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apple store and google play. download it for free today. c-span now, your front-row seat to washington anytime anywhere. l continues. host: a view now on the debt ceiling and immigration debate in the country from the u.s. chamber of commerce. near -- neil bradley is the chief policy officer they are. he has heard from members on both sides of the aisle. starting with the debt ceiling what are you telling them as the clock ticks down on whether you reach the debt limit. guest: the time is short. everyone was surprised by the june deadline. we should have worked on this weeks ago but that is a mishap now. we have had a few days to reach what will have to be a bipartisan agreement. at the end of the day it has to be a deal that supports republicans in the house, democrats and have the sick of

president -- signature of president biden. the one policy we are following up on is there is a risk of miscalculation. you run up to the deadline and kind of coast in and get it over the line, but that is a recipe for miscalculation when you think it will take you a shorter period of time to round up the votes in the house and senate to get it done we would -- done. we would like to see them turn in their homework a little earlier this time. host: you have seen this happen before. how concerned are you about this one compared to previous ones? guest: i'm more concerned that i was in 2011. i think the thing that is not well-known about that episode is that despite the policy disagreement between president obama and the republicans on capitol hill, we had a very good understanding and working relationship of what it took to

get a debt limit deal done in order to avoid a default. both sides were committed to making sure we did not cross the line. this time a little more concerned that there may not be enough understanding of what it will take to get a deal passed through congress to the president's desk for a signature in time. i am more worried. host: so at that point in time what is it mean. caller: i worked for eric cantor we were negotiating 2011. and that was with vice president biden. we actually spent we together. three days a week with the leaders of the house and senate and the vice president trying to find areas of common agreement. and we talked about some of the same things that they are talking about today. host: kevin mccarthy part of that leadership team back then. what is your assessment of how he is handling the discussions right now being one of the key voices in the room sitting down with the president last week? guest: i think he is doing all

the things he needs to do. to unify the republicans to come up with a position. there seems to be a lot of skepticism in the town that the house republicans need to come together and pass a bill. they came together and passed a bill. they understandable required negotiation at this point. they asked to get back with the president and that finally happen. he has done a good job of narrowing the scope of issues so that we can redefine bipartisan compromise. host: what is the bipartisan compromise? guest: there is three. we are sending him use covid monday. -- money. there's about $6 billion that the administration put into the system during the covid pandemic that it turns out we did not need. it is the right thing to do to reclaim the money and biden says he is open to that. and the second is coming up with a agreed-upon level of discretionary spending.

currently we do not have cap it is up to the congress and and this ration on a year-to-year basis to decide how much they want to spend for this. you look back in history, one of the things that usually happens with debt limit deals when you do not have cash is you agree on new spending cap. so i think there is more there for the administration of republicans and democrats on capitol hill to come together. but that is a policy issue around permitting. there is broad agreement on the left and right. it just takes too long to get the apartments into the country. whether it takes you more time doing paperwork in getting regulatory approval than the cost of -- the time it takes to build a bridge or road. shortening the process and streamlining and permitting i think both sides will agree on. we hope to see that. host: with you in the u.s. chamber of commerce, how long cash how often have you talked to congress about this?

guest: we talked with him about this issue for years. on average it takes about 7.4 years to get a permit to build a bridge or eroded the date. -- in the united states -- or a road in the united date that is a long time to build. and it means that every project cost more. if we can take the bridge we are building today let's say for everyone million dollars that it cost to build a bridge, if we started the project five years earlier, because we set up a permitting process we've saved about a hundred $70,000 or everyone million dollars that we spent. that is real money. that is value in money and savings it is the right thing to do. host: bradley with the u.s. chamber of commerce is with us until the end of the program today until 10:00 eastern. if you want to join the conversation you can do so on the phone line as general -- as usual. democrats (202) 748-8000,

republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. with the chamber of commerce committee businesses do you represent? guest: hundreds of thousands when you think about it is america's biggest countries -- companies. it is the ones you see on the s&p 500 and the dow jones. these are the ones that are often in towns and counties to american small businesses. we have a lot of members that are just a family business with two spouses and maybe the kids and grandkids. they are running a store on main street. the air proud to represent everyone from the small businesses in america to the large one. host: there is a liberty campaign push on the issue of immigration. guest: we are quite frustrated on two fronts. one with the chaos that we see on the southern border, and how

long it is taking to gain control of the border and make sure people are coming into the country illegally -- are not coming into the country illegally. and having a good legal immigration system. if you look at one example of how both the systems are working we have people crossing the border illegally today who are getting a court date that may be 5-7, or 10 years from now to have their claims heard. but at the same time we have people legally coming into the country who have an advanced science degree. they want to come and work and help build his this is here in the united states, they are sometimes waiting 12, 13, 15 years before they can ever come into the country legally. both systems are broken so we are calling on congress to do something this year to secure the southern border and to begin reforming our broken immigration system. it should be harder to come into

the country illegally and easier to come in legally. host: we have decades of failure on immigration. an that is despite efforts to overcome the system long before title 42. that is the headline taking a look back at the immigration debate in 2006, 2010, 2013, 2018, why is this such an ongoing issue? what did you see going on and capitol hill in those meetings? guest: the problem has become so big so when you try to solve it with a comprehensive solution it tends to collapse under its own weight. that is one of the things we have seen. we are much more encouraged by taking a more pragmatic approach to the problem, but let's combine something to increase border security with a piece to reform the illegal immigration system. and let show republicans and democrats and be american people that we can actually make all grace on this complicated issue

-- can make progress on this complicated issue. we want to solve the whole thing and one big comprehensive bill, that is the thing the new york times talked about and that takes a lot of effort that produces no result. that is what we cannot afford to allow to happen. host: the headline on the piece tracking two decades of failure on immigration. it that is where you can find it on new york times. and you can call in and speak with neil bradley. you can do so. up forced -- up first, -- are you with us? go ahead. caller: i want to hear what you think about returning bankruptcy to student loans. because every other type of loan has the right of bankruptcy. why is

congress so against this? guest: yes that's a great question. this is a compromise worked out decades ago that they said we would have a government stepped in and are vied a vital bridge to help -- and provide a vital bridge to help people get a college degree. because we know college degrees has more earnings opportunity over the life of someone who achieved a college degree. and that is not something that will be allowed to be charged of bankruptcy because the government is stepping in and doing it. i think that is a possible policy in congress and what they could look at. it is certainly better than forgiving that -- debt across-the-board especially for those who do not need it. but that is a compromise from many years ago. host: is that not something the chamber supports? guest: our biggest concern with

student debt loan forgiveness in the time of inflation is that broad-based when it is not adjusted into individual student needs will be inflationary. that is the big concern. we are talking about billions of dollars essentially of wealth transferred. host: why does it cost the college so high today and only getting more and more expensive? guest: it is a broken economic model. in many ways. if you think about most things that you and i purchased, we are the consumer and we are also the payer. and someone is selling us that good. we are a stickler for making sure we get good value. we do not want to pay for things that we are spending our money on. we demand transparency, real value, sometimes we drive prices down. when you think about higher education today, the higher education that universities are providing it is the service i am

consuming the service as a student, but oftentimes somebody else's paying. and bad third-party payer transaction does not really work well in economics because the university is not concerned about getting prices down, the consumer is not driving the value down, and the third-party payers are on the sidelines watching the prices go up. so we really have to think about how we reintroduce the market forces in higher education. host: from oregon, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. the first thing on the student loans, there are a lot of poor students who cannot afford to pay their loans back and i do really feel for them. it is unlike our government. we have politicians who it is time to pay our bills and we will not pay them. s i wonder how that would workay with the student loans -- we do

not want to repay this until -- will not pay them i wonder how that would work today if the students say we do not want to repay this until -- in south america there is war and they are bringing their children and getting raped along the way. then they get to the border, what you want to do with them? you want to turn them around? i think i remember not too long ago when the war broke out in ukraine every country surrounding ukraine was a democratic country opened their borders with open arms. there people came out to the streets and fed them and did what they could because they

cared about the people and