filing.

host: the first call comes from louisiana, the republican line. go ahead. caller: i used to work for the federal bureau of prisons, eyesight you have the federal bureau of prisons on your list. they set me up and everything. what i want to know from the government accountability office , if they use their money to set me up, is there anything you all can do? thank you. guest: thank you for calling in for that question, the caller talked about the federal bureau of prison systems management, which is a new area that we added to the list. i am sorry to hear what you have experienced. you call attention to something that is part of the reason for the addition of the bureau of prison systems to the high risk list this year, that is staffing

challenges. that creates issues for the inmates as well as the staff in the bureau of prisons systems, in terms of safety. so that is part of the problem. in addition, it is the programs in place through the bureau of prisons to make sure as inmates are serving their time, there are opportunities in place for them to work toward their release and be able to become productive contributors to society. knowing what works and what does not along the way. our leader has met with the new leader of the bureau of prisons systems, having a leader in place is good news. there were six leaders in six years, there is now a leader who is committed to working with us to move forward on these areas and we look forward to working with the bureau of prisons as they implement our recommendations. host: host: a story about the indo new york times, they say

about 100 62 thousand inmates and 122 prison camps employing a workforce of about 34,000 people were earned less then state and county corrections workers. guest: the human capital issues are substantial. for 22 of the 37 areas on the high risk list, skills gaps are part of the reason why those areas are on the high risk list. it affects all sectors of society, including hiring and retention. as well as just helping people understand what positions are available. in this case, it is the office of personnel management at the center of government for human capital challenges and advising other federal agencies on what they can do to hire and retain people who are dedicated to public service. this is an area we have seen progress in, there is a director of the office of personnel management.

there is that leadership commitment. going forward, we will continue to work with them as they work on their own human capital challenges and working with federal agencies across government as they try to meet their hiring challenges. host: john in minnesota, democrats line. caller: two things, i am from a rural district and many farmers here. when the ppe loans were being given out during the pandemic, some of the farmers were splitting their farms up so the mother got 20,000, the father got 20000 and the sun got 20,000. some of that money was to go to payroll, then they used that money to pay each other as employees. the bankers told these people, they are good republicans,

conservative people, the bank told them to not pay the loans back, they will not come after you. i think that was a huge fraud going on. every year, every farmer in this country has $30 paid by the taxpayers toward their insurance, $30 per acre. if they owned 10,000 acres, which is not uncommon, that is $30,000 right off the top. it does not matter the fact we've now had three years of highest commodity prices in the history of the united states. these guys are floating in money and they are still being subsidized. guest: i will respond specifically to the question raised about the paycheck protection program, there is also the economic injury disaster loan program. these are areas that we are very much focused on in collaboration

with other accountability partners. there is a pandemic response accountability committee and the inspector general community across government. in a case where you or others listening have noticed fraud, you can reach out to gao or go to our website, you can find more information about how to report fraud. similarly, at the department of agriculture, if there is a specific fraud issue, you can recheck to the inspector general to begin the process to fraud and responsible use taxpayer dollars. host: talked about action plans for people, the agency that try to resolve issues that you bring up. what makes a good action plan? guest: an action plan is one of the five criteria we use as we assess high-risk areas. you need the leadership commitment to make sure the person at the top and their team are dedicated to initiating

action. you need to have the action plan , the action plan needs to include gold metrics in a way to monitor the plan, so you see whether or not you are making progress over time. the final criteria is demonstrated progress. leadership capacity action plan, which needs to include those metric milestones, goal and monitoring all of that to hopefully be able to demonstrate progress. host: frank in chicago, independent line. caller: good morning, quick question for you. appreciate learning all of this. i saw the dod was on the list in a couple of areas, particularly weapons -- acquiring weapons,

financial -- they never passed an audit, they cannot be audited. you are reviewing the department of defense, the pentagon, i want you to go more into the action plan. they spend almost a trillion dollars of our money every year. host: we will leave it there. guest: the caller has landed on employing issues that we are focused on and we work closely with dod to acknowledge the actions that have happened and acknowledge what needs to happen. getting to a clean, financial audit remains elusive. that is something we are very much focused on that we raise with congress, we work with the department of defense on. another area is an area that has been on the high risk list since its inception in 1990, that is dod weapon systems acquisition.

it really gets down to the basics that are so important to any acquisition at any federal agency. performance, cost and schedule. when the costs are out of control, when schedules and goals are not met, that signals a problem. though progress has been made in a number of areas over the decades, given the scale of what the dod does and the number of evolving weapons systems acquired, it is an area that we remain focused on. host: a part of its is legislation such as acquisition reforms approved for 2016 2017 prompted the dod to take action to improve outcome systems that work taking longer to develop into costing more, performing at lower than anticipated levels. can you elaborate? guest: what you landed on is something that happened when we issue the high risk list, it becomes a catalyst for action. it becomes a roadmap for

congress to take action and conduct oversight, conduct congressional hearings, write oversight letters. in this case, congress passed legislation, which is sometimes necessary in order to prop the action or allow the action to happen statutorily. that is what happened here, that is good news. but more needs to be done. host: what would you recommend on that front? guest: we are continuing to monitor the efforts that are underway, we also have a report that we issue every year looking at defense weapon systems across-the-board. you can look forward to that in the june july summer timeframe. in the midst of this, i would be remiss if i did not point out that this year, we saw great success in terms of high-risk outcomes. 16 of the areas on the list show progress, that is the most progress that we have seen in the eight years that we have

used the current rating system. in addition to that, we measure financial deficits. since the last update in 2021, we were able to record $100 billion in financial benefits. that is incredible. going back further from 2006 to 2022, re-recorded -- we recorded financial benefits resulting from actions taken on high-risk areas. areas such as defense weapon systems, acquisition remains critically important. we will continue to focus on that. but we want to acknowledge the actions taken by congress and the executive branch and we want that momentum to continue. host: there is more on the website if you want to see more, the specifics when it comes to the high risk report. let us hear from anthony in

staten island, republican line. you are on with our guest. caller: you must be real busy. i have two quick questions. we know this administration lacks common sense and street marts -- smarts when it comes to money. where is the covid money that has been spent? when they put budgets before congress, they allocate money for certain things in the budget. we know it is not spent on those things. do you follow that? if i say am going to spend $500 million on a program but i take the money and do not spend on that program, isn't that fraud? guest: those allow me an opportunity to talk about two additional things that we do, one is in terms of covid spending. we had responsibility under the cares act and related pandemic legislation to follow the money. looking across the whole of government at all of the funds

that were appropriated for pandemic response and recovery and to see what agencies were doing with those funds. we issued those reports and continue to do so, those often serve as the foundation for congressional oversight. i mention the phrase following the money, we follow the covid money. there was also an infrastructure investment and jobs act that was passed recently. we have a number of mandates under that act to follow the money. next week, we will issue a product we've issued a number of years called the nation's fiscal health report, which looks holistically at where we are as a nation in terms of revenues and expenditures and what the long-term outlook is. we will continue to do that, we do work with agencies as they submit their budgets to congress. often, congress calls on us to learn more about what they are seeing in the budget submissions and understand where there are targets of opportunity for increased efficiency. that is where they often lean on

our recommendations to facilitate action in congress. host: we saw the biden administration make a call people working at home from the pandemic to go back to their offices. has any measurement been done about the impact of federal workers at home and how that impacted overall efficiency? guest: we have ongoing work on telework, we previously did work on telework pre-pandemic. the current administration has urged federal agencies to tie those decisions to performance metrics. so if people need to be in a customer service facing occupation, they are then available to meet with the public and make the decisions based on those criteria. we will continue to follow that as it plays out and as individual agencies make decisions about what their future operating posture is. host: harold is in florida, democrats line. caller: good morning.

i am concerned with other government agencies, whether it is federal, dod, state or even county government. there is a structural waste situation that goes on in every single department and office, where the budget is allocated. if the money is not spent by the end of the fiscal year, each manager and director comes in and says, we need to spend this money, otherwise it is taken away for next year's budget. what is your wish list? do you need a new chair? we've got to spend the money. there is an incentive sent to every single government agency to use or lose the money, rather than having an incentive to save the money they did not need to

use to do their duties. this is across every agency i have ever seen, i do not understand why it is not addressed. guest: that is an issue gao has looked at, any incentives that may exist for agencies to rapidly spend those dollars at the end of the fiscal year. so that is something we have completed work on and will continue to complete work on, as well as how agencies make their budget decisions and other related topics, such as obligated balances. an obligation has been made, but a balances remaining in an account. that is an important issue and one that fits into our overall consideration of fiscal health. host: the scenario he described, is it true? does that happen? guest: it can happen. part of what we do is go to federal agencies and understand the time of their decisions and what the reasons are.

there have been cases where we had a continuing resolution in place pretty far into the fiscal year, that then delays agency decision-making as they wait for final appropriations. in other cases, you see ramped up spending in the latter months of the fiscal year. that is an issue that we keep an eye on as we do our overall work. host: how long does it take to put together what is involved in putting it together? guest: it is one of those projects that is large, there are 37 areas that remain on the list at this point. it kind of never stops, because there is underlying work informing all of the decisions i talked about. the qualitative and quantitative mix of factors. as we issue the list, we have other work underway and we are meeting with federal agencies to follow up on recommendations, making sure we touch each recommendation at least once per

year so we understand what is happening and the actions they are taking. gao as an agency, legislative branch agency, just over 3000 employees located in washington. also 11 field offices around the country. host: mike in california, independent line. caller: good morning. harold stole most of my thunder, he is absolutely right. i do not mean no disrespect, but you are swatting at flies in this elephant is rampaging through our country. the government is way too large, they do have incentives. i'm a former auditor in the private sector, long time ago. that is the structural problem. they always spend the budgets,

it is got to be stopped. you've got to come up not so much with finding a guy who has got money in his drawer, but the government -- if they are going to control this, they have to build in incentives to accomplish goals more efficiently. they are always going to meet their budget, because that is how next year's budget is set. it is endemic to fund it, i am sure you are familiar with fund accounting. unless that is changed and now, at this stage, our biggest risk with monetary policy is we know it does not work. the government spending this money is not helping our people. guest: i would like to use this as an opportunity to focus on and i think is a cause for hope and optimism across the government through the high risk list. i talked about areas we added to the list this year.

we also removed two areas from the list this year. what that reflects is our work with congress in the case of benefit guarantee corporation's, they provided additional funding for the employer pension program that then helped the program maintain solvency so the solvency date is further out in the future. one way that happens is our work with congress. the other area removed from the list this year is the 2020 census. in that case, we worked closely with the bureau of the census as they were conducting it. we've been clear when they were added to the list in 2017 that the rampant cost increases we saw prior were not sustainable. they were able to bend the cost curve, they now have procedures in place and a plan in place to monitor the spending for the

202030 and they responded to all of the items i mentioned as criteria to measure whether or not an area remains on the list. we do not walk away from the areas once we take them off the list, we continue to monitor. i used as examples of areas were reworked with congress and federal agencies and saw significant progress. in addition to that, the 16 areas on the list that showed progress, that is a good news story, as well as the $100 billion we have seen in financial benefits since the last update two years ago. host: catherine in maryland, republican line. caller: good morning. thank you for all you do on c-span. my question is, she said something i heard before. the audit of the defense department is elusive, i do not buy that. how could it be elusive? there's so much money being sent

-- spent, i cannot believe that is something we can't get a hold of. i know congress does not mind to spend money on defense, but we cannot account for and we are sending trillions of dollars to other places in the world and we do not know where it is going and what is going to happen to it. thank you. guest: thank you for raising that, that is something that we fundamentally agree on. it is clear in the congressional hearings when he testified before the senate april 20 and last week before the house oversight and accountability committee that it is not acceptable, that is why we continue to work with the department of defense as we are seeking a clean audit opinion. that is work that has been underway for a number of years. it is unacceptable and we will remain committed to making that happen.

host: one of the categories is federal disability programs. three of the largest programs paid about $300 billion in cash benefits to the programs in the fiscal year 2021 to 20 million individuals, both agencies struggle to manage their workloads and make benefit that claims. -- benefit claims. guest: human capital challenges are a separate high risk issue. they have skills cap and challenges filling positions to examine disability claims and appeals. if you are someone who has filed for disability or filed an appeal and that process is taking longer than it should, you are waiting and you are in real need. that is a lot of what is happening. the veterans affairs department and social security administration are the two primary agencies responsible.

similar to a number of other areas, during the pandemic those challenges increased. in addition to that, part of the challenge is there are multiple programs across federal government that are focused on disability employment in some way. there is an office of disability employment, but they do not have the same kind of authority that a white house office would have. when they are working across the government, they do not have the same leadership capability as they might if they were at the center of government. so pulling all of that together and addressing the skill gaps and human capital challenges are related to that high risk area. host: we are just about out of time, go ahead with your question or comment. caller: i spent most of my career working on military bases

, particularly colorado springs. the fraud waste and abuse is rampant on these military bases. it is unbelievable what they waste and how it works. if they spent a little time on the bases, they would see -- i've often made the comment that if i could have all the money go through a person and have him save the money or look at the budget, that person would walk out and take 1%, walk out of there every year's a millionaire. it is so rampant, it is unbelievable. especially end of year, they spend like crazy just a wasted. i do not know how you can say you were doing a good job in saving all of this money when it is not happening. host: forgive me for that, thank you for the call. guest: the work is certainly not done. we still have 37 areas on the

high risk list, number are focused on the department of defense. part of the reason for that is because of waste fraud, abuse and mismanagement. we never stopped working on the high risk list and we have ongoing work where we are engaged with agencies trying to get their action on recommendations, as well as consulting with congress as they conduct appropriations hearings. today in fact in the senate. we work with them as we encourage implementation of recommendations and for anyone listening who has evidence of fraud, waste or abuse, we encourage them to consult us or in the case you mentioned, to report those issues. host: michelle sager with the government accountability office. thanks for your time. coming up in a few minutes on this channel on the senate side,

the senate judiciary committee, a hearing looking at the supreme court and ethics concerns expressed by senators on that side. this is the hearing that chief justice john roberts was invited to and will not be there. the hearing goes on. you can follow along on our main channel and c-span now. that is it for our program, another addition of washington journal comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. we will take you to the senate where the hearing is about to start. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> on this tuesday morning we

are waiting for the senate judiciary committee hearing to get underway focused on supreme court ethical standards. this comes on the heels of reports that justice is clarence thomas and neil gorsuch may have violated current ethics rules. chief justice john roberts declined committee chair dick durbin's invitation for the chief justice or any other justice whom he designates to appear before the committee, and in a statement in response, senator durbin said supreme court ethics reform must happen whether the court participates in the process or not. senator durbin went on to say that the committee "will review common sense proposals to hold supreme court justices to at minimum the same ethical standards and baseline levels of accountability that the rest of the federal judiciary and executive and legislative branches."