host: frank oliveri?st: to put the numbers into perspective -- and i hate to do this because it is all apples and oranges. there is such a thing as mandatory spending and then there is discretionary spending. congress represents more than 50% of discretionary spending today. it is a few billion dollars that we anticipate spending on domestic stuff in discretionary. again, this is stuff that congress can control every spen. mandatory spending goes into things like health care and other expenses that they do not mess around with a year to year budget. what we're talking about are the cuts that they're looking for that will involve both those pots, mandatory and discretionary. but right now in the discretionary part, congress controls a bit more than 50%. host: frank oliveri with the congressional quarterly. thank you very much. guest: my pleasure. host: coming up, we'll turn our attention to afghanistan and that president's visit this week. but first, a news update from c- span radio. >> more reaction to sh

we'll look at the nomination of former senator chuck hagel to be defense secretary and then frank oliveri and then the center for new american security to talk about the relations between u.s. and afghanistan. "washington journal" live on c-span at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> i think that that minds of the founding fathers is particularly dangerous because as i say, they were not a collective unit and presenting them as such tends to dramatically oversimplify the politics of the founding generation and comes to be used as a big batter ingram to beat people over the head which is unsound. , michael austin on what he calls the deep conservative flaws. he shares his views with david on book tv "after words" on c-span 2. >> a discussion on the role of capitalism by the chief executive. this this event is on the world outlook. >> it is my pleasure to welcome the chief executive of e.l. rothschild to join me for our discussion about capitalism in the world in 2013. apart from being chief executive of e. l. rothschild, you are also co-chair of the henry jackson initiative. that is where we are going t