One of the rules that i was thinking about is that whoever is in the Minority Party, they be given three opportunities in one year, every year you get three opportunities, the minority speaker can bring a bill before the floor. Because with the tea party and all of the other people who are moving this ship, they are closing the government down. I believe if the minority speaker would be given like three opportunities to bring a bill before the floor, i think this could stop some of this gridlock. Guest they do actually have that power today to allow that. I know as democrats weve tried to make that happen procedurally and its been moved out of order. There has been may be seven or eight opportunities for republicans to put that in order and to allow the clean continuing resolution to come to the floor to reopen government. I think its the right thing to do. When i think about whats happening not just in my district but around the country, its really devastating not just for federal workers but now im hearing from some of our Small Businesses whether they are coffee shops, restaurants, or dry cleaners who are struggle right now because all of that workforce isnt spending money in those Small Businesses. Again, the Ripple Effect of not opening the government really is creating kind of an irresponsible and wreckless situation where were willing to take orsome willing to take an entire economy because they want to repeal the Affordable Care act. You tried 42 times and its not going to work. Tom cole said, lets get off that mark. Its time to reopen the government and not hold hostage all the rest of us because of the narrow policy agenda. Host lets go to daniel in fort worth, texas on our line for republicans. Caller thank you for taking my call. I do appreciate the comment from the representative. Gentleman called earlier that it is not great characterization of the American People. I called her office, she made the same comment, theres 25. I said where are they . Are they on your website. She goes no, you have to look them up online. She looked up the washington journal and she looked up huffington post. I said i want to see on your website, she entered into the federal record. She made the comment on the floor. I want to see the letter or the people who came to her and said we will. They need to back them up. Thank you. Guest im only going frankly, on press reports. I know as a representative if i talk to a reporter on the record, that reporter quotes me, its pretty much what i believe and its what ive said. What im suggesting to you, various news reports and a lot of news organization, i i that the Washington Post gathered a number of on the record statements about 20 or 25 of republican member who said affirmatively that if a clean continuing resolution were put on the floor to reopen the government they would vote for it. Lets put it to the test. I know there are 200 democrats i personally signed a letter to Speaker Boehner saying just that. Combine that 200 democrats with only 10 of the republicans in congress. We could reopen government. I think its really unfortunate that a very small faction of the Republican Party seems to have all of us in their grip. That is not the way our founders envisioned government should work. It is true we should hear from minority interest within the Majority Party they shouldnt constrain everything that the government does. Keeping government close, threatening the full faith and credit and the good name of the United States by threatening not to pay our bills and to detail on our obligations. These kind of things are really irresponsible. As a member of congress, i have one point of view on a whole range of policy issues. I might disagree with representative cole or Speaker Boehner or any number of people. My goodness, i would be irresponsible if i said i have a policy disagreement, i will organize my group of people and shut the government down. Host House Republicans brought to the floor series of bill, piecemeals to fund district of columbia, research and theres a great list in the Washington Post today. Harry reid and the president said thats not the way to go. Explain why thats not enough and tell why we can reach some kind of budget. Guest first of all, the republicans didnt shut the government down in piecemeal. I have three Program Workers in my office a couple days ago. One work for the Environmental Protection agency or the department of health and human services. The woman who works for nasa describes the joint projects shes working on with nola. If hes working but some of those other agencies are not working, then the projects just dont get done. At the e. P. A. Where the e. P. A. Might be making referrals to the department of justice or working with the department of energy. People of our government, we have a lot of interactions among agencies. Thats actually a good thing. It saves taxpayers money. I think we have to restart all of government for all americans. Not part of government for some americans. All government for all americans. Host harris from mansville, ohio, and hes a federal worker. Caller my big question is that the house of representatives, why do their senator the bill was passed. The shame of this government. Host thank you. Guest i think that issue is going to be resolved again. Thats a perfect example you think youre fixing kind of one thing, paying our military. We moved that through the house and senate an on to the president. It turns out this is one area thats not covered by that law but its part of the function of the department of defense. We realize that we missed that. We have to go back and fix that. Thats why its important to open up all of the government. It doesnt make sense to open up part and not others and then realize that weve made a mistake. People served this country who put their lives on the line for this country, died for this country and need to be paid a death benefit. Again a perfect example of why it is that we need all of government open. I dont know what i will say, my dad was in the air force and he served for 30 years. My heart is with military families and their service and sacrifice. What i would say to them, Service Members and their family not only do they need that death benefit, they also need a functioning government and economy because there might be other needs that they will have down the line. Both for those families who sacrificed but for all of the American People, the responsible thing to do is to open government. If it comes by way of shame, ill accept that. But i want to reopen government for all americans. Host lets take another call from scott in massachusetts for independents. Caller good morning representative edwards. I have a question. I owned an assisted living in rhode island and unfortunately due to budget cuts, the democrats controlled the state of rhode island for about 30 years. Unfortunately due to budget cuts to the poor, i had to put 16 people out on the streets unfortunately. Kind of upset about that. The reason im saying this, because i think rhode island is a micro can you tell me what youre doing to address the debt. Are you putting any specific type of legislation forward . You personally to address this clip that were going to go over eventually and unfortunately probably going to be on the backs of the poor like they were in rhode island. Anyway, do you have anything specific that you can tell me that you are doing to address this 17 trillion elephant a room that nobody is paying attention to. Guest i can tell you some ideas i had along with some of my colleagues. There are none among us who agrees its a good idea for us to have 17 million debt. The question is, how you reduce that responsibly and still meet the obligations that the American People expect. For example, i think that the more that we could focus on job creation and on incentivizing for example domestic manufacturing and things like research, you put people to work in a 21st century economy. Those people paying taxes and those taxes go to pay down our debt. We can think of creative idea thats are about cutting our budget responsibly but also creating opportunities since incentivized growth. Those are things i supported. I continue to support. As well, what we havent taken a look at, there have been reductions in our deficit actually over the last four years that this is a really tough economy as well. I want to balanced approach. Democrats proposed a balanced approach. I think that we can get there in the way you get there, you get democrats and republicans around the table to negotiate these things out and to move forward. People talk about the contribution of entitlement programs, i heard your prior guest talking about that to our debt and our deficits. I would say, for example, like on Social Security, why not list the cap on Social Security. Why is it member of Congress Making 470,000 a year, i dont pay Social Security tax on all my income. Why is it somebody whos a multimillionaire and billionaire doesnt pay social on 100 or significant portion of their income. It would reduce the obligation for future generations and its a really common sense solution. Its not razeeing raising the age of retirement. Getting new people in the economy and paying on all of our income. Thats a common sense solution but we cant get the Solutions Like that if House Republicans are not even willing to appoint conferees to a Conference Committee but rather start a new supercommittee. We dont need another supercommittee to negotiate these things out. We need a Conference Committee to operate werent the processes of conference. Host lets take a call from brian in washington d. C. On our line for democrats. Hes a federal employee. Youre on washington journal. Caller good morning ladies. I had two questions or comments. The first was that i came i voted for this president under his ideas that we were going to have a single payer plan for healthcare. I was never one that wanted to send money to a private entity. So im not really approving of the Affordable Care act in that we have to go that way. He ran under the single payer and once he got in office, it became unfeasible. Thats one point you can address that. The second one is, Social Security, im 56 years old, i recall when they used to say in congress that Social Security was in a lock box that the money could never be touched. I understand, i guess it has been spent by congress and whatever and we dont seem to be putting that money back. Now Everyone Wants to say that its entitled. The big word is entitlement, but it is not entitlement it is what we paid into. Can you also address how this so called money in the lock box was taken out and where was congress and what was their idea about the single payer and why that never happened under president obamas first term. Ill take my answers offline. Thank you so much. Guest thanks so much for the questions. With respect to Social Security, sometimes theres misunderstanding about that. We all contribute to Social Security trust fund. Sometimes theres a draw down Social Security trust fund. Theres statutory obligations to put that back and that happens because it happens under statute. Social security is completely solvent for the next 20 something years. I had an idea about how it is we can make it even more solvent by lifting that income cap. Under the Affordable Care act, i came to congress as a supporter of single payer healthcare. Thats not what we got. I do believe we got an Affordable Care act that is in the process of being implemented. Think its a good deal for the American People. I think that it puts us well down the line toward having a Healthcare System that brings down cost and provides healthcare for a lot of people who are uninsured and people who are underinsured. Im excited about the prospect of implementation. I know theres been some implementation problems. Yesterday i went on to the Maryland Health connection. Gov website. I wanted to experiment with whether or not i could set up an account and i can maneuver do and do some shopping and figuring out the healthcare plans that might work for me. I got on, i got logged in. I got an account. I started shopping around and i put some things in a cart. I looked at the various plans. I think that for the American People that would become increasingly easy as the bugs get worked out in the system as the volumes level out. I did what a lot of people do when they go shopping online. You put something in a cart, you wait a few days and go back and look at it. That accounts towards to almost nine Million People who visited these marketplaces up to date. Thats a good thing for us. Also healthcare costs are coming down. When you see some of the tractors saying saying experts under the American Public doesnt support the Affordable Care act. It turns out there are people like robert, who dont support it because they wanted single payer. They wanted to go even farther. I think theres a minority opinion that doesnt support the Affordable Care act. The majority of americans believe that you shouldnt try to defund the Affordable Care act as a compulsion for restarting our government. I agree with that. The fact is that the Affordable Care act is being implemented and people are excited about it. The Software Bugs in the system are going to get worked out. Years from now we will look back at Social Security and medicare, and say what a great deal for the American People. Host lets take another call from nate from allentown, pennsylvania. Hes a federal worker. Caller i lived in an area where theres a lot of people on welfare. Some families that i know havent worked in welfare for decade. I met with them, they were still receiving their checks. We hear about military men and women serving our great country and not receiving a paycheck. Speaker boehner and senator cruz went on and said those in congress allowing members to be paid. I believe they said it was one or nine bills held up by senator reid. Have you got a conclusion to this . This factual. Isnt true if the senators looked at the two 2. 3 tax that the government could be back up and running . Host sound like he was referring to the bill in the house last week. Guest that passed the house and that bill went to the president. The military is being paid. Lets clear that up. There is some gap we uncovered that related to the payment of the death benefit for the Service Member who died in his term in afghanistan. Were going to clear that up too because its the right thing to do. This is the reason that we have to have all of government working. Nate has pointed to that. I wanted to comment on nates reference to some of the people in his community who are receiving government assistance, commonly known as welfare temporary assistance for needy families. This is why i think that we have to focus on creating jobs. We had a situation in this country for about the last decade, real income has actually gone down. It is why i supported things like increasing the minimum wage so it keeps pace with inflation. When you work a minimum wage job, it actually put you above the poverty line. Those are important public policies, things that we have to work out. Its also true that we have to do things where were retraining people for 21st century economy. If were investing in domestic manufacturing, investing in research and technology, we have to have a skill set of workers who can go into those jobs. Those are investment thats will pay off for the future. Doing things like making investments that rebuild our roads and bridges and our Public Transit system. Those again, are things that create jobs. I would rather we get these budget issues set aside for a long period of time, not negotiate over whether were going to pay our bills. Get government running again and then let all of us, republicans and democrats, invest oh focus on what we need to do. Host were talking with maryland congresswoman donna edwards. Lets take a call from jean in tennessee on our line for democrats. Caller good morning representative edwards. Guest good morning. Caller i have a couple questions i like to ask. One of them is i believe it was 41 or 43 votes taken on the floor to eliminate obamacare. Can you give me a figure on the cost of that time and effort to do that in dollars and cents . The other question i have, could that time been well used to negotiate obamacare and second question i have or third, host we will respond to your first one now. Were short on time this morning. Guest only thing i would say we have taken 42 wasted vote on defunding, delaying, eliminating the Affordable Care act. Its a total waste of time. Our time would be better spent on these fiscal issues and on creating jobs for the American People. Thats what i want to spend my time on as a legislator. I want to get the government running again. Put a clean continuing resolution on the floor. Speaker boehner can do that this afternoon. Raise the debt ceiling, pay our bills on time and then negotiate the budget. Host thank you for your call. We hope to talk you to again soon. Congresswoman thank you for joining us. Up next well take your phone call and your story on the shutdown. Lets get update from cspan radio. News reports this hour that the president whos meeting today with House Democrats and meetings with other caucuses are planned for coming days. This as the Government Shutdown begins its ninth day. As many government workers on furlough Foreign Policy tweets that the cia is bringing back employees that were working on what they call core missions. Turning to international news, u. S. Officials say the Obama Administration plans to strip egypt of a significant amount of military and economic assistance. The u. S. Gives egypt 1. 5 billion dollars a year in aide and most of that is military assistance. Officials say only that money that goes to the government will be suspended a init in and it could be restored. Update on syria, the head of the world chemical weapon watchdog said the organization has to visit more than 20 sites in syria in its mission to destroy the countrys chemical weapon. The director general of organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons, inspectors visited only one site so far. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Cspan, we bring Public Affairs events from washington, directly to you. Putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u. S. House. All as a Public Service of private industry. Cspan created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Now you can watch us in hd. The house has adjourned and the senate adjourned. Preston brooks makes his way over to the senate chamber. Hes carrying a good wood purchaser cain. He gets to sumner, sumner looks up i have read your speech over twice. It is rival against my state in my relative. As sumner is looking up, brooks comes down on the top of sumners head. It would take massachusetts sumner to recover three years. Saturday night at 10 00 eastern, part of a three day Holiday Weekend on American History tv. Host in our final 45 minutes this morning, we are interested in talking to you and getting your thoughts how the Government Shutdown impacted you. Were dividing the lines regionally. If you live in the eastern time joan, you can call us at 2025853880. If you live in the mountain pacific time zones, 2025853881. If you want to send us an email you can do that. Our hope is for this 45 minutes is find out how life outside of the beltway has affected you. If it has or has not, feel free to 2007 your give your thoughts. To kind of set up this conversation, we turn to a story that was out of texas yesterday. Dealt with billionaire, dealt with the topics of head start and here to connect dots for us is cindy george. Shes a reporter with the houston chronical. Joining via skype, thank you for joining us. Host thank you for having me pedro. Host the story dealt with a general named john arnold. Guest mr. Arnold is a former Hedge Fund Manager who cut his teeth. He is referred to as the king of natural gas. Having made a quarter of a billion dollars for enron about a decade ago, he left just before the company fell and he started his own Hedge Fund Company through which he has become a billionaire. Host so the headline to this story says that he and his wife, laura, donated 10 million for head start. Can you fill in the details . Guest well, the couple pledged 10 million to fill in the gap for Head Start Programs across the country. That have lost their funding on october 1 or in jeopardy. What they have done, they given a no interest gap loan or forgivable loan so that program thats were depending on federal funding for last weeks expenses, dont have to remain shut down. Seven programs in six state, most of the states are in the south, had to shut their doors last week. Most of those program have brought the children back in today. Host does the money come from a foundation or does it come from his personal wealth . Guest mr. Arnold and his wife laura who have a private houstonbased foundation called the laura and john arnold foundation. This particular loan was provided from them as individuals. Host have they ever done anything like this before donating these kind of money to Head Start Program or similar Education Programs . Guest their private foundation is very interested in four key areas. One of them is k through 12 education. Their foundation really aims to try to solve problems through research and finding out the root cause and coming up with a solution. They have donated millions through the foundation to Charter School thats are high performing in new orleans. They are also have foundations working on initiatives such as why we are obese as well as initiative thats looks at why communities have more mobility than others and trying to figure out how to replicate those results in other parts of the country. Host as far as the states that are going to be receiving the money, could you name off some of the states and was texas one of those states . Guest texas was not one of the states. The states includes alabama, georgia and kentucky. Host so Something Else interesting. When you were doing the story, anything else interesting about the donation or why they did something before we let you go . Guest arnolds are the parents to three young children. They are concerned about a lot of the problems that are plaguing our society and how to fix them. Certainly head start provides an education and nutrition and parenting for the parents with low income children. They wanted to make sure that program did not falter during the shutdown. Host do you think if this is a one time donation. Is there any indication other type of money will come from the couple . Guest well, they have invested millions in various programs. Not the type of people that do the one off programs. This is kind of a different thing for me. They tried to invest in program thats are finding solutions over the long haul. It was a personal pledge to bridge the gap in this program that programs when they are funded after the shutdown, this money would have to be paid back. But the foundation has been very focused on helping programs work on issue with obese and Early Childhood education and education initiatives in general. Host cindy george joining us via skype to talk about this donation. Thanks for your time. Again for our remaining time, your thoughts on the Government Shutdown specifically if its impacted you. If you live in the eastern and central time zones its 2025853880 if you live in the mountain and specific time zone its 2025853881. Email and twitter is available to you. Pittsburgh, pennsylvania is where well start. Karen will start. Caller good morning. I called to say that i put in for a reverse mortgage. You have to get a print out from the Social Security office. Theres only certain things they will do for them. Print out is not one of them. You cant get your federal tax if youre not working and paying federal tax. You cant get through to them. Im wondering am i going to get my reversed mortgage. Do i want to thank f. H. A. For doing my housing which is required. About them shutting down the government, if obamacare doesnt work, let them see if it works or not but then make changes. Host heres seattle, washington. Caller im a furloughed employee. This has been for me, an opportunity to focus on finding work in the private sector. Im tired of working for government that never, ever rewards efficiency but tries to get you to use as much resources you possibly can. I dont know if thats because theyre budgeting or what. Host what type of work do you do . Caller i work for the Census Bureau. Field representative for the Census Bureau are all furloughed. We are part time so we dont get any back pay. No benefits, no real guarantee of work in the next month. Host have you been furloughed since october 1st . Caller yes, sir. Host if you joining us for the remaining time, we want to find out from you directly how the Government Shutdown has affected you. The lines will be on your screen. From new york, heres george, good morning. Are you there . Lets move on to dwayne. Dwayne is from california. Good morning. Caller good morning. Let me take you off speaker. My comment is about the constitutionality of the shutdown. My point is, the issue is bigger than everything we seem to be talking about. Think about this, how we have a country that the Minority Party, which has the processes in place to solve the issues of the country and the Minority Party does not saying i will shut down the government in order to get my way. How could you ever run a country that way . Host before we let you go. Has the shutdown affected you directly at all . Caller , yes it has. One, im selfemployed. The fear of people you willing to do business with you im on 100 commission. I eat what i kill. The business is not out there as much because everybody has been waiting. Weve been waiting for four years for the businesses of the government to act sane. Host heres peter new york, hi. Caller i like to have a discussion about the fact that the press is not reporting that democrats are also as responsible as the republicans because they in turn with all the stories they have given regarding their own districts as to the disruption as well as the effects on the American People. What if they broke down the bill and sent it back to the house knowing full well what would happen to the American People. Host thats peter from new york. A story from politico from Jonathan Allen saying when president barack obama laid out a strategy a private meeting with harry reid thats past summer, reid stipulated one condition, one joe biden. The Senate Majority leader barred him from the back rooms according to sources. The Vice President distance has grown even more noticeable. The debt limit crisis looms. Biden once the deal maker in chief, designing budget packs with Senate Minority leader mitch mcconnell. Again, how the Government Shutdown has impacted you, st. George utah. Hello. Caller it hasnt directly affected me yet. Im immensely worried about it. Since earlier somebody was talking to whoever and the guy said, why dont you not get paid. How about all the really rich people in the United States just kick in like may be 10,000 or 25,000 to whatever we need the money for . Just to make a dent. A sign of good faith. After all, their americans and were americans. It wouldnt hurt them. Really. Okay, thank you. Host the associated press, this is from seth. Saying the federal gown is shutdown is reaching down to the south pole. Its putting its scientific station in deep freeze for the start of new research season. The n. S. F. Runs three stations spending just under 400 million a year there. It takes weeks for 1200 researchers who spend spring and summer there to get to the southern continent by boat or plane. Its a big logistical enterprise and this could jeopardize the entire research season for hundreds of important projects. Selma join us from coverington, kentucky. Thelma, good morning. Caller i am a federal employee who is currently on furlough. Its directly affecting me. Its not just federal employees impacted. Were worried about whether or not we can pay our rent. Its also affecting every Charter Foundation there is. This is the time of year we do the c. S. E. Were not able to do any kind of collecting for all the charities that we get to on a regular basis. This shutdown needs to stop. Host what do you do there in kentucky . Caller im an i. R. S. Employee. Host how long have you been furloughed . Caller i caller i have been furloughed since october 1st. Im a night shift employee. I have not worked since october 1st. Host what are your plans for the day ahead . Caller im trying to find Something Else to keep busy. Companies dont want to really hire you especially if you been with the i. R. S. For 20 years. Im going crazy myself trying to figure out what to do with myself. Im ready to go back to work. Host thats thelma from kentucky. Joining us on skype is Steve Stevens. He is the Northern Kentucky chamber of commerce. Mr. Stevens we just had a call from covington, kentucky who is furloughed. What that does for the businesses in the area . Caller well as you heard, there are another 4000 just like your previous call they are have been furloughed. Obviously thats got lots of ramifications for those company thats are located very close in proximity to that large facility. We have two facilities in covington with that many employees. Theyre doing about 15 of the business that they would typically do because of those workers. What does that mean . That means that instead of being open from 10 00 in the morning to 9 00 at night. Theyre open from 10 00 in the morning to 3 00. Sometimes those are employee thats are students that get off school and go and work. Theres just a lot of problems just locally that are acutely feltly businesses. Host is the i. R. S. Only the federal facility in the area where you serve or the area you represent . Caller immediately we can feel it most because of those. In the region, we have about 30,000 federal workers. Of all sorts doing all kinds of things for agencies of government as well as places like the i. R. S. There is a Ripple Effect. You can talk about the employees of those types of agencies that have to go out and spend money. But we have companies within the chamber that rely on data, information, things that come from federal agency thats are not being produced. What does that mean . That means that someone thats a home buyer thats trying to close on a home, cannot because they cannot get their data from the i. R. S. And the things that are required to closings. That hold us up a lender. That holds a mortgage and title company. That even holds up the furniture delivery company. You get a large backlog and Ripple Effect. Host talk a little bit about the strength of the local economy there. What the shutdown could do to it. Caller let me just use the housing industry for example. The housing industry has been on a great rebound here and its often been attributed to pulling us out of slow and recessionary periods. We got a report a couple months ago that said we had 20 increase of home sales in this region. That was great news. Disruption of this sort can stall that completely. All the businesses i just mentioned can do that. The other part of it is, weve seen rebound in manufacturing and other Industry Sectors here locally. But this economy is fragile. People arent confident yet that they can foresee the future being bright. Theyre starting to make some investments. Theyre starting to put on some workers. Disruption of this sort, is sort of like a turtle passed on top of a shell and retract and hunker down and wait until the coast feels more clear. Thats kind of the way it feels i believe in the economy here locally. Host Steve Stevens with the Northern Kentucky chamber joining us via skype. Thank you. We continue on with your phone calls asking you to tell us how the Government Shutdown has impacted you. From hawaii, heres ed good morning. Caller good morning pedro. I talked to you years ago. My question i think this is good, the shutdown. Heres why. It personally doesnt affect me as much because im into business. It affect every one. What im saying here, this would help people rethink, reevaluate. Our government is taking in 2. 4 trillion a year and spending 3. 6 trillion. Any business will go out of business. I am for the obama healthcare. People should give that a chance. I think issues also the u. S. Doing the right thing by taking those crazy guys from africa personal. I think the u. S. Should not only take bad guys out of the streets internationally. The u. S. And western countries, europe included, should really support those three governments. Otherwise those guys more will pop up. I really think the u. S. Is doing a good job on that. They cant let the government handle anything because they are over powered by those radical guys. Host heres george from ohio. Good morning go ahead. Caller good morning. I used to work at the Cuyahoga Valley National park. I have a 2yearold. Its really hard i have to have my wife support me now because we have no income. I just think that im a republican and i feel like republicans are the blame for this. Which i understand. I feel like its the government at all. Its really hard to explain. A lot of we suppose to be like the lock for the government and what our government should be. Its really hard to talk about how our government shut down. I appreciate the call and hope you have a good day. Host from twitter aaron saying the shutdown causing sleep loss and friends problems. One of the ways you can communicate with us talking and telling us about Government Shutdown. This is richard from colorado. Hello. Caller this is richard. I spent 30 years active duty navy. Im retired and im 90 Service Disabled veteran. My concern also the military debt benefits for my comrades. Part of that job is to notify of a death that occurred. Should be to take care of them and help them through that process. The uncertainty in my family is that my benefits, i am depending on social, the government benefits and programs. Its just a shame that the austerity positioning in our government today is causing that rift, this sense that pushing the poor further to a poorer state and situations as well. Theyre playing russian roulette with our government programs. I earned my Retirement Benefits. Ive been retired for five years, i havent been able to find a job, because i havent been able to find a company that will accept make concessions for my disability. Im un. Id. Again, un im unemployed. I do have my government disability that we can depend on. Host richard, we got to let you go. We got to get other calls. Richard did mention death benefit for military members and their families. Theres a story in u. S. A. Today saying that the v. A. Pays about 5 billion the first of each month in compensation and pension payments. The family who has a marine killed in afghanistan are not receiving the death gratuity. We do not have the Legal Authority issue the death gratuity authority. House Speaker Boehner said on tuesday the chamber will advance a bill today. The house is going to act specifically on this and hopes the president will sign it. Sergio from clinton, wisconsin, hello. Caller good morning. Im also a United States navel. The shutdown affected me in a lot of ways. I volunteer at my local va hospital here in madison, wisconsin. Not too far from where i live at. I see a lot of veterans. I just want to president and speaker of the house all of that, we served and were waiting. I have children and they dont understand whats going on. Theyre out playing and stuff. I take care of my family 100 . It was really hard to get that and im flabbergasted and shocked. I did my service to my country and they promise to take care of us. I dont understand why. Were here and we dont want to be taken care of, we want square deals. Host nick from twitter say we hear all the negatives about the Government Shutdown. There has to be positives. I can think quite a few. Heres sam from birmingham, alabama. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was stationed in thailand and i privied what we were doing. We were Building Military bases, radio communication, power grids, airports, swimming pool, roads bridges. I would have the privilege of being the last few people out of there and we gave away planes, all buildings and equipment and everything else. I was listening to the general on cspan the other day and he said were doing the same thing today. I think that we need to stop giving our stuff away. Stop building plus we were doing communicate services and building schools and everything else. Were spending a fortune in every country and it needs to stop. Host senate for American Progress here in washington d. C. Sent out a tweet with a chart. The chart lists the individual piecemeal bills that have been submitted by the house. Turned down by the senate. When it comes to keeping portions of the government funded. They estimate that it could take 79 different bills to fund the government and they offered a link to that estimate. Herman, california asking about the impact of the Government Shutdown. Rebecca from california. Caller i work for the Rural DevelopmentSingle Family housing. It affect so many people. Low income people that the government supposed to be helping. Personally this is affected my income. My husband is a Contract Security with homeland security. Where you depend on military disability check that may not come next month. We have vacation plans and were like do we spend our liquid cash or stay home. We support our elderly parents financially. Also is their checks going to be affected. Their Social Security checks. This is a lot of stress. How long is this going to carry on . Host well hear from tina next, fort worth, texas. Caller i am a 29 year federal worker. Ive also been in the military. I served my country in 1986. Its just really hard. After going to work for 29 years, really hard to try to find out what am i going to do with all of this time. I have been able to volunteer at my sons school and so that has really helped to be able to be involved in my sons education. But at the same time, we have services that we provide to others that were not allowed to do right now. The government employees, were like a tree. We reach out different areas of the government. When parts of the government shut down, were not able to reach out to those that really need us right now. It really does affect so many of us. We are hard workers and its just too bad were not allowed to provide those services that weve been doing for so long. This really needs to end. Our country is really hurting. Just really hurting. I am really looking forward to getting back to work. I am going to think positive and im just really ready to go back to work. I dont know what else to say. Host House Democrats is planning a meeting to come to the white house this afternoon to talk about issues. Saying the president is expected to invite all of congress omeet him at the white house with nine days with the Government Shutdown and eight days before the debt ceiling. House democrats will have their wednesday for an hour long session. White house sent an email invitation. Senate democrats have been invited. House and Senate Republicans will also get invited. Speaker john boehner control of the house. Trisha from las vegas, hi. Caller i wanted to call in because this federal shutdown has affected me. Im a Government Contractor software engineer. I was also a veteran in the army. I always prided myself on being independent. Its killing me to be home and not working. The reason for that is ive worked in the private sector as well. I fought for the job that i got. Ive had it more a year and now im at home and im uncertain what im suppose to do. Host after they figured out time missed, have you heard anything about that . Caller no i have not. Im a Government Contractor. I dont think that qualifies as federal workers. So im at home. I got payday loans to pay off. Ive got mortgage to pay. I got my car payment today. Host as far as how youre dealing with these things. Talk a little bit going forward, are you planning finding another job . You have savings to rely on . Caller savings is gone. I had to use my p. T. O. Part time off, which is your vacation. That has run out. Ive got no savings because last year i took my Retirement Benefits and cashed that out. I got a house that i didnt walk away from but back in 1997 didnt know the house had a plumbing problem. I paid off some debt and i still have debt. I want to work. Once you do get a job, it takes about three months before you can get paid. Im in limbo. Im in jeopardy am i going to lose my house or car. I understand that it is a hardship. Thats it for this edition of washington journal. Another comes your way 7 00 tomorrow. We now go to the house of epresentatives. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, washington, d. C. , october 9, 2013. I hereby appoint the honorable Chris Collins to act as speaker pro tempore on this day