Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20160914

Household saw the gains last year. We also want to hear how you think these new numbers might impact of the campaign 2016 debate over the Economic Health of the u. S. We have split our phone lines by income level this morning. If you make under 25,000 a year, 2027488000 this morning. If you make between 25,000 and 50,000, 2027488001 is your number. Between 50,000 a year and 100,000 a year, 2027488002. If you make over 100,000 a year, 2027488003. You can also tweet us and find us on facebook. A very good wednesday morning to you. Heres how the Census Bureau numbers played out on several of the front pages of major newspapers around the country. Heres the front page of the wall street journal this morning. The u. S. Got its first race last year since 2007. Last years ands 2007. Since 2007. Put it john is an economic correspondent with npr. Thank you for joining us today. Take us through the topline numbers and a general sense that these are good numbers, but how good are they . Caller by all measures, it is a very good report. The broad measures of wellbeing for americans come income, level of poverty, health care coverage, all of them improved. Income, the income right at the middle of the income to 56,516 in. 2 2015. The largest increase, the largest percentage increase in the history of this data. On poverty, poverty fell, tied the largest drop ever in the 1. 2 . Y rate, down one down to 13. 5 . Tying the largest drop in the history of the state appeared history of this data. It is a good report. Did some people do better than others . Was a different among racial lines was it different among racial lines . One of the other good things about this report, it is broadbased. Gains and income were broadbased. There was only one Demographic Group that stayed the same. A very broadbased everyone gained. Folks at the bottom did a bit better than folks at the top. People down in the 20 percentile of income got a bit larger raise than folks at the top. Thats going against the grain of whats happened in our economy over the last couple of decades. Ort is there when policy program that being pointed to as making the biggest difference in these numbers . A big driver of these numbers is the economy and job creation. Forave had job creation now a period since the recovery after month of job creation and we continue to have strong job creation seven years into the recovery. People tting more raising the number of people who have incomes. Households will see rises in their incomes. You have a tightening of the labor market. There are fewer workers to choose from. So, employers need to begin to raise wages. There have been some policy changes. Seen across the country some cities and states raising the minimum wage. Some of those went into effect in 2015. So they also contributed. StillHousehold Income below the prerecession levels from back in 2007. Is the reason for that the depth forhe recession or a blame the slowness in the recovery or is that framing the political debate around this report . Caller a bit of both. Recessionhe worst since the great depression. It was the nature of this recession and how we got into it. We got in through a financial crisis. A crisis in the institutions that make the economy work. Ofovering from that kind financial crisis takes a long time. Partly because people do so much confidence. That lose so much confidence. People lose confidence in the institutions. The institutions are much more careful. They are hesitant to lend money. People are hesitant to borrow money. Wherehad this long period its taken a long time for banks to become confident to lend. For businesses to decide its time to borrow and meet the demand out there and people because they lack confidence. Stew has made in this time of growth slower and the recovery slower than from previous recessions. That has kept Income Growth down. Host we will hear from viewers about how it impacted them. John, thank you for your time this morning. You can read his work at npr. Org. Have a great day. Caller thanks, john. Host we have split our phone lines by income level. We want to hear first from chris and atlanta, georgia on that line for those who make between 25,000 a year and 50,000 a year. Caller good morning. Up . did your paycheck go caller no, it did not. It is not bad generally , what effect it will have on the election. I remember the last election. The unemployment number went down just before the election itself. The number was a false number. Left the attempt to even get a job anymore or work anymore and that was wasnt factored in. This has a prop to it. The amount of welfare, food stamps and things like that and the increase in minimum wage. That also props things up for a fall. As it is pushed harder, they will lay more people off. I think it will break again. Host would you agree with this take on the numbers from angela from the American Enterprise institute . Here is her column from the Boston Herald about it. Is that more your position . Its like treading water. You have a floater to prop you up. You are floating, not breaking ahead. If the prop breaks, you will sink. Obamacare is going to break next year. How Many Companies are getting out of it now . Break, the costs will go up. Those economists have also said that because these props, if they fail, we will have another recession. Anybody is saying dont get excited because if any of these props break, we will receive again. De again. Host bob on the line for those who make between 50,000 and 100,000. Caller all these numbers are being skewed anyway the white house wants them to be skewed. They want them to look good so we can get Hillary Clinton in office. Eight years mr. Obama has been the president of this country. We are twice the level of debt that mr. Bush left us in. That is incredible. The economysay is improving when we are 20 trillion in the hole . Pretty soon, we will all be working to pay that debt. That is a problem. Host heres a bit of what he had to say. [video clip] president obama there was a new report out just today showing age,last year across every every race in america, incomes rose and the poverty rate fell. [applause] obama the typical Household Income of americans rose by 2800, the single biggest oneyear increase on record. [applause] obama we lifted 3. 5 Million People out of poverty. That is the largest oneyear drop in poverty since 1968. [applause] president obama the uninsured rate is the lowest it has been since they kept record. The pay gap between men and women shrank to the lowest level ever. [applause] obama republicans dont like to hear good news right now. More americans are working from incomes are rising, poverty is and gas is two dollars a gallon. Thank you for reminding me. Hanks, obama [laughter] [applause] president obama the steps weve been taking over these years have been paying off. We shown that progress is possible. Host president obama yesterday in philadelphia. Here is one of the republicans on capitol hill, kevin brady, republican from texas, heres his take on the report. We want to hear your take on that report that came out yesterday. Some of the reaction we will show you over the course of our next half hour. Michael is in webster, massachusetts on the line for those who make under 25,000 year. Caller i just heard the and one of the things he is doing as he is living in the past. This is 2016 and my mother and i are both on Social Security. It didnt help us any. Host do you work . Caller no, i dont. I suppose maybe i will have to get a job. I have a mother that has dementia. Work, she haso to to go to a nursing home and that is going to kill her. This increase in wealth is not something youd seen in your part of massachusetts. Caller no. In maryland on the line for those who make between 50,000 a year and 100,000 a year. Caller good morning. It isng in because at arst year, i got hired job at three times what ever made in my life. I just graduated from college. I actually relied on some state aid at one point. I did lose my job and i got unemployment, went back to school fulltime, got my degree and here i am. I definitely believe the economy is working out. It is definitely working out for me. Are you seeing that discussion about the economy and how you view the economy in the political debate right now . Caller would you please elaborate . Host how do you think this discussion about the economy whether it is in a good place or bad place, how do you see that point out on the campaign trail . Caller i definitely understand why it would seem like politically motivated for somebody to want to see more depressing news, more positive news depending on who you want elected. When bush junior left, the economy was in bad shape. People were thinking that john mccain had a better chance of if the economy tanks again, people might want more of a change. If the economy improves, people might want to stay the course. Ron is in new jersey on the line for those who make between 25,000 a year and 50,000 a year. Situation is similar to michaels. He was talking about his mother and being on a fixed income. Theres a lot of people in this country who are on a fixed income. Dependent on age. Schoolteacher and i receive a pension and i received Social Security. No matter how the economy fluctuates, up or down, my income remains the same. Dont really see any benefit of a growing economy. Another significant way it affects people like us, you have certain federal programs, entitlements where the different or different hud agencies that give assistance to people, they have hard salaries. 49,000cut of his , you areet 49,000. 50 ineligible. That doesnt mean you dont need assistance. Topica few tweets on this several editorials talking about these numbers today. Heres the Editorial Board of the washington post. We want to hear your thoughts. Ted in florida on the line for 51,000o make between and 100,000 a year. Caller the one thing i wanted that is pertinent to the situation is when you compare us to other countries now, thee, right United States as a whole, we are probably in the top five for average income. All thosee have safeties that can help people in poverty. That censuseve what says that 43 billion people are 43 Million People are not in poverty. Were talking 25 Million People in poverty host that is the Census Bureau number that came out yesterday. With 43. 1 Million People in poverty. Caller the Poverty Level is what, 22 million . Host the poverty threshold for a family of four. Caller do you realize that india can with workingclass india,ake 25 a week the workingclass there make 25 a week . If you compare all the other countries around the world, our income compared to our demographic population, we are far above any nation and our consumer rate is 10 trillion a year. Growth is almost 19 trillion. This country is the greatest country in the world, but you have all these negative people going around saying we are doing so bad, president obama has pulled us out of the situation and people are doing a lot better. Right now come on the books, theres almost 5 million jobs available. For people to go to work. Host mark in michigan on the line for those who make under 25,000 year. Good morning. I been disabled since 1990. I had to go on Social Security. My Social Security is 8,400 a year. And 50 a month food stamps. That is it. Its hard to live on. Host has that changed much . It is fixed income. I get 700 a month. Three quarters of that pays my rent. I get 50 a month for food stamps. You see how far it goes. Im out of money before the month is over. Im out of money before the second week of the month. Host does it frustrate you caller yes. With my knowledge and work skills, but because of my disability, i cannot get work. Im a licensed master mechanic, a licensed heating and cooling , commercial,cal industrial i have all this knowledge but i cannot get work because im disabled. You, we want to update yesterday, several primaries happening. We are wrapping up the primary season here in september. A couple of stories from yesterday from new hampshire, frank guve inta has a narrow lead. Elsewhere in the state, ayotte heads into a general election against a democrat and one of the most closely watched contests in the country. A story closer to capitol hill, this from the Washington Examiner overnight. Democrats demanding a vote on gun control on the house floor. Making their second such protest in two months. We will be watching for that today. We can ask one of our guests on , a democrattoday from texas who is involved in that first house for protest. We can ask him about that report. Phones, talking about this and Census Bureau report about Household Income being up in 2015 poverty down. Carol in ohio on our line for those who make between 50,000 and 100,000 a year. Wrong one the we are in the 25,000 a year and 50,000 a year. We are on Social Security, we get 26,000 a year or more, little bit more. My husband had a really good job. Thats what we get. The slowness of this recession is the republicanss fault. They blocked every job bill and everything that would help the economy in congress. We would have been doing a lot better if they hadnt done that. I dont think anybody ought to be voting republican. Theyre not doing what is right for the people. Michelle is up next in tennessee on the line for those who make between 25,000 a year and 50,000 a year. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you. The teacher from new jersey that is retired pretty well said what i wanted to say. I also am a retired teacher. I make around 40,000. It is fixed. Increase, there was no. Food prices have risen. Terribly. Seniors. Crease for do you feel that same frustration that he said he felt when these numbers come out saying the economic strength of america is on the rise . Caller i think it is going downhill in a hurry. The people, the baby boomers i was born in 1944, so im not considered a baby boomer. We were called the silent generation. 2007, i wased in doing a lot better financially. 2016. Am right now in seniorsunderstand how can go into a Doctors Office just on medicare with no supplement. I will not mention the name of the company. When i first retired, it was 90 a month. For my supplement. Times were good. Went upe supplement 231 a month last year. So, dont tell me its getting better. I have copd, i tried to get medication with the assistance of the company. Was 36,000. Aroundher, i made 37,000. So, i did not get it. Up next inis williamston, North Carolina on the line for those in make those who make under 25,000 year. Caller being on fixed income in 2008, it seems every election year, they flow of these numbers. Flub these numbers. Gas prices going down, the birds are singing, everything is going well. What used to cost 25 in the 1990s now costs over 100. I have to admit, trump is right, it is fixed. You are playing with the loaded gun. Its just a matter of time when it crashes, we all fail. Host you dont believe the Census Bureau numbers that came out . Caller no. Ts the government the clintons have been up there too long. Showing thembers sharpest drop in poverty rates in nearly 50 years. Are using that in williamston . Caller no. You come down here and live nuc where and you see where big prices come to the little town. That dirty word, inflation, it when ite tire out cost 20 inr what the 1990s, there is a problem. Foration is a dirty word all politicians. They never confronted, they never want to talk about it. It is a daily thing. When you are on fixed income, sooner or later, you are broke. Usa today talking about Household Income. It jumped 5. 2 in 2015. The chart showing the peak from the Census Bureau numbers back in 1999. You can see that break in the chart to explain that. Raymond is ind clinton, pennsylvania on the line for those making between 25,000 a year and 50,000 a year. Caller you had the gentleman hes trained in airconditioning and so forth but he is disabled. He cannot find work because he is disabled. He is not working, but hes not one of the people covered for government obama hasnt done a darn thing. You count all the people on Social Security disability, about 13 Million People today, it has doubled since obama took over. They changed the rules for that also. If you count all the people who cant find work, it totals over 20 something percent. You had a woman on there from c . Retirement people aar aarp. In 2025, you want to take a 25 cut in Social Security benefits. The government says no, you are not. The government is in deficit spending mode. Theyre spending more than what they taken. You are not going to get any more of living increase on Social Security for your Pension Plans. Costofliving increases on Social Security or your Pension Plans. They traded away our jobs. You dont trade jobs. They killed 5 million jobs and the clintons are responsible. This is craziness. These people dont want to listen. In a neighborhood around pittsburgh, the steelworkers are gone. They dont understand how the dynamic has changed and they still hold that lever no matter who runs. In pennsylvania on that line for those who make over 100,000 a year. Caller good morning. Is that a net income or gross income . Npr i wish i had john from to dig into that for you. Go ahead with your comment. I will look around the report to try to get an answer as you go. Caller that is probably the biggest thing that everybody is saying here. You might say the numbers are ok, but the numbers are not really telling the truth. Not in the real world. Thats what i think is the problem here. They are always fixed, always just saying what the current ,andidates running have said like the president said yesterday in philadelphia here. It is a lie. You skew the numbers the way they wanted because the consent Democratic People are doing a good job. Host a couple people dont believe the Census Bureau numbers. Do you not believe them because of the Current Administration or no matter who is in office, you just dont trust these numbers that come out committees Economic Indicators from the government . That i dontnot believe the government numbers. What i believe is what i see when i go out shopping, when i go out in my neighborhood. I come from a lower middle class neighborhood. I can see whats going on. People are not buying houses anymore. When i go shopping, i see more and more people with their card getting it from the government. Obviously, they are not doing very well. Outjob numbers they put come of labor numbers, they dont count specific people like people who have given up. You have to read between the lines. More and more people are starting to read between the lines. The staunch democrats and staunch republicans are not going to believe any of that anyway. They are just going to stay there course. Host on twitter yesterday, the chairman had this to say. Talking about the Census Bureau numbers that came out yesterday contained in two reports. You can go to the Census Bureau website. Report came out yesterday. You can look through them yourselves and try to go through them this morning. Nancy is in the bronx, new york on the line for those who make between 50,000 a year and 100,000 a year. Caller good morning. If you had half a brain, you would get on the trump train. You pretty much answered im thatsot quite sure what where they got those numbers from the Census Bureau. I was part of the Census Bureau in 2010. Whaty, my question is, does the government consider the Census Bureau . Where do they get the numbers from . I guess i will put you back to that report. They talk about the methodology in there. Leonard in california on our line for those who make under 25,000 year. Go ahead. Caller a couple of subjects right quick that people dont realize theyre not bringing up incomez,ocial security veterans incomes Social Security incomes, veterans incomes ive been on disability since 1997. A baby boomer, worked most of my , on a fixeded income, signed up for Social Security last year and found out in june that the government takes make too much money, so the veterans took away the and theycurity money expect us to live on 14,000 a year. Something in the government needs to change with who gives the money and who takes the money and how they work together. Its the wrong policy. We had a few members of congress on our program today who serve on the Veterans Affairs committees in the house and senate. Two stories from the campaign trail. One from the associated press. Hillary clinton expected to be back on the campaign trail thursday. Tor diagnosed her with pneumonia on friday. Feed newsfrom buzz this morning getting a lot of attention colin powell slammed donald trump, calling him a national disgrace. 17 remarks came in a june email to emily miller. I will also said trump is in the process of destroying himself. Powell also said trump is in the process of destroying himself. One or two more calls. Inn is in indiana lynn miami, florida on the line for those who make ove over 100,00a year. Caller im a lawyer who practices in the area of bankruptcy. The people that come to see me are increasingly more and more impoverished. Whose incomes are under the Poverty Level. Because of whats happening in the country, i will be a supporter of donald trump. Host lynn is our last caller. Up next, we will be joined by senator mike rounds. He will join us to talk about his work on the Veterans Affairs committee and several budget deadlines and the u. S. Response to zika. Later, we will be joined by. Ongressman beto orourke adams was not a good president. He was not a successful president. His career ended at the end of his presidency. I dont think i would have written a book about him. James trough talks about his book on john quincy adams. You thing that strikes he is a politician. Heone whatever you do didnt form alliances. He didnt do anything you would do to persuade people who otherwise might not go along with your agenda to do so. His four years in the white house were just pain. Everything was hard. He achieved almost nothing. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Hillary clinton we are going to get things done. Think things. Thats who we are as americans. Big things. Oneld trump we will have Great American future. The cspan radio app and cspan. Org. Monday, september 26 is the first president ial debate. Tuesday, mike pence and tim kaine debate at Longwood University in farmville, virginia. , Washington University in st. Louis hosts the second president ial debate, leading to the third and final debate between Hillary Clinton and donald trump taking place at the university of nevada las vegas on october 19. Live coverage of the president ial and Vice President ial debates on cspan. Watch live or anytime on demand at www. Cspan. Org. Washington journal continues. Joinssenator mike rounds us to discuss the looming budget deadline. The new emergency funding to fight zika yesterday, marco rubio was back on the senate floor admonishing members of his own party for being too slow on zika. As the urgency on this issue finally set in . Emergency funding for these types of activities is critical. No question that we should be funding the fight against zika. The question is, how do we get there . Weve had a number of votes which would provide the zika funding. This been disagreement there has been disagreement, but there are provisions specifically in it which democrats did not like. Because of that, we were not able to get the 60 votes. We will get zika funding and it should be done. I agree it is an emergency issue and it should be funded immediately. Harry reid to talk about zika funding in his opening remarks yesterday. Heres a bit of that. [video clip] we are told by the 19,000t there is now affected by zika. That is a 13 increase in seven days. Its only going to get worse. We need to treat the zika virus like the Genuine Health crisis it is. It is not a bargaining chip to attack planned parenthood, fly and othererate flag such things that they stuck in that bill. We want to work with republicans to secure zika funding. We flatly reject any attempt guest this 1. 1 billion available in the Conference Committee report. Democrats are not happy because there is no specific funding for planned parenthood. Ofhave no intentions providing specific funding for planned parenthood in this attempt to fight zika. To find Common Ground because we all recognize fighting zika is critical. Weve had multiple votes republicans have been voting in favor, democrats have been voting in opposition. Based on the fact that there is no funding for planned parenthood. On plannedlimitation parenthood getting funding through their usual services they get paid for for providing medicaid services. Theres no specific funding directed to planned parenthood or their affiliated organizations. This was to fight zika. Planned parenthood should not have a specific amount of money directed to them. The lets talk about mechanism by which we could see zika funding. Will this be included in the shortterm budget resolution . I hope so. Thats what weve been talking about. The thing that brings everybody together is finding a way to fund the zika fight and taking care of a continuing resolution to get us through into december. Lets find the proper verbiage that holds republicans and democrats that both republicans and democrats can agree with. Not doing anything who irritates that who believe strongly planned parenthood shouldnt be mentioned host are you comfortable with a shortterm budget resolution 9 . M october 1 to december is that the best we could do to fund the government . Guest my first choice would have been to a done all 12 Senate Appropriation bills that we tried. Mitch mcconnell give us 12 weeks 12 separate bills. We have not been successful in putting together a united effort with democrats. Its time we redo the budget process. There is not enough time in the year to go through and there is not an impetus to get the work done in a timely fashion. Trying to with a deal be made in the last part of the year when the time crunch comes on. A terribled way to fund government. Trillion we had 12 days to look at it. There is a group of us in the senate who feel very strongly we need to start the process of changing the way we do business when it comes to funding government. Host what would a new regular order look like . Atst you have to look trying to combine the appropriations and authorizations process. A lot of states do not reauthorize every year. Modifyll authorize and as you do the appropriations process, you try to incorporate the authorizers and appropriators properly. King at what is the best this comes together at the end of the year and we come up with one grand bargain deal. You will never fix the budget process in washington, d. C. Until you actually start looking at the entire budget. Interest on the federal debt and mandatory payments for mandatory programs at the federal level are not even under consideration in this budget process. They have to be addressed as well. Look at pension programs across the United States. We have a pension plan in south dakota. Its one of the best Pension Plans in the United States. Every singly or, we go back and look at ways to make it better. Everybody says you cannot talk about Social Security, it is a third rail. We have to be managing it. We ought to be making it better every year. The same with medicare and medicaid. Medicare and medicaid together, you have people who are eligible for both. Lets start looking at the efficiencies of combining them. The pores of the poor are over the age of 65 living in nursing homes. Seems like you want to add a lot more work on to congress on these programs. Have votes once a onk and we agree to debate the floor of the senate. It take 60 votes to do that. Back in the 19 six these comments possible that you might have had a couple year. 1963, it is possible that you might have had a couple year. You have 30 hours of debate. You will only have two to three cloture votes entire week. Thats what the federal government has been doing for several generations that. Here senator mike rounds to take your questions and cometh. Democrats can call 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Ndependents, 2027488002 james in new jersey. Caller good morning, cspan. , how are yourounds doing . Guest very good, sir. How about you this morning . Caller good. Im a moderate. I have been studying since 2010. Wall street has 45 billion as a for some reason i why are wend giving wall street 45 billion every month and we cannot 2 billion for zika . Guest what the gentleman is suggesting is there a Tax Relief Program or deductions for larger organizations. Now is inve right taxes than which has grown by well over 30,000 pages since the last time it was redone in the mid1980s. Tax reform is necessary. If we are able to incorporate this Large Organizations are very sharp at taking the deductions. You try to maximize your revenue is coming in and maximiz economic maximize economic growth. The curve indicates the average total maturation around 18 . You have to recognize that a lot of Small Businesses actually are taxed at the individual rate small businesst taxed at the individual rate is set of the corporate rate. You have to have a balancing of corporate and personal tax rates. You have to take you look at whether or not you keep the deductions that have been built od since theri 1980s. The gentleman may have a point that larger organizations take advantage of tax code. That is an impetus to make changes in tax code to simple affiant. Simplify it. Host peter in arkansas. Republican. Go ahead. Caller thank you for having me. I have a very simple question. Parties that blame each other for not getting things past four years and years. If we want to pass a budget for zika, why is it that only zika funding is in this budget . Why is there anything else and it . Itst theres two parts was not just zika funding, it was attached to another spending bill. Which was a noncontroversial bill, a military and veterans bill. This was an addon to that particular one. It went to conference with the house and came back over. There was more funding than just for zika in that. We talk about 12 separate appropriation bills. 12 separate appropriation bills take care of nondefense discretionary spending. What is not included in those bills is nondefense discretionary. That makes about 70 of the rest of the budget, which we do not talk about. The amount that you are talking about for zika funding was added to another bill, which had positive support from both republicans and democrats when it came out a committee. Host another voice in the debate about zika is gov. Rick scott of florida. He headed to washington yesterday to meet with congressional leaders to demand funding to fight the virus. He met with marco rubio and House Speaker paul ryan in several florida representatives. Brian is waiting for you on the line for democrats. Caller good morning and thank you for having me. Thank you for your great news. Ge of unbiased ive noticed for e. Coli and zika that they get funding right away. Parents hadhere my a house for 18 years, ive never heard of valley fever. It is arizonas biggest secret. You can go there just by breathing the air. It almost killed me. S son,led bob uecker a sports announcer for the milwaukee brewers. There has never been funding. They have a cure for it, but no drug company will get online because it is localized to the states. Host is the question why some things rise to the top and others dont . , i have toh, i mean take antifungals the rest of my life, it. It comes out of my pocket. Have to see all these pulmonologist and it comes out of my pocket. Senator . Guest i hope you recover and i hope things get better for you. Anytime there is a serious disease or illness out there, unless it reaches national discussion, it is tough to get 60 votes in the United States senate and a majority in the house to get particular funding for a particular type of illness. That does not mean we should not continue to try to eliminate those illnesses whenever they are brought to our attention. There are lots of different organizations that will front or promote an attack on a particular disease. Matter of trying to put together enough support for you can actually get a consensus in the house and the senate. I wish you the best with fighting your illness. Today for bringing it up because this may be one of those opportunities where it will draw enough attention for individuals who actually promote and advise us about what the next steps are in terms of promoting healthy environment in the United States , these are the types of things that can be brought to our attention and may very well received funding on the discretionary side of our budget. Once again, its a case of not trying to ignore it, but within the timeframe we have got and the amount of issues brought before us, taking those that we think have the most impact and are the most critical at the time doesnt mean we always make the right decision. Its not because there arent very good people appear trying to make a difference. Host if it does not happen by the end of september, do you think congress will stick around in that month of october where they are expected to go back to campaign and get this done when it comes to zika . Guest i know we will not be leaving until we get something done. We have to do something. A fiscalty is you have coverage that goes on september 30. We all recognize we have to get it done. I learned when i came here, and ive only been here two years, i was sent this place is broken. It is not the people who are broken. There are people who really do care. Finding kim census among them is the challenge and a system that needs to be upgraded. I tell folks that come that nobody is leaving here and get actually get this thing addressed. The real thing is getting this this done in a timely fashion. Theres nobody on our side of the aisle talking about the shutdown. Weve got one time to work through the other issues, there is a little bit more finality of who is in the next administration and what to expect for the coming year. Host lets bring in dave and armstrong creek, wisconsin. Go ahead. Senatorgood morning, and thanks a lot for your government service. My question is i know you guys have a lot on your plate, especially on the house side, where you have to get elected every two years. To me that you are spending a lot of your time dialing for dollars when you could be doing a lot more of the work that you need to do. On the senate, i know you have a lot longerterms ho. How do you feel about that . That comes back to the money and politics where people are worried about getting elected more than taking care the business they have to take care of. I would like your comment on that. Guest thanks for the comment and the remark. It is true that the entire house is up every two years. Theyre going to go back and do their best to raise resources and also to be up front of their people and want their job back. A third of the entire senate is up every two years. That are34 out of 100 up this year, 24 republicans that are up and looking to get reelected. It is true that during an election year, we spend more time campaigning. Theres a lot of folks out there who want to see these individuals back and we know that there are competitors not in the senate right now who have a fulltime job of campaigning. Its a matter of dividing time between working in washington and being back home. One the reasons theyre getting out early is to get back home and get to the campaign mode. Host you are four years away from the election. Are you dialing for dollars . Guest not really and i do not know anyone dialing for dollars on a week basis. What happens is that you work with organizations that you begin and you lay out plans for funding next election. We have a lot of stuff after 5 00 in the evenings. That put this together and invite folks to come on in. Is dialing for dollars, it about where you at the campaign, but very few of the United States senators i know spend much time at all making calls to folks asking them to support their campaign. A lot of this has to do is the fact that we had reforms in the election campaigns. A few of us were talking about it this week. Since the limitations has been put in in terms of the size of donations and the way you can solicit donations, you have to meet with a lot more people and the donations that you receive are a lot smaller than the old times. You do a lot more work with a lot more people. It also means you have a lot more time taken up happen those meetings as well. Whether that is good or not is up for public debate, but it will certainly change the way elections have been financed the last 1015 years. Host on the line for democrats, good morning. Caller good morning. Worked as a congressperson. We heard republicans complaining about continued resolutions. They have been in power for at least four or five years now. They still continue with what they have been talking about when democrats were in the same position. Secondly, i dont understand why being equal in power with the president. Inn democrats were all there, they were talking about jobs, jobs, jobs. How come we dont hear about jobs when republicans took both houses . The conditions of the country has not improved in terms of jobs. When the president asked for ,onditions to change, in fact he invited republicans to do things to promote jobs, and they refused and said no. Not that they have both houses, i dont hear jobs, jobs, jobs. The opportunities are not getting any better. Host we got your point. Guest thank you for your comment. With regard to continuing resolutions, theres a lot of us that do not like continuing resolutions at all. This will now be my second year. Last year would be the first time we did a continuing resolution. A lot of us that we do not want to do this anymore. To Mitch Mcconnells credit, he said, look, lets do it the way its supposed to be done. Lets do 12 separate Appropriations Bills. We spent 12 weeks in the senate doing it and the Appropriations Committee passed out 12 separate Appropriations Bills. These are some bills that came out unanimously with republican and democrat support alike. It is not just the 51 vote. It takes 60 votes just to begin to debate the Senate Appropriations bills. In most cases, we have not been given permission to get 60 votes. Have republicans and democrats to get 60 for those individual bills. , ibe fair, democrats believe, think that if they pass the military operations bill one that came out with near unanimous support. It is one that we passed every year. This one is sitting and a group of us went on the floor and hit democrats pretty hard because were not been able to get that one off the floor. And has been held. We have had six times with votes where they refused to let the appropriations bill come across. The reason i think its because they are afraid if we passed that, one of the bills that they feel strongly about might not have much support if combined. Democrats are doing their strategy to get the things they have most interest and attached to the things that republicans would like to pass the most. That is what goes on in this. Is a matter of finding Common Ground and getting it done. I do not like continuing resolutions and i think its a terrible way of doing business. Process innish this washington, that is what will default. You got to get something to maintain it because you do not want to shut down government. Ost mike rounds is with us he is a member of the Armed Services committee and environment and public works committee. Talking about those issues and more with your questions. Keith is up next in phoenix, arizona. Caller good morning, senator. Guest good morning. Caller i think that zika Appropriations Bills should be totally independent from any other appropriations. This is kind of like an emergency requirement here. I think you got a real problem down here in florida and they need to take care of it. Im going to tell something so the man from indiana that we already spoke to about arizona. Called valleyhing fever down here. It is just being part of being in arizona. Downu have parents come here, they better have low exposure to that. It has never been tackled either. The zika thing needs to be tackled. Guest traditionally in most states what will happen, and like a said, i was governor south dakota for eight years. I was in the senate for 10 years before that. One comes to emergency funding in the states, most states will say if its important enough, they will take a two thirds vote in the house and senate. You set it up as a separate bill and it will run right through. Things run a little different up here. I will not say i agree with the way it runs, but the easiest way to get it done as find a bill working its way through the process and attach it to something on the move already. You actually gain more support for it. That was the intent for the zika funding. 1. 1 billion was attached to a military construction va bill. The idea was not to hurt either one but make it easier for people to vote for it. As a cancer, a got to the house. As it came through, a got to the house. The democrats said there are too many things we do not like and therefore we will not adopt the Conference Committee. It takes 60 votes in the senate, which means you have to have republicans and democrats agree to get it done. Not a two thirds vote, but pretty close. It means democrats and republicans want to get this done, but they are both fighting to make sure that hopes that support them feel they got the best deal they could. Host st. Louis, missouri, eric is waiting. Caller first of all, i like to ask senator rounds does he believe in Climate Change . Because honestly i think the mosquitoes that are coming up here from south america wouldnt be here if we did not attack Climate Change heavier than we actually do. With fellow republicans like donald trump, they think its a joke. Its not. Guest this is a good discussion to have. I will tell you we have acknowledged from day one that climate does change. Theres no question about that. It has in the past and will in the future. Climate change occurs. The real question is what do you do about it and how do you respond to it . We have to be able to make modifications here. Or you can sit back and say the time is changing, but it is all manmade. Therefore were going to stop it from changing. I think that is really where the debate from those who are in favor of making major changes to our economy versus those in the other camp. Im in the other camp that says i want us to continue to have a very Strong Economy, but i want us to recognize the climate is changing and we should do everything we can to help the people who feel it the most and make longterm plans. I live in south dakota and we have watched as the corn belt has moved north and west. We have watched as her growing seasons have gotten longer. It also means the types of weeds that we have to deal with and the types of crops we can plant has changed. Climate changes. Now the question is how do we keep an environment, which is very clean, but also make sure we have a Strong Economy to respond to it and help those places being impacted the most by changes in the climate . Host lisa is waiting on the line for republicans. Go ahead. Caller good morning, senator. Guest good morning. Caller the reason im calling ive done a Little Research on the topic of zika. We have seen the babies with the little heads. It seems that microcephaly is unlikely to be a result of zika itself. Zika israeli deadly. Deadly could i would strongly urge congress to take another look at this topic because the spring tends to be the problem, especially in a delicate ecosystem like florida. Guest thank you for the question and the comment. Thats one of the debates going on in florida right now. I do believe that the prevailing preponderance of the evidence we sprayingt now supports and its because they have spread successfully in the past to eliminate mosquitoes. Zikaw certainly that does cause Health Problems and it does cause Health Problems in unborn children. I dont think that there is very much left in terms of a dispute to that. I would probably disagree with our caller in regards to the importance of this. I do believe this is a National Crisis and i do think it will require a national response. I just want to let folks know that back when i was governor, we actually sprayed because we had west nile. We sprayed many of our communities using aircraft because it was the most ofective way to stop as many the mosquitoes that were carrying that pathogen. We were successful in doing it. We had federal health in order to get that done. As a former governor, i think its critical and one of the most important things we do. With all due respect to our caller, i think we have to side with those individuals who have made the case that zika is serious and does cause birth defects. The best way to take care of it is to eliminate as many of those mosquitoes as we possibly can and to we have a vaccine available and in quantities where we can actually vaccinate for this disease. Host if viewers want to read more about your thoughts on this, your weekly column that you put out on their website at the end of last month on the 26th was presentin protecting sh dakota from zika. Denise, your next. Caller good morning, senator rounds. Ive three quick questions. 1 what made you give up the governorship to go to the senate . What are your convictions, guided principles . And what is preventing you from acting on those principles . Did you think as a Public Servant that you could better senator than as a governor . Host couple questions. Guest thank you for the call. In south dakota, we have term limits 24year terms. Fouryeard my two terms and i tell people it is the greatest job in the world. Youre working with good people and working with the legislative body which is second to none. We balance the budget and kept things under control. I loved that job, but two fouryear terms is enough and its healthy for the state to try something else. I went back to the private business sector and had no intentions of running for the senate at all. I told people was dysfunctional unbroken and did not want any part of it. I got into it in 2013 with a major flood on the Missouri River where engineers mismanaged the flood. I also saw a Regulatory Overreach that came from the irs and from the epa. I said the system is broken and the things that we see going on between obamacare and so forth, i felt very frustrated. I d decided this is where the challenges are at. , but i gotntend it involved just because i complained enough where you can only complain so long before you do something about it. Budgetone, we have a which is out of control. We are spending money faster than we are bringing in. We have regulations that are out of control. Congress is not making laws anymore and regulators are. We finally have a tax code that is out of wet. Hack. For me, there is a better way to do this. Where is the country that Ronald Reagan left us . It is time to revamp it. That was my opinion. In washington, d. C. , i found the system is broken, but on both sides of the aisle, there are very good people try to get things done. Host you said about the governorship that you love that job. Do you love this job . Guest i tell people in many ways that this is starting out like a tour of duty. Not in a dangerous way like some of yo are young men and women have done. But i go by come and work with folks back home who see things from a different light than washington dc. I will also tell folks that ive come to the conclusion that we really can fix things up here and theres a group of people that really want to make things better. That makes this job workable. We can get some things done. Host that includes members on the other side of the aisle . Guest absolutely. Let me just begin by this. Among those individuals, there are people who serve on every single committee that i am on that i care deeply about. Theres a group of former governors, republican and democrat alike, that one results. One of them is running for the vice presidency. Tim kaine is a finds a moment. Gentlemen. Have of theside, we a committee. Look at what chairman Donnie Isaacs has done in terms of working with Ranking Member of blumenthal and they do everything on a consensus typefaces. Type basis. You cannot tell the difference between them on the committee because its all about veterans and fixing things. Services,ook at our its very difficult to tell the differences between republicans and democrats in Armed Services. Mccain, who is absolutely american hero, sits with Jack Reed Adam Rhode island out of rhode island. They sit side by side and work through issues literally every day and they care deeply about our Armed Service members and making this country as strong as it possibly can be. In the Committee Structures appear, there is a huge amount of sidebyside working together , republicans and democrats. I do not think that gets enough credit. Host do you think donald trump can work with those people sidebyside if he becomes president . Guest i do and i think his picking mike pence and i met mike pence for the first time yesterday. Here is a fine gentleman. He would make a fine Vice President. He will be a great communicator. He is softspoken but he is sincere. I was very impressed with her. Im. His message among Senate Republicans was i came to listen and work with you. We are going to have differences, but theres a whole lot more were going to agree on and we will take your advice and thoughts. I just thought he laid out a marvelous impression among us. Then individual that as American People know mike pence, they will like the message hes got. He says were going to make America Great again and its a matter of how we do it and how we get there. He is a marvelous counterpart to mr. Trump who is telling everybody how critical it is to Start Building an economy again. I was very impressed with mr. Pence. The debates between these two candidates will be worth viewing by everyone. Host and something you can view on cspan. Peter is waiting for you in lowell, massachusetts. Good morning. Caller good morning. From my understanding of the zika virus as a layman, even according to the nih reports, it has been around since the mid1940s 1950s. 80 of the people who get it show no symptoms and actually build an immunity to it. Symptoms areow flulike symptoms. The cases where the small head happens with pregnant women were specifically in a certain state of brazil where they were using a certain spray on the tomatoes. Ia, the pregnant women who had it, their nutrition was better and they did not show any symptoms or birth defects. Sometimes you get caught up in these things and they want to throw somebody i dont know how much money on it. It seems to me that every year we get a new fear thrown at us. Guest i appreciate his comments. What he is laying out are some anecdotal information that will come up and be debated in the United States senate and house. The reality is though that there is a clear connection between birth defects and zika. Children thatese suffers these birth defects will be with us. We will probably end up taking care of them for a long time. It is much better. Nile inn we had west south dakota, this is a case where a lot of people get it and it does not hurt them, but if you develop the symptoms with it, you could die from it. Ive had friends who have died from west nile. Even though the vast majority of people have not, what we want to do is that if we know zika is causing problems and we know that zika is capable of causing these very serious birth defects , and i believe that it is, then i dont want to take the chance. I would rather take care the issue and get the vaccine created. Meantime, offer an emergency stopgap measure. If you are in florida, you are in florida, youre not thinking this might not hurt me. You think it is too close to home and lets not take the chance. Host lets go to dennis in watertown, south dakota. Thatr one of the things we sent mr. Rounds to washington, d. C. Was to help things out. I hear him complaining a lot about democrats and that they are the problem out there. It is both parties put in place poison pills in the bills that almost requires the other party to not vote for something that they are for. Host senator . Guest i think im doing my best to try to explain that their good peoples on both side of the issue here. There are differences. Both sides will promote their point of view. They all came here with an electorate behind them that tolkien to get something done, but also to do it in such a fashion that it is using principles and policies that folks who elected them believe are the best. There is a difference between the approach republicans and democrats used. Theres nothing wrong with the twoparty system and nothing wrong with having disagreement. As long as when you are all said and done, you find a consensus or a Common Ground where you move the entire country forward. If we all thought alike, we would not have the need for a house and a senate. We would not have the need for debate. What we have got is a country that for well over 200 years i tell people are country turns to 50 years old in the year 2026. The real question we have got is what are we doing now to look forward to making it better for the next generation in the year 2026 . Where is the vision . Where are the things we want to have established that makes our Country Special compared to a lot of others . Host senator mike rounds, member of the Armed Services committee, always appreciate your time on washington journal. Guest thank you. Host we will be joined by togressman beto orourke talk about his legislation concerning v. A. Account ability. Spotlight onweekly magazines, we will look at the Foreign Affairs recent series on the u. S. Military of tomorrow. That is all coming up in a few minutes on washington journal. Its that time of year to announce our 2017 studentcam video documentary, edition. Competition. Help us spread the word to middle school and High School Students and teachers. This years theme your message to washington, d. C. What is the most urgent issue for the president and congress to address in 2017 . Openompetition is to all middle school and High School Students grades six through 12 with 100,000 awarded in cash prizes. Students can work alone or up to a group of three to produce a 57 minute documentary on issues selected and also includes cspan programming and people with opposing opinions. The cash dollars will be awarded in shared between 150 students and 53 teachers. The grand prize of 5,000 will go to the student or team with the best overall entry. This years deadline is january 20, 2017, so mark your calendars and help spread the word to student film makers. For more information, go to our website at studentcam. Org. The cspan radio app makes it easy to follow the election wherever you are. It is free to download from the Apple App Store google play. Get audio coverage and uptotheminute coverage for cspan radio and television and popular podcast from our American History and book programs. Stay uptodate on all the election coverage. Cspan radio at means you always have cspan on the go. Announcer washington journal continues. Host congressman beto orourke act at a desk that at our desk. I want to get your Veterans Affairs work in a minute. Since you played a central role in that gun protest that happened on the house floor earlier in the summer, i want to ask you about a report from the Washington Examiner overnight about democrats demanding a vote on the floor today with a second gun protest planned for today. Is that happening . What can you tell us about it . Guest it is happening and this is in direct response to our constituents and are sick and tired of this congress inability to move forward on bipartisan and widely supported measures like background checks. We are dependent on Majority Party republicans and a speaker to bring anyone of these bills to the floor. Barring that, we have to do everything we can to show the American Public we are responding to their demands and at a minimum what we must do to curb the horrific levels of death and violence that we have in american cities. So we are going to do what we can to ensure that our colleagues across the aisle are listening to us and know that this is a top priority for us and to ensure the American People know that their views and demands are reflected in what we are doing. Host will it include another sitting . Guest i dont know. Im not one of the organizers, but i know were going to capitalize what was so successful last time, bringing the American Public into the conversation. A wide use of social media, facebook livestreams, periscope. Not necessarily on the house floor, but including those people who will come to the capital to participate and making sure they are heard and making sure folks at homes in their living rooms or at their inice desks can take part this at some level. I think thats important. Host what you thought was successful, republican said was a flagrant violation of house rules. They said there should be some sort of punishment for breaking house rules. Do you expect that to happen and what form to that take . Guest i dont know. Im not party to those conversations. However, i think many of us would welcome that kind of action by republicans because it would be once again a reminder of dysfunction in the house that they control. Their inability to move forward on americas priorities and the fact that democrats stood on principle and are effectively representing the interest of this country, one of which is reducing gun violence. Open to whatever what they want to do on this. We will just have to see. Host we should let our viewers know that we are covering the House Rules Committee today at 10 00 a. M. Some possible discussion about what could happen or some possible changes to house rules in response to what republicans have called the violations of house rules by democrats in that summertime protest. We want to let our viewers know that we are talking with cognition beto orourke for the next 40 minutes on washington journal. The numbers to call in. We will get right to it from texas. Susie is calling them from el paso, a democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning, steve. Im so proud of beto orourke. He is my congressman and is doing a great job of representing the 16th congressional district. I want to thank him for what he is doing for kazin range. I can look at the beautiful mountains and not see development and i enjoy doing that every morning. The mountains are beautiful and i think him for trying to protect these. And also what he is doing for the v. A. , the veterans, hes just doing a great job and im so proud of him. Host we are showing a picture of the range. Talk about that issue and what youre doing specifically about that land. Guest susie, thanks for calling. So nice to hear a voice from el paso and i know its early there in mountain standard time and i appreciate you raising the issues. The range that she mentioned is 7000 acres in the desert at the foot of the rock humans. You can see it is blanketed with the mexican gold poppies. You have rare plant and animal species and 10,000 years of Human History and hieroglyphs that date back years ago and gives First Impressions about this really special part of the world. It lies at the center of the Worlds Largest by national community. Nations, coming together as one people. This is a chance that should president obama make this a National Monument to preserve something that is special for all of us as a country, but could uniquely afford him the opportunity to open a public lands to a demographic we do not often find it in National Parks. El paso is 85 mexicanamerican. As we seek to ensure that the population enjoys our public lands reflects the populations that lives in our communities, you could have no better opportunity to make a Significant Impact and set the tone for the next administration for the next 100 years of National Parks as we celebrate the century of our parks system. So it is certainly important for my community and certainly important for our region. This is really an american treasure that is too good of an opportunity for this president to pass up. Were cautiously optimistic we will see action. Host rapid city, south dakota is next. John is an independent. Good morning, john. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. You are on with cognitio congressman orourke. Caller a while back trump said he would want to close the v. A. Hospitals down and do away with them. I was wondering what your comment on that was. Guest thanks for the question. To be clear, closing down the v. A. And privatizing veterans care is a terrible idea. However, i do think we need a new and better model to ensure that every veteran gets Excellent Health care both physical and mel Mental Health e in a timely fashion. That is not happening for every veteran in this country today. There are a lot of good ideas from both republicans and democrats on the house Veterans Affairs committee to do that. One of the ideas that i promoted is one that we would leverage capacity and communities where veterans cannot be seen in a timely fashion. In other words, the v. A. Would coordinate care for veterans and specialize those conditions that are unique to combat, things like posttraumatic stress disorder, military sexual trauma, amputations. Things that the general population by and large do not suffer from but are more common to veterans and Service Members. For those issues, perhaps not unique to veterans, diabetes, a veteran who has a cold or the or a podiatrynia issue, we leverage doctors and providers in the community who already have capacity to see those veterans. Heres what is driving this issue for us. We know from a comprehensive 50 state study that in this country every day at least 20 veterans will take their own lives. 14 of those 20s were never able to avail themselves of care at the v. A. We have got to prioritize and focus on those veterans lives that can be saved by connecting them to care. Host you are doing this, but these are all programs that you have included in your legislation that are currently moving through congress . Guest we are piloting this to develop the model in el paso. The local el paso medical community has come together to make sure that we serve veterans and bridge the gap where the v. A. Is unable to deliver that care. Secondarily, yes, for example, a bill that went to the house this include three amendments that have portions of this to ensure that we are to hireng the ability up the v. A. For specialties that are most important for veterans. And then we are leveraging that capacity in the community. 1. I want to leave you and your peers with is that we have today 43,000 openings in the v. A. , clinical openings, meaning we in congress have authorized these positions. We have appropriated the dollars, but the v. A. Has been unable to hire these positions, 43,000. Is a fools errand to continue to pursue v. A. Care in the same way in the hopes that we are somehow going to hire up 43,000. We won much be better served ford be much better served what courses of treatment within the v. A. And doing everything we can to maximize opportunities within the communities in which we serve and where veterans live. That, i think, will be the model for the future. Host st. Paul, minnesota where anthony is waiting peri. Go ahead. Caller im so happy i got a chance to talk to some of the about veterans issues. Im a disabled veteran, but it took me 37 years to get my disability due to fraud in the v. A. Back in 79 and 1980. My issue is one i do not know who to talk to about it. The other one is that i finally got my disability and then they give me 10 , which is 1500 a year. Who can live off 1500 a year . I also have a problem. I do not believe the statistics saying a lot of our vets are mentally ill and sleeping under bridges. If you are getting 10 , you have to sleep under a bridge or in a tent. Is there somebody i can talk to to address the fraud that went on . I have suffered immensely. Ive only made a hundred 17,000. I have no benefits and nothing but dont to the v. A. Basically my life is over. Could you address that for me . I will listen to you. Of all,nthony, first thank you for your service and thanks for taking the time to call. Do me a favor and, district 70. Ice at 91554114 care andhe best disability claims need to be resolved and adjudicated. I want to make sure we help you out. For those who do not fully understand the issue, first time disability claims have taken on average hundreds of days to resolve. Thanks to the secretary who made this a priority and now secretary mcdonald, were getting closer to 125 days. It is still too long perhaps, but a lot better than a was. One of the things that anthony has talked about is that should you appeal a decision you disagree with on a firsttime serviceconnected disability claim, like a 10 rating instead of a rating you think you are deserving based on service and medical history, that appeal can take not 125 days, not a year, but on average it is measured in four or five years. In cases like anthonys where someone has been waiting over 10 years, they are not as uncommon as they should be. When of the things were voting on this week. One of the things were voting on this week and thanks to the rest of the committee is an appeals modernization bill. Much of the underlying text written by my colleague from las vegas that will expedite these appeals that have been languishing for years. On at you to know that direct personal level, i would love to help you out. Im sure your member of congress would do the same. To fixlegislative level, the problems that you and veterans have encountered, we are moving forward on legislation that is going to streamline the process and give you fast lane to get into, so you can get this resolved quickly and challenge a firsttime decision that you disagree with. Thanks for the phone call and keep an eye on the legislation this week. Host anthony is still on the line. A good phone number to have is the Veterans Crisis line. 18002738255. Marianne is include field, kentucky, line for republicans. Caller i want to make something clear. I was a democrat for many years until six weeks ago. And i changed. I went to republican. The reason for that is for gun control. France has very severe strictly laws on guns and look what happened to them. They were sitting ducks for the terrorist attacks. If somebody is going to commit a terrorist attack, they will use anything, not just a gun. Zika whatey for gets me is that obama turned around and took money and give it to a terrorist country. Nobody knew about it, not many. It seems to me like you have obama giving all this money out to other countries. He just agreed to fund another country. It seems to me like the dems are destroying our country. Right now, i feel obama should be impeached. He has done a poor job. I see the fighting in the house and in the senate and they want to give money for zika, but they want to include planned parenthood. Planned parenthood is the biggest scam that the emergent people have. The American People have. This is ridiculous. You have dams consulting the American People because we want to go with trump. Host you bring up a lot of issues. I will let beto orourke jump in. Guest i will try to address the three major once you brought up. First when it comes to gun, i appreciate your point of view on this, but that idea that these horrific Mass Shootings could be stopped by having more citizens arent in the midst of the shootings is a false one. I think that our Police Officers and Service Members go through extensive, exhaustive training on how to use those weapons in a situation like that. The idea is that the average citizen to pull out a handgun and stop a horrific act like this is not worn out by the facts. As sensational as these awful accept terrorism are, i think we sometimes lose focus on the fact that every day in all of our ,ities, people are dying innocent people are dying at the end of a gun. There was a great new york of study overed memorial day weekend in chicago that show 64 people being shot just on a three day weekend. Many of them losing their lives. Too many of them absolutely innocent bystanders in this violence. We can and must do better. On the foreign aid issue, we spend less than 1 of our budget on foreign aid. Im a huge proponent of doubling or tripling or quadrupling that foreign aid. I think its such an effective use of our power and influence overseas. I think is a great way to complement what we are doing militarily and diplomatically around the world. I am all for ensuring that we can help people in ways other asn using our military impressive as that is a force for u. S. Power. When it comes to planned parenthood, again we are going to have to respectively disagree with each other. I think planned parenthood is an incredibly Effective Institution , whether it is screening for cancers or for family planning. Or whether it is for Reproductive Health choices in this country. This idea that you could come back a virus like zika, which can be sexual transmitted, without having a provider like planned parenthood in the midst, who is so effective in ensuring we do not transmit unnecessary virus like this sexually, that is not the right way to do this. We are going to disagree on these things, but appreciate your point of view and appreciate the phone call. Host clayton, missouri, robert, good morning. Caller good morning, congressman orourke. Let me give you my phone number and please write it down. 4438760547. Veteran. Abled Vietnam Program ine ptsd West Virginia in a class of 15 people dealing with ptsd. Four of my vietnam veteran friends commit suicide. A fit friend that i used to work with was having problems with the v. A. Lost it and came in and murdered a bunch of people there in 1981. About that i would never see another better and abused or mistreated. Veteran abused or mistreated. In prairieout here point, maryland, i saw veterans with broken bodies and broken minds being physically and verbally abused. I reported it to my republican congressman. He was able to validate what ive reported. He reported it to the secretary of Veterans Affairs under bush. They came down hard on those people abusing veterans. Ever since then as a whistleblower, ive been blackballed at four v. A. Facilities. Im a former d. C. Police officer. I can document everything i say. Ive gone through pure hell just to call out misconduct of professional people. I just wish i could find someone in my government where people can receive me with respect and compassion without dealing with this kind of stuff. Ive made six Police Report against me and each time they tell me it is some kind of retaliation. This is awful. Its awful to be of war veteran and received this kind of professional misconduct. Guest i really appreciate the phone call. I want to begin by thanking you both for your service and your courage calling. This is obviously an incredibly difficult issue and i want to see if we can make it right. I will call you today and i will see what we can do in our office to assist you. The point that you bring up about Vietnam Veterans and their need to have guaranteed access to quality Mental Health here consistently with the continuity and care necessary to ensure great outcomes, that is not happening today. I cited this awful number of 20 veterans taking their lives. You talked about friends lost to suicide. It is not the young Service Members coming from iraq and afghanistan today by and large taking their own lives. It is the vietnam era of veterans and weve got to take that seriously. A professor at harvard has written extensively about this and points out that the peak year for demands on the v. A. For world war i veterans was 1969. We are not ramped up and prepared for the peak year for veteranstha that are facing trauma that they have successfully bottled up and kept inside for 40 or 50 years. Now add a significant crossroads at their lives, the v. A. Does not have the capacity to see them. Tot wh is why we need ensure that you and others get the treatment you deserve and earn and need. We will focus on this. On the accountability part and whistleblower part, youre absolutely right. I want to find out what happened in your personal case. I will follow up and see if we can be helpful. Generally speaking, we do need a culture of accountability that excellence andrioritizes puts a premium on responsible to ensure worldclass outcomes for a veterans. Host lets go to connecticut where linda is waiting on the line for democrats. Caller good morning. On behalf of my father, i negotiated through the v. A. Let me explain to you a particular problem with access. Close to did not live a va hospital. Consequently he had a hard emergency. This was in florida and he had to go to a local hospital with the intake number authorized from the v. A. To receive care. As soon as he was stabilized, they took him to the Veterans Hospital in palm beach. This tookpital me months to find out sued him and attacked his credit. It is what happens with the delinquent hospital bill. It took me months. I actually went to florida and went to the local va to get the information i needed. I contacted the local hospital, finally got an administrator, and the reason why they went through the medicare and then sued him for the balance was because they said it takes too long for the v. A. To pay them. Now of course this was wrong. I did wind up clearing my fathers credit. There is no way in elderly my father was a korean vet could negotiate his way through this and make the paper work between private and public. Guest i want to thank your father for his service and to you for bringing this issue to our attention. You are underscoring a point that i think has been made by other colors today, which is the v. A. System is not working as promised to has veterans like your father, who put their lives on the line for this country and did everything they were asked to do. They basically underwrote the success of this country in the 20 century. And now this country through the v. A. Has failed them. I do think that we are moving in the right direction. I do think our current secretary bob mcdonald is excellent and they are making the reforms necessary so that you and your father do not have to negotiate the red tape and the bureaucracy to find out who needs to pay for your father to receive his care. They have proposed a streamlining of all community care. Its into one program that is seamless and coordinated out of the va and is not your problem to deal with in terms of navigating that. It is moving in the right direction, but it should not have been this hard. One of the things we have to take seriously in this country is that if we are willing to go to war in korea and vietnam and iraq and afghanistan and syria, those wars have been expensive. We have to commit the public funds necessary to take care of those Service Members, not just the day they step foot on american soil but 2050 years afterwards when they need our help the most. Clearly we have not done that. You will hearing from us in the next couple months through a bill that would prefund these commitments at the same time that we fund these wars, so we do not leave folks like your dad, who is an american hero, left to figure out these bureaucracies on their own. Host you mentioned secretary of mcdonald and he was on this program last week. You can go back and watch the segment on cspan. Org. He talked about what he needs from congress to better serve veterans. I want to play you a bit of what he had to say. [video clip] we have a board of directors and the board of directors is called congress. In the 2017 budget, we get congress 100 pieces of legislation we needed. They are simple things. They are things both sides of the aisle agree on. We just have we need to get them to pass it. Budget. Them to pass a we dont have a budget yet and the fiscal year is running up. We have leases remain from fiscal year 2015 that we need authorized. We have simple laws, things like an appeals backlog. We have over 500,000 appeals waiting to be adjudicated. That is way too many. It takes too long. Rather than from more people in more money at it, we brought Veterans Service organizations, congressional staffs, and others together to devise a new law. We created a new law and its ready to go. Inhad hearings about this the house and senate and recently had to get it passed. To the senates credit, our committee has put together an omnibus bill called Veterans First act. It went out of our committee unanimously. Both sides of the aisle held a press conference to praise each other for bringing it out. We cannot get it to the floor to get voted on. It is time to not have veterans be political pawns. It is time for veterans and for us rather than just saying thank you for our service, lets actually do something that allows us to transform the v. A. And look back on 2016 is the year that we really turned the corner for veterans. Guest i have enormous respect for bob mcdonald. I think he and his team are doing a terrific job. For my expense with the veterans i represent in el having the administration blame congress or congress blame the administration. Well have our part to do. If im unable to get something through my committee im going to find a way to get it done in el paso without congressional help. In their pilotat program. There is much more the administration can do without additional congressional help. Congress can that do. His criticisms are well taken. Some of them are structural to the leadership that we have now in congress not passing a budget. Despite the fact that you are speaker of the house and former chair of the Budget Committee says something about the Majority Party right now. It is deeply disabling and almost crippling to much of what we need to do in the government including with the v. A. There is an appeals bill on the floor of the house this week. We are going to be voting on it. Thats a bipartisan bill. Of it written by a democrat of las vegas. Quick to pointo fingers and i would work harder all of us and i want to set the to find the harder Common Ground necessary to make sure we are taking care of veterans. Waiting in south carolina. Republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I would like to say that mr. Miller from florida, if it werent for him i dont know where the committee would he. Committeel of the meetings that cspan has that has anything to do with the v. A. People up of the there are more worried about the v. A. Employees than they are the veterans. And i have seen things go on. Some people need to be fired on the spot. And they cannot he fired for any reason. Me. Dont patronize do something. Hank, the bill that is on the floor this week addresses the concerns that you have. As i said earlier there is a cultural problem within the v. A. When it comes to accountability and when it comes to outcomes and getting the job done and being responsible for it. I think we are in agreement in that point. I will give you an all of the terms of how slow that bureaucracy turns. In el paso we have been without a permanent director for our local v. A. For two years. Lapse in leadership makes it harder to hold those employees who work under that ensurer accountable to we are retaining the best talent and delivering the best outcomes for those veterans. I would like to see an increase in accountability. You are going to get that in part through the bill that is coming forward this week. Im the first to say and i have said throughout this program we are not where we want to be yet. Im deeply disappointed with the level of performance at the v. A. I am confident we cannot fire our way out of this problem. Well over half of the employees at the v. A. Are veterans themselves who work to ensure everything they can despite limited resources and problems within the administration and congress that the resources and authorities are there to do their jobs. And yet they push on and do their best. Much more needed from all of us. We are working on it. I want to thank you for your service and tell you that because of that we are inspired to work harder and not stop until we get this v. A. Fixed. A democrat from el paso, texas. Rmed servicemens member chris is waiting to check with you. Hes a democrat. Good morning. Caller how are you doing today . Know if he thinks that term limits in the congress and the senate would help with veterans benefits. Is a great question. Its not an obvious connection between term limits and the performance of the ba. I will bring one other issue in and that is Campaign Finance reform. Let me show you how they are connected. When it comes to term limits i think if there is no set horizon for your service in congress the big problems of the day can be tomorrow. Ay or this session, the next session or three down the line. A set number of years you can serve that ensures that more attention is paid to the Critical Issues before us and i think we will get that are outcomes. When it comes to Campaign Finance reform the v. A. Has become for aspiring members of congress who want to move quickly up through the leadership ranks. A backwater. It has historically not attracted the talent and ambition necessary to make the kind of critical changes that have to happen within the v. A. You cannot raise money for your political campaigns through the v. A. You can through the Armed Services committee. You can on energy and commerce. There are money invested interests on all of those committees and it speaks to the rush for members to join those committees because they can raise money for their own campaigns to distribute to others and move up the ranks of leadership. That is part of how corrosive our Current System of financing campaigns is. The direct results of that is the v. A. Where you cant raise a ton of money that is not in the headlines. It doesnt receive public focus as it should is left out and is not in an area of focus. Weight time scandal in phoenix, 10 years of gao and office of Inspector General reports on wait time manipulation at the v. A. Those were delivered to congress and congress did nothing until cnn and others lose the lid off these problems. Fix those problems. Yes they are connected. Host do you intend to limit yourself . Guest i do. Im not going to be here longer than four terms. Which is eight years for a house member. We expect the president to be able to do his or her job in no more than eight years. The mayor of El Paso Texas is limited to eight years. We want to ensure these are not lifelong careers. That it truly is public service. We show faith and confidence in our communities that they can produce somebody who is better than we are. , face,rent mind background, perspective on how the world works. And El Paso El Paso is going to send up someone even better than i am whos going to bring a different fresh perspective to this. We need more of that in congress. Waiting in maine on the independent line. Caller good morning. Prior to my retirement in 96 they had programs. The first one was Transition Assistance Program and it taught you how to go for job interviews and how to get your entitlements through the v. A. Detox ind program was which they had former veterans who are not friends of the v. A. Took your medical record and had to fill out your paperwork get in line with the v. A. I dont know if they do that anymore but it was very valuable and i have had no problems whatsoever with the v. A. Since i got out and they have been tremendous to me. Your phonek you for call and for your service. The v. A. And department of defense are doing a better and better job in the transition from service to civilian life. That means ensuring that your medical and Service Records follow you from active duty into civilian life into the v. A. And ensuring that the incredible skills that todays Service Members developed over the course of their time in one of our Service Branches translates into a readable resume that an employer can look at understand and make a positive hiring decision from. We also have work to do to ensure that young woman or man who has been driving a truck on dangerous roads through of thestan part Logistical Team that ensures we are supporting our service they come back to the United States they dont have to spend a bunch of money at a for Profit Institution to earn the right to get a commercial drivers license here in the United States. We need to make sure that those quickly and effectively translate into jobs. Thats critical to those veterans success in the civilian world. Thanks for raising the point. Host mike is in ohio. Democrat. Go ahead. Guest good morning. Mr. Orourke. Long ago president obama sent over a 20 billion veterans package bill. 42 individuals in congress refused to sign this until they got their tax exemptions. Thismccain was outraged by since he was a veteran and he was treated pretty bad by the enemy. Could you tell me who these andle were and who led this was the leader and sent the letter to president obama . Guest thanks for the question. Ive got to be honest with you. I dont know who signed that letter, what was behind it. Whether it is our senate counterparts, the House Committee leadership when a comes to veterans issues, we are really starting to see some progress. Thingse had that from like the clay hunt suicide act that my friend tim walz was one of the main authors for that has successfully ensured that we innovate when it comes to preventing suicide. I think one of the great crises of our day within the v. A. Or that we give veterans a choice if they are on these interminable long wait time list the v. A. So they can go to dr. In the community and that we are funding repairs to our facilities and building new facilities. Communitybased Outpatient Clinics are going out. Congress is slowly doing its job after years of neglect. Years of taking there are off this problem that was so obvious to anyone dead when we send men and women toward their going to come back and need help and we should be prepared for that. Lets not make that same mistake again. Is the first time you have been on the show since Donald Trumps trick trip to mexico. I want to know how you think that impact of the immigration debate in this country. What a bizarre decision of the president of mexico to invite donald trump down there. Despite the photo opportunity he enjoyed in mexico city this is a person who has called mexican immigrants rapists and criminals and vowed to build a 50 foot wall to divide our countries and wants to start a trade war with our neighbor to the south and most important ally in the world. One of the examples i want to provide to those who believe hurtful hateful and absolutely untrue rhetoric is l theon test six and usmexico border. Today the community i represent is not just the safest cities along the border or the safest in texas. It is the safest in the United States and it has been for the last four or five years. The usmexicoof border is in fact safer than the average u. S. City. Apprehensions of Illegal Immigrants coming north in 2000 at the start of the bush presidency were 1. 6 million. Last year just a little over 300 thousand. We have record low northbound apprehension numbers and record high levels of spending on that border. The border has never been safer. Lets no longer use that an excuse to vilify mexican immigrants and not move forward with things like comprehensive immigration reform. Host beto orourke. Democrat from 10th texas. Texas. Up next we will take a look at recent seriesss on the military of tomorrow. Coming up in just a couple of minutes. This weekend on American History tv on cspan3. 6 00 p. M. Vening at eastern. In any war in any time weapons dictate tactics. You have probably heard the modernar was fought with weapons and antiquated tactics. That is not quite true. The civil war is actually an evolutionary war. And the menweapons who employed those weapons learned different methods to fight with. Author david powell talks about military theory, battle tactics and formations during the civil war. Historianilitary michael neighborly talks about the 1945 meeting of harry truman, Winston Churchill and josef stalin to negotiate the end of world war ii and the reconstruction of europe. Became awer in europe zero sum game. The way to solve this problem was to create a European Union so that they dont see events on the continent as a zerosum game. On sunday night at 8 00 eastern. Americanea that president s have always gotten the best Health Care Available in whatever year they lived. I want to tell you that this is a charming miss and problems began almost immediately with george washington. Myths surrounding president s and their health. Doctors have sometimes contributed to a president s death or save them from dying without public knowledge. Complete American History tv schedule go to cspan. Org. Washington journal continues. Host in this segment of the washington journal each week we take a look at the different magazine piece. At severale looking stories from the september october addition of Foreign Affairs. Its about tomorrows military. Rose editors gideon of Foreign Affairs. Understandrobably the threat we are facing today and tomorrow. You attempted to do that in one of your interviews that appears in the magazine with the former joint chiefs of staffs chairman. Explain what he thought the threats were today and what the threats will be tomorrow. We have a great interview with the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. One of the points he makes is he thinks the current environment is quite difficult and dangerous compared to many previous environments because of the multiplicity of different kinds of threat. Its not so much that today there is anyone overarching giant christ to do with crisis to deal with like the cold war. The proliferation of various different kinds of threats from ongoing tensions with russia and eastern europe, the stuff in china and the South China Sea. Isis. Transnational terrorism. Regional stability in east asia with north korea and so forth. All the different kinds of threats and the massive response responsibilities the u. S. Military has to accept as the guarantor of International Stability around the world make it a very complex and difficult environment to deal with. Not so much because we are about to be blown up tomorrow but because there are so many Different Things going on that you have to prepare for and monitor lots of Different Things simultaneously. For thoserepare threats as a new administration prepares to take over after these elections what are the right questions that administration should be asking to prepare . Think the most interesting thing for me that came out of the package which includes not just the interview with dempsey but articles by david portray is petraeus and michael hanlon. Articles on nuclear stuff. If you actually look at todays u. S. Military its extraordinary. The petraeus and ohanlon article is actually titled americas awesome military. It could even be better and there are problems at home. Our current military is in fantastic shape. It it is far and away the most dominant military force on the planet. We could basically go up against anybody and anything and beat them handily. To maintain that status over time requires constant monitoring, upkeep. Monetization and focus. And the biggest challenge we face is domestic. This is something you dont hear about in the campaign. The politics of defense policy. The budget sequestration in which military spending has been it verytage is making difficult for the military to plan effectively for the longterm future challenges. Nothing is immediately wrong right now. If you want to prepare seriously you20 years down the road need to be able to think in terms of longterm budget. Have security and stability in the defense process. We dont have that in washington. Universal theme is we need to get past the political dysfunction in washington in order to prepare sensibly and carefully for the longterm future threat we are likely to face. How much is enough, tomorrows military. We are talking about that package of stories with gideon rose. Active and retired military can call in at 202 7488000. All others 202 7488001. To the question of how much is enough, can you talk about the debate surrounding one of those issues . Troop size. How big the military should be. We will show a chart of the size of the u. S. Act into the military totaling 1. 3 million of those on active duty. 326,000. The air force 310,000. Marine corps 184,000. What are the debates around the size of those units who address those threats of tomorrow . Guest its a great question. About there thinking size of the military you have to take into account a couple of Different Things. Things youe kinds of are going to be facing and what are the capabilities of the forces you have. Armed ships may be able to do the work of 100 less sophisticated less powerful ships of the past. Gross numbers from irritating or are not always easy to balance. The American Forces we have right now tend to be high tech. Extremelyto be capable and they can do far more soldier per soldier ship for ship sailor for sailor marine for marine than they used to be able to do. You will have very few new astronomical cost. Each of those could do with several planes in the past did and could potentially take on. Its hard to compare apples and oranges over time. A sense among be the most serious military observers that the u. S. Army is wellpositioned for its current responsibilities. Doesnt need to grow significantly or dramatically. If you had to ask you to engage in more tasks than you currently have envisioned then you would need to increase it. With regard to the navy there seems to be a sense that the navy should grow somewhat. That we should have a few more ships. With regard to the air force there definitely are some big ticket planes you want to buy and some new things you want to do. What i hear from the military is what we want is budgetary certainty or some sort of stability. Of our what the envelope budget is going to be over a significant period of time and within that if you give me flexibility than we can actually afford more than we need. We are in great shape. We are incredibly powerful. Not only do we not know what the budget is going to be at any but also congress interferes with the militarys flexibility. There seems to be no question that you want to close more basins. Politically that is very difficult because the congress doesnt want base closing done. There are weapons programs that are clearly obsolete or inefficient that the Defense Department would love to shut down. That the administration would like to shut down more generally. Keeps alivegress together with the Defense Industry because it makes sense for their constituents and business. The problem isnt so much the absolute size of things as the flexibility the Defense Department should have to adjust the budget to deal with real threats rather than waste money on things that are politically but noto people at home necessarily effective in meeting Americas National security challenges down the road. Is up first on the line for members of the military. Caller im retired from the military. Several years in the United States army retired as a major. Some of the problems that we have like in the South China Sea and the korean pollutants will a we helped create ourselves. During world war ii we were aligned with stalin. Nazi germany wanted to destroy communism. If we didnt align ourselves with stalin and supplies nazi germany would have succeeded. We didnt want to take on the german army because it was too good. Concerning the South China Sea, china is flexing its military muscle there. The reason china is communist is we didnt push forward along beyond the 38th parallel. The Truman Administration stopped it. They fired doug was macarthur. If they had listened to Douglas Macarthur there wouldnt be any communism in asia. The north korean regime is a stalinist regime. Host whats the question . Is how are question we going to handle these issues down the line . Things by these stupid Foreign Policy. Host gideon rose. Any thoughts . Guest you shoot the wolf closest to the shed first. We allied with the soviet union during world war ii not because we loved communism or the soviet union or stalin but because american officials together with others in the west decided that taylor and nazism and the access were a greater threat at that time. What do you do now that you have beat of the nazis . How do you deal with the communists and the soviet union . The question has been ever since then having left the soviet union strong and in control of a large portion of the world how do you deal with that threat over time . We did that through a policy of containment which tried to keep the soviet union at a until it fell on its own weight. Fighting only necessary wars on the periphery. That actually ultimately worked. There is no more soviet union and russia is a nasty Regional Power but its authoritarian and not the global ideological military challenge its predecessor state was. There. Ed it did take a long time. Have you should deal with the remnants of those things. I dont think its fair to say tot if we had only listened macarthur it wouldnt have been a problem. Its when he tried to go north of the parallel and gave us the last couple of years of the korean war. The Truman Administration fired macarthur because he was in the and evene and reckless suggested potentially using Nuclear Weapons in korea. The challenge of how you deal with a country such as korea and how you deal with the country such as china or russia today is an interesting one because you dont want to have to go to war. You want to try and hand them in with the same kind of containment that worked against the soviet union. You dont want to concede things to them. Do you need to actually have some kind of conflict to keep them in check . Of carefulkind balance we are trying to run in a place like the South China Sea which is a great example or even north korea. What you are trying to do is balance two different goals. Keeping our enemies in check and protect our allies and the freetrade system of Global Commerce that goes on the air while avoiding getting into a hot war with china or north korea. You dont want to be too provocative because you dont want to get into a war. Tooalso dont want to be weak and accommodating so they actually expand and everybody feels they can rely on us. Its the balance between keeping them in check and showing the flag enough to know they can push out further while not getting into a giant conflict. Thats the kind of challenge the Defense Department deals with. I ask Marty Dempsey about the South China Sea we have these things called freedom of navigation operations. The chinese are trying to assert themselves in the South China Sea and the United States doesnt want to allow them to stake a claim or expand their sphere of influence beyond what is necessary. How do you do that without provoking a war. Host several callers want to chat with you. Darrell in idaho is next. Go ahead. Be too you dont want to provocative. When are we going to stop being provocative and just let other people be alone . We have knocked over some 50 countries since world war ii. Of it. Lly im tired we are being the worlds bully. The only reason we have any problems with anybody is because we are a bully. Host i might point you to ending endless war. One of the stories in this edition. I will let gideon rose tell you about it. Guest one of the things we do that im really proud of it is we try to give our readers a full range of serious opinions by serious people so they can make up their own minds. You might say the interview with Marty Dempsey and the piece by a kind tray us represent of centrist conventional establishment take on the current u. S. Military challenges and defense policy, we flank those with pieces on either side. One by the chair of the house Armed Service committee which argues raymore aggressive and expensive defense policy. Expert whoa military believes the problem is we are too aggressive and we need to avoid conflict. The caller is correct that we should avoid unnecessary wars and not push our way into conflict or make stupid threats or commitments we dont want to follow up. The challenge is defining in practice what those are. That becomes a casebycase question that different people can agree on. It is easier to discuss with specifics. Most military experts right now think that we dont want to concede too much and walk away from the world because u. S. Force and power and the threat of u. S. Force help bolster a generally stable Peaceful World system. We have the largest prolonged stretch of great power peace in modern history that is almost entirely due to the balance of Nuclear Weapons which have made a great power war very unlikely but also u. S. Power which basically says you cannot overthrow the system. Same time we dont want to do a unnecessary things like vietnam. How do you reassure the world that you are keeping things stable and let bad guys know they cant mess with you without unnecessary getting involved where you shouldnt and picking a fight where its not necessary . Thats the real challenge. Retired members of the military waiting to talk to you. Curtis in mississippi. Go ahead. Caller good morning. My problem is its like youre contradicting yourself. You are saying one thing but im hearing another. The military is this and that but eventually the way congress is running things and everything we are to have to have more soldiers. In the navy, army, everywhere. Congress just come and make a decision on what they want to do . Military 20 the some years. I refuse to let my children go. Stay in school. Get a great education. , its not like we dont love the country. How we areerstand going to get into conflict after. Onflict we are the bully. Larry is in maryland on the same line. Go ahead. I have more of a call for the last representative. Im a veteran from the vietnam war era and i would like to say thank god for the v. A. It definitely covers millions of veterans. Its a hard thing to do and if it wasnt for the v. A. I would not have coverage. I would rather have Hillary Clinton sick than donald trump at any time. Gideon rose. I will let you respond. I think the real question is in terms of size of the army, what sort of wars do you think you will be fighting and how are you planning to fight them and over what time frame . In iraq we had one kind of force to fight the initial invasion. When we realized we needed to engage in a Counterinsurgency Program we had to rearmor and adopt a somewhat different approach over a much longer time frame. Which was something that was very difficult for the military to do and took a lot of internal battle because its not necessarily what we had been planning to do. A longterm military occupation and counterinsurgency struggle. Eventually we got tired of it and walked away. The same thing is basically happening in afghanistan. The question about defense policy is about National Security policy. What type of wars do you want to fight. If you dont want to get involved in ongoing land counterinsurgency struggles on the eurasian art and you dont need as large an army if what you are going to do is a standoff or short war kind of cant that. Bob gates famously said anyone that wants to get involved in more land wars in asia and the middle east is crazy. Sometimes you cant take your challenges. Dempsey what he thought of the comments in the interview. He said there are situations in which i want want to have to go to war in the middle east. So you want to keep your options open. For defense policy is how do you best allocate your resources in peacetime to prepare for the full range of threats you might have to face at some point down the road. Theres no perfect answer. You are balancing Different Things. One other quote about why congress cant come together and make some decisions. The next president is going to be faced with the prospect of realigning our National Security andrests with our resources getting some certainty into the budget process so that we can actually plan. Marty. I love he is a very straightforward guy. The fact is that when you talk about defense policy with people large youitary by and get something that is professionally focused on actual challenges. When it goes into the washington political meatgrinder gets not only into partisan battles but also frankly domestic political individual affect senators and congressmen and individual defense contractor that makend lobbyists it hard for the military to do whats best and for the pentagon to do whats best for american National Security. The military would do things a bit differently in congress than the congress will it and lets hope things change in the next congress. Host george is waiting. Good morning. I am of the east indian european origin. I came here as a political refugee from eastern europe. 97 years ago. What i see this gentleman like many others, this gentleman whose talking about brainwashing American People. Why do you say that . Looks to me like america is so much obsessed with military. They are talking about nazi germany, soviet union. But we see the same thing here. This obsession is instigated by a lot of politicians, a lot of people like this gentleman who is talking about what america should invent another conflict. Let me give gideon rose a chance to explain what Foreign Affairs is and his background. Guest Foreign Affairs is a magazine that is devoted to understanding whats going on in the world and how the United States and others should respond to that. We publish a whole range of articles. We are nonpartisan. Devoted to being an arena for serious discussion about what the challenges are based in the world and how they should be dealt with. We publish a whole range of views. We have some saying you need a smaller military during fewer things and a bigger military doing more things. I think the mainstream view of much of the serious defense policy establishment is what you want is a strong powerful military that is wellsuited to doing what is necessary but that you only deploy when its absolutely necessary and you dont want to be reckless about using it. There is contradiction between having a strong effective military but keeping it in check until you actually have to deploy it. I think thats what probably makes the most sense. Want to get into unnecessary wars. You dont want to pick fights. To for your own protection or that of the International System more generally you want to be able to achieve your goals. We have a line for active and retired members of the military. On the line from toledo, washington. Good morning. Caller good morning and thanks for what you do with the magazine. I have read it consistently for a number of years. Chief whoired master twice served as a command master chief. Was briefing all the security stuff for the admiral just a kid. I stepped into my first chief position just before i turned 20 as a third class and made chief before 21 years of age against the system. Dontost people understand is the connection between diplomacy which prevents wars. Trade deals do the same. And our military. The most important one is the because you are to provide a navy. Youre supposed to raise and support armies having a country in which to build as necessary. Thathe navy cannot make trip across the pond in about 13 days still. We just cant make more speed through the water. We used to rotate ships and crews. The ship would go with its crew and spend six or eight months. No more than seven usually and having a workweek of about 93 hours. 77 hours not unusually. Optimum considering there is nobody off on emergency leave or sick. Optimum at 90 manning. Running through the numbers. Whats your question for gideon rose . Im listening to both sides. We have so many experts who have probably never served. Themilitary is to backup diplomatic efforts so well that no fool is going to come against us. Guest i think thats a great point. Thank you and all the other veterans for your service. I think you are absolutely right about the interconnection between force and policy and trade. Tpphe discussions over which has been discussed in the campaign primarily as a trade issue. Deep diplomatic and even security implications because its crucial to locking together and integrating our Alliance System in the pacific which would help make more or less likely. It definitely has security implications as well. In terms of deployment and rotation the caller is absolutely correct. There are times in the last decade and a half when we were really stressing the militarys own much by tasking it to do too without increasing size or giving it the resources necessary that we were stressing the personnel. Not coming close to a broken near the antechamber to a broken force. I think that is pulled back now from my understanding. Rotations are sustainable. The military personnel and their families are acceptable, find the current structure acceptable compared to several years ago. You had a significantly increased operational tempo and you were back to the old days of stressing the force too much you would need to make adjustments. Is can youestion manage your military effectively both forwardlooking and in realtime to meet the challenges meet withouto overly stressing or destroying the force and the people who do it. The kind of thing you want your noncommissioned officers to be fully on board with because they are the heart of the army and the service. Take calls from the line for nonmilitary. Dennis is up first in fairfax, virginia. The u. S. Military and the corporations that supply the u. S. Military have a symbiotic that in order to maintain profit which is critical for their existence because they count on each other is something that could the adjusted in a way where research and development and technology can be maintained over other militaries while at the same transition a quick to any eventualities that might come up in a war setting. A lot of the corporations can transition from a military blow it all up to a civilian situation perhaps where advancing the infrastructure for civilian aeronautics where we can transfer from cars to adjustments and these corporations can work on that for individuals to advance our society in a more futuristic way. Potomac, maryland. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask you when you support thew we good guys not the bad guys, who do we think are bad guys . We have been supporting what we call good guys from iraq all the way to turkey right now. And the amount of killing thats going on. And then we send our young men to be killed for the. Are a Foreign Affairs editor. We should understand that before we send our young men to these wars. The poor young soldiers think they are being so patriotic and killing themselves on situations that we dont even understand. We did that in iraq and turkey. Who are the bad guys . I think the Defense Industrial base issue. This is the question of the industrial capacity to support your military and your war effort. May be the single least sexy issue on the entire docket. But its actually really important. That thee things serious military observers are worried about Going Forward is this question of lets say you had a prolonged conflict or a major war that you didnt really expect down the road. Could you generate the kind of military related production that you needed to meet your needs. You want to have the ability not just to be able to produce weapons and raise your forces and supply and equip them now. You want the ability to scale up if you need to overtime. Themuestion about making ivilian efforts and so forth think that kind of flexibility is ideal. We dont really right now have a lot of effort making sure that we have the Defense Industrial needed to scale up over time. It goes back at least partly to the lack of planning. If we knew what we were going to need over a long printer of time thecould make sure shipments and infrastructure were going to be there. Crazy budgeting makes it very hard to keep the companies in business and forwardlooking enough to be able to supply your needs down the road. This goes back to the dempsey interview about who are the bad guys. Guest the second question is a great one. Just because there are some gray areas in the middle in which you have people who are not particularly good but you still doesntally with them mean there isnt a pro and spectrum in which there are clearly good guys in the world. In the United States we are the leading power that is essentially keeping the advanced industrial democracies safe and providing stability for international commerce. Keeping war at a. The challenge is how do you Keep Companies such as china, russia, iran and other nefarious actors in check. How do you protect the innocent and the relatively weak but good countries such as the democracies in europe or east asia. Trapped intoting unnecessary wars. Fact dontey in necessarily achieve your goals and may not even bring you into the connection with the people you want to be positively allied with. The caller talked about wars in the middle east in recent years. There is no question there are very messy situations. There are very few good guys in syria at all. There are lots of different kinds of bad guys. Reasons the the administration has not wanted to get involved in syria. Isis is bad. Say powerfulmost of the players are bad. You get into a very careful difficult range of what do you do in that situation. Largerking about the situation of trying to maintain such thate policies the major sectors of the world that are relatively peaceful, productive, liberal and stable stay that way and dont succumb to attacks by people who want to use force to change things in their favor. About five minutes left before the house is scheduled to come in. Victor is waiting period good morning. Good morning. Defenseo talk about the budgets in europe. Budget for defense relative to gdp. I was wondering how that might continue. This is an issue that donald trump has made a big deal about. He has talked about how our allies are sometimes under the contributions they pledged to make and has implied this is giving us a raw deal and we should rethink our Alliance Commitments to nato and so forth unless our allies pay out more. There are real issues about getting major western European Countries to live up to their commitments to pay for the entireefense approach of thinking of this as a zerosum game and looking at it in the mercenary way of we will only do this if we get paid back for it is not the right way to look at these questions. A stable europe. We benefit from a peaceful japan and a career that is able to trade and live in peace with the world. We help supply the defense needs of our major allies not as a butr or inactive altruism as an act of enlightened self interest. One of the things we learned after world war ii was that if andplay Foreign Policy National Security policy as an individual sport bad things can happen. Can collapse. Omy aggressors can rise with nobody challenging them. Then you are really scrambling. We decided to create a system in which we played Foreign Policy and International Relations as a team sport. Alliances with japan and south korea and other key players in asia. One of the things that has helped us do is build an Alliance Structure that is incredibly dominant. When you think of things as only the United States versus china or russia that the long wrong way to look at it. Its the United States and its powerful allies versus china and russia who have almost no allies. Life with allies can be a pain. But we benefit so dramatically from the Alliance Structure that that we benefit from a secure stable europe. We benefit from a secure stable east asia. Do fact that other countries and they should chip in to help pay for that is true. It would be a gross dereliction of duty for the United States to abandon its commitment to its overs in a fit of pique them not contributing as much as we would like them to to defray the costs of their own defense. Who are you expecting to interview next for Foreign Affairs . Whats the next topic you plan to cover in this sort of way . Guest thats a great question. We are putting that November December issue of the magazine to bed. The lead packages on the populist revival around the world. We have a great interview with the French National front leader. We also have a great interview with secretary of state john with a piece by secretary of defense ash carter. February the lead package is going to be the future of the world liberal order. Stay tuned. Of course on our website we have pieces every day. We publish several much online only. We will leave it there because congress is getting ready to gavel in for the day. Thank you for your time this morning on the washington journal. That will do it for todays program. We will now take you live to the house floor for morning our speeches. Legislative work starts at noon eastern today. Some democrats plan to use their time today to focus on gun violence and push for a vote on legislation. We expect to hear that from them throughout the day and we will cover it on cspan. Now live to the house floor here on cspan. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ]