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Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150420

or join the conversation on facebook.com/c-span. send us an e-mail, journal@c-span.org. we will get your thoughts in a minute. joining us on the phone is sarah mimms, staff correspondent at "national journal." let's begin with what is happening on the floor in the house and senate. guest: sure. the senate particularly is really interesting. they are coming in in very much the same position they were last week. they still have a human trafficking bill holding them up. they still need to confirm loretta lynch. they are still looking at the iran nuclear deal. mitch mcconnell indicated he thinks they are making progress on the human trafficking deal. once that gets done, that is going to be the beginning of dominoes that will allow loretta lynch and iran to get done. all of that this week. host: serve the house is looking at cyber security legislation that they will vote on. off the floor house and senate negotiators are meeting to try to iron out the differences on the 2016 budget. what are they looking at right now? how long is the process likely to take? guest: that is a good question. at this point they have already missed the april 15 deadline. the budget document, it is nonbinding. it is more of a series of recommendations and a chance for the republican party now that it's sort of owns both chambers to lay out our fiscal position, what our party believes our country should be doing and the direction we should be having in. -- heading in. there is not a serious heart deadline anymore. the house budget and senate budget are really not that different. one of the big arguments we are seeing now is what they are going to end up dealing with reconciliation. we saw the senate decided to use that for the affordable care act. the house left that open ended and gave him out of committee's jurisdiction there. we will see who prevails. host: republicans in the senate want to use the budget to deal with obamacare, the reconciliation process, to try to repeal it. republicans in the house, there are different camps? guest: right. the house is trying to repeal obamacare dozens of times. the feeling we have heard from folks in the house is we have tried this, the president is still in office and he is just going to veto that legislation. maybe we should try to use this reconciliation process for something that sends a stronger message than we have tried. there has been talk about using it for tax reform, a variety of other ideas. for the senate republicans who pushed this in the first place they are feeling this is our number one priority. yes, it is probably going to be vetoed. so is anything else, so let's send the strongest message possible. host: on the iran nuclear deal, the senate foreign relations committee last week approving the legislation that would allow congress to review any deal. you said that the senate needs to deal with the trafficking bill before it can move onto other bills. where does it stand the iran nuclear legislation in the senate? are democrats the full senate, are they on board? guest: it very much looks that way. senator chuck schumer who is going to be taking over for harry reid, he is a supporter of the bill and a cosponsor. a number of our democrats are supportive. this looks like something that is going to pass easily this week. then the big question becomes can congress pass any legislation, either approving or disapproving of the deal. this delegates than the opportunity to do that. it will give them 30 days to make a decision about how they feel about this deal once it is finalized. if they do nothing, which many senators joke that is what we are best that, then the deal will be deemed approved by congress. host: also in the papers are stories about trade. where does the vote on fast-track stand? guest: fast-track vote is fascinating. this is another situation where you have democrats, the vast majority come on one side of the issue. then you have the white house and democrats like ron wyden, who helped write the bill, on the other side. the bill was announced at the end of last week. a lot of members spent the week looking it over. it seems like there is a lot of democratic opposition to this bill so it will be interesting to see if republicans can cobble together a coalition big enough to send this to president obama's desk -- he appears interested in signing it. host: could that get a vote this week? guest: tpa looks unlikely this week in the senate. the house has a big cyber security week planned. that might have to wait until next week with so much on the calendar. host: sarah mimms with "national journal," thank you. we appreciate it. guest: thank you. host: some of the stories we want you to weigh in on in open phones. sydney is in louisiana an independent. good morning. caller: yesterday, you all had a man from csr. he was -- host: we are listening from c fr. max. caller: he was asked a question about the attack on the uss liberty, the killing of our sailors and wounding of our sailors and the threat of court martial if they talked about israel bombing the ship. he would not answer the question. he turned and started calling the man anti-semitic and he was berating him and talking like he was out of his mind bringing the subject up. i am getting tired of hearing these people use the anti-semit ic religions so they don't have to answer questions. host: ok. south carolina, democratic caller. caller: i would like to talk about the senate democratic minority leader. they decided not to go with seniority, it would have been dick durbin. they are going to choose chuck schumer. i do not understand why. it kind of looks like hillary clinton is going to be the presidential nomination. she's and new yorker, a northeastern person. i believe sheridan brown from ohio the rust belt kind of guy he's more of a man of the people. senator schumer likes the camera too much. if the president, possibly hillary, is already from the area of the country, i do not believe we should have chuck schumer in. since they are not going by seniority, i would like to see more discussion on who is going to assume harry reid's role. host: don a democrat in south carolina. gary, sterling, virginia republican. hi gary. caller: good morning. first i would like to say i heard something on the kojo nn amdi show. a young college student said he is getting conflict fatigue. i thought that was such an appropriate statement. the other thing i would like to say about general eric shinseki, if he had known that those people were fudging the appointment times, i am sure they would have key hold them. he's a very serious man. the other thing i would like to say is about the 22 soldiers a day that kill themselves. they do that because they become disillusioned. they lose hope that our government will do the logical thing. take our infrastructure -- politicians, corporations and even unions have been complicit in giving us an inefficient, expensive product. logically we should be using satellite computer technology. until we do that, we will be paying more in taxes and getting less for it. the responsibility of government is to do the right thing. we are going to be deadlocked and gridlock. call congress and the white house, tell them to use satellite computer technology. host: wants to talk about in open phones. one topic is the nomination of loretta lynch. yesterday on "meet the press mike lee, a republican of utah talked about the confirmation of loretta lynch. here's what he had to say. [video clip] rep. lee: there are a lot of concerns that focus on what president obama did with immigration in november. the question in front of the senate judiciary committee she refused to technology that there are limits to prosecutorial discretion that must be taken into account when you have a president effectively undoing a huge swath of federal law. >> that she have your vote? vote against her, give her a vote. rep. lee: i am certain she is going to get a vote. >> do you think six month is reasonable? has this been a little ridiculous?rep. lee: it is ridiculous that the president rewrote the immigration code and has not provided a full legal explanation of what empowers him to do this. and you have someone who has been nominated to fill the highest legal role and his administration and that person does not come forward with an adequate explanation of why the president was allowed to do this -- >> the courts are reviewing this, it is moot with her. rep. lee: congress has a responsibility to review those. >> so you think there should be about -- a vote now? rep lee: within the next few weeks. host: mike lee on "meet the press." tied to that is the human trafficking bill stalled in the senate. we learn from sarah mimms that the senate will try in on that legislation, as well as other bills, this week. bernhard in st. petersburg florida, democratic caller. you are up next. caller: there was a gentleman who called about a guest yesterday, max boot. i agree. they were trying to get him they were asking questions. i would hope that c-span asks citizens not to berate your guests, they do not berate those who call in. he was making nasty comments about those who called in just because they ask questions. those who called in, they take the time to wait on the phone. i would like for c-span to let those who you invite on to show not to throw out negative stations full's -- negative statements. if you do not want to answer, don't answer. host: a republican in texas. you are on the air. caller: i'm a first time caller. a couple comments. he's president. i'm a proud christian. i believe in the bible and i believe in jesus. he should not be putting down our faith ok? he has not did nothing for the veterans. he's about to cut 20% pay for retirees. when is the country going to wake up and figure the president ain't doing nothing for the veterans and all? host: ok. david in texas, democrat, what is on your mind? caller: i disagree with that fellow about the president not helping the veterans. penn and his wife have supported -- him and his wife have supported the veterans as much as any president i have seen. i disagree. the other point is then putting this obamacare into this budget and disrupting the budget. it is a disgrace that the republican side keeps throwing this into the budget as a hostage thing. the american people need to start saying something. they're asking, they have been asked several times what are you going to replace it with? none of them have ever said we are going to replace it with anything. i think they need to stop doing what they are doing and start working with the american people and the president. he has only got so many years to go. if they keep going and going against the president on everything he does in washington -- host: ok. republicans have talked about what they would replace the so-called obamacare law with. they have had some proposals out there. perhaps not as comprehensive as the law itself but there has been debate about thatl continue to call in about health care issues. we are going to be taking up next a conversation about the budget negotiations. we will talk about what republicans want to do with the health care law, as well as plans for reconciliation when it comes to tax reform or other efforts. in the news is the iran nuclear deal. here is the world section of "the washington post." an associated press story. "iran says no military inspectors." "international nuclear inspectors will be barred from all there any military sites under any deal with world powers. the guard's deputy leader told television. allowing foreign inspection to military sites is tantamount to selling out. talks between iran and the six nation group are to resume wednesday in vienna." "the financial times" taking a look at the iran nuclear negotiations. the headline "dubai hoping to the bridgehead for iran deals." businesses are eyeing iran, seeing the prospects of an end to sanctions. ready to prepare for a gold rush. next a story about u.s. companies eyeing business relations with iran. "senior u.s. business delegations from aviation companies to oil firms and food conglomerates are rumored to have been discreetly traveling to iran or holding meetings with iranian businessman in regional or european countries and presidential for the day that businesses with one of the world's most untapped market is authorized." that is in "financial times." ben cardin, who took over as the top democrat on the senate foreign relations committee, he was on cnn's "state of the union" yesterday for stop what he had to say about the bipartisan legislation that passed last week that would allow congress to review a nuclear deal. [video clip] senator cardin: america is stronger today as a result of the vote. we are on path to have more unity between congress and the white house. the president is in a stronger position to deliver the type of diplomatic solution that prevents iran from becoming a nuclear weapon state. that is our objective, it is very simple. iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. this. week we are on a stronger position we have bipartisan support for how congress should oversight that agreement and the administration is an agreement. it is not unusual to have any administration to disagree as to what role congress should play in any work but i think we have worked out the right way for a thoughtful review by congress to look at sanctions since we imposed the sanctions, as to how they will be handled. moderator: one of the difficulties covering the nuclear agreement is it seems like a tale of two agreements. the iranians talk about an agreement.com, u.s. officials talk about another one here. they seem to be at loggerheads. another issue senator corked r talked about, how sanctions is done for stop the president did not get a straight answer. he seems to be allowing for wiggle room. will the senate reject a deal that gives immediate sanctions relief as opposed to phase in relief on the sanctions that congress passed in recent years with regards to iran's nuclear program? senator cardin: bob corker and i have worked to get the legislation that is moving through congress to the president. it is not a vote on the merits of an agreement. we do not know what is in the agreement until we see it in june. what is been agreed to on april 2 was a framework. we need to see whether we accomplished our purpose -- to have ample time before iran could break out to a nuclear weapon to have full inspection so if we can find out if they are cheating and take effective action to prevent iran from becoming a nuclear weapon state. if that can be achieved, we have accomplished a great deal in keeping iran from becoming a nuclear weapon state. host: maryland democrat senator ben cardin, top democrat on the senate foreign relations committee. he was asked if the legislation undermines the president. you heard him say no, he thinks it strengthens the president's hand. "the new york times" opinion pages, a piece by iran's foreign minister. he writes, "to seal the anticipated deal, more political will is required. the iranian people have showed their resolve by choosing to engage with dignity. time for the u.s. to make the choice between cooperation and confrontation. between negotiation and grandstanding. and between agreement and coercion. with courageous leaders, we can and should put this manufactured crisis to rest and move on to more important work. the persian gulf region is an turmoil. it's not a question of governments rising and falling -- the social, cultural and religious fabrics of countries are being torn to shreds." he goes on to say, "riiran has been clear. good relations with iran's neighbors are our top priority. our rationale that the nuclear issue has been a symptom, not a cause. considering recent advances, it is time for iran and stakeholders to address the causes of tension in the region." the foreign minister wri tes about conflicts in the persian gulf. he says "there are multiple arenas in which the interest of iran and other countries intersect. if one were to begin discussion of the calamities the region faces, yemen would be a good place to start. iran has offered a practical approach to address this crisis. our plan calls for a cease-fire humanitarian assistance, and facilitation of intra-yemeni dialogue leading to before -- the formation of an inclusive government." read more of the message from iran written by its foreign minister in "the new york times." , joe in georgia, republican. good morning. it has been 30 days. caller: i'm so fired up about next week, seeing steve scully. i hope to see you and all the good people at c-span. i just want to say to a national television audience that i am so fired up about ted cruz. i would vote for him over anybody in history. he will be the greatest president in history. host: why not marco rubio? caller: i think markup is great. cruz is the debating champion and college. when he gets into a debate with hillary clinton, i bet my money on ted cruz. he's the greatest ever. i'm so fired up. looking forward to seeing you and having lunch with steve scully. host: all right. marie in minnesota, democrat. caller: as far as loretta lynch she should be confirmed and she should be confirmed now. the reason i am calling is because of the comment max boot made yesterday. this is unbelievable to me that i heard this. i know what i heard. he said president was the reason we have isis. absolutely a false statement. it is not because of the united states that we have isis. it is because of the problem over there in the middle east with their radicals and everything else. to blame the president was absolutely unbelievable. his comments that he made to the people calling in, calling one person crazy. absolutely unbelievable. i could not believe what was coming out of this man's mouth. i am appalled. that is all i can say. host: artie in new orleans, democrat. caller: one of the things that c-span can do when these folks are calling in, have a quick meter on the side that we call a fact check. people telling all these lies on the program especially some of your guests, get the facts checked. lies, lies, get them right out of your face. the second thing -- why can't iran have a nuclear weapon? what happens if pakistan gives them one? do we kill pakistan. how did israel get a nuclear weapon? same with south africa. i'm pretty sure the united states had something to do with both. the potential to use them is against people of color all of the world. we cannot survive as a nation with what we are living with him. we are going into a cold war eventually and i hope it does not ever happen, we will probably end up being a nuclear wasteland. those folks do not mind dying. host: on your first part about fact checking, as many of you know there is no time delay for this show. it is happening in real time. we want it that way so it has the feel of democracy at work. there is a town hall format between us and the callers and guests and callers. having a fact checker in real-time is not realistic. jack in minnesota, independent. caller: good morning. i have a suggestion, a couple of suggestions for the show. one is for a program. that you could run the program title should be "his criticism of israel equivalent to anti-semitism?" i'm also calling about max boot. he called one of the callers brainwashed. he called another caller anti-semitic. had a program "is criticism of israel equivalent to anti-semitism?" you need to expand your guest list. max boot is a long line, probably 10 or 12 people that are called neocons. a lot of people would call him arrogant and insolent and a warmonger. they got us into this criminal war in iraq. you need to have some people on the other side of this foreign policy issue of an aggressive united states policy. people like norm solomon, norm finkelstein, known chomsky, paul roberts, steve cohen most of those people are jewish. i would risk my life jumping into the mississippi river to save them is they were going down. if dick cheney were going down i would give a thumbs up -- host: all right. we will take the suggestions. if anybody else wants to send suggestions, e-mail us journal@c-span.org. or you can send us tweets with the hashtag #wjtopics. let's go to politics. even though we are months away, as many of you know, hillary clinton is launching her campaign. ted cruz, marco rubio. cnn out with a poll, the gop field stays tight. this is what they found. 17% of republicans and republican-leaning independents back jeb bush for the nomination. 12% support wisconsin governor scott walker. paul and rubio at 11% each, mike huckabee at 9%, cruz at 7%. ben carson and chris christie, both of whom placed second in a pull as recently as last fall, are well behind at 4% each. this was just taken last week,t he poll ended sunday. go to cnn.com to read more. hillary clinton, far above the rest of any possible contenders for the democratic nomination. remember the year on cbs's "face the nation -- rubio was on cbs's "face the nation." asked why he would be a better president than clinton. [video clip] marco rubio: it would be another four years of barack obama. on foreign policy, she was secretary of state during the first four years of the obama presidency. and has no meaningful achievement to show for it. whether it is the reset in russia or the response to benghazi or everything in between, the obama foreign policy during the clinton years especially as secretary of state, has been a disaster of america. our allies trust us less, enemies fear us less in america has less influence. host: marco rubio talking about why he would make a better president done hillary clinton on "state of the union." william in michigan, democratic caller. caller: how are you doing. scott walker, in wisconsin, they did the same thing in michigan and it devastated michigan. wisconsin is going to look just like detroit. all of these republicans that run for president, you listen to all of them, they ain't nothing but a rubber stamp for the rich. you look at chris christie, they talk about they want to raise the retirement age to 69. you cannot even work to 65. you need to be retired at 55. host: eight. jeff in virginia, independent caller. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. host: how are you doing? caller: a couple things i would like to mention. i would like to give kudos to michelle of georgia for standing up for the u.s. flag. why was china excluded from the tpp trade? host: why do you ask that? caller: they are the world's largest trader and probably ours as well. they do not have a seat at the table and the transpacific trade deal. host: do you think they should or not? caller: i do not like the deal at all. it is a backroom deal done political-style and not in the public. no one knows all the details of the deal. but being that china is the number one economy in that area, they need to be included. host: let me read a little bit on trade. "the washington times," "democrats undermine obama on trade issues." it says, "democrats are opposed to fast-track trade and the asian trade deal. the administration is negotiating. exposing doubts about president obama from within his ranks and a shrinking number of lawmakers willing to be persuaded by him. sander levin said mr. obama's negotiators botched the chance at a bipartisan deal, risking the fate of fast-track negotiating and the transpacific partnership that the president is rushing to finalize. mr. levin said he is firmly in the no camp and will lead the opposition. he told reporters that, saying even the number of potential boats on the table for mr. obama still to sway is tiny." that on the trade deal in "the washington times." "the washington post's" editorial board weighs in. they say it is republicans and the white house versus democrats on the deal. they write "it's true as critics say that the deal does not compel the administration to negotiate an end to alleged currency manipulation. the problem is that it is very difficult to establish precisely become much less in a legally binding agreement, correct valuations of major currencies or the precise intent behind any particular policy that affects currency values. the worst election currency manipulator, china, is not even a party to tpp. it probably would not seek to join the treaty for years. the agreement is an important counterweight to chinese influence in the strategic east asian region. the foes of fast-track deserve to lose on the merits but they might be interested to know that they appear to be out step with public opinion. eight poll shows that 58% of americans if foreign trade as an opportunity for growth. only 33% see it as a threat to the economy from foreign imports." that on trade and lots of discussion about whether hillary clinton should come out with her position on trade. she has recently said she now wants to wait and see what will be in those details. the front page of "the boston herald," here's hill she will be there this week, starting with an appearance in new hampshire, one of the first primary states for the 2016 election. fort walton beach florida, a democrat. thanks go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have been following the rubio it would have been a great segue. why don't i see any of the metrics from that we used to measure the advancement of the country about the president? concerning the dow standard & poor's, gdp, unemployment and those things. you guys never shows that. host: what are you referring to? the reaction from the markets? caller: rithgght. those are the metrics that people judge the country's progress. we never show those. i would like to see something up there saying what it is today what it was when we started. i think it will open some eyes. i could give you those metrics but that would go against one of the principles that i have about people calling in unchallenged. if you could put it up, they will see it and have no question. if i give you the metrics over the phone people will say they are making that up. host: that is the point of the show to call with your opinion and other people can call in and challenge you and disagree or agree with your thoughts on public policy issues. speaking of marco rubio and jeb bush here's the press journal out of florida with the headline "sparks are going to fly." "rubio-bush alliance sours." in "miami herald," signs of strain between bush and rubio. the 2016 campaign might reshape the political friendship between south florida's best-known republicans. on 2016 politics. martin o'malley, former governor of maryland, was on cbs's "face the nation" yesterday. what he had to say about a potential bid for the presidency and the primary for democrats. [video clip] martin o'malley: i'm not sure why that is but i think it would be a poverty if there were not more than one person willing to compete for the presidential nomination of the democratic party. this is the way i think it is supposed to work -- if you have the executive experience, the ideas to serve our nation, you should offer your candidacy. if we do that, we can be the party that lead our country into the future. we will not do it unless we offer ideas and break with things like bad trade deals, the systematic deregulation of wall street that many democrats were complicit in, and helped get us into this mess. host: martin o'malley on "face the nation," potentially and other for 2016. talking about it would be a poverty if there was not somebody to challenge hillary clinton in the primary. the front page of "the washington post," a voter backlash over big money. hillary rodham clinton announced one of the top planks of her bid for the nomination will be reforming a dysfunctional campaign finance system. several of her gop rivals placed by voters have begun lodging down criticisms of how big money interests dominate politics. turning discussed with billionaire super pac -- turning discussed with billionaire super pac benefactors has become a goal for activists. "the new york times " a new book on hillary that will be released may 5. big news, according to rand paul. that will make voters questioned the candidacy of hillary rodham clinton. the untold story of how and why foreign governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich. a 186-page investigation of donations made to the clinton foundation by foreign entities. e-book asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the clinton foundation and mr. clinton received favors from mrs. clinton's state department and return. the piece says, "conservative super pac's plaintiffed seeds. the super pac has assembled a dossier on mr. schweizer. a full-court press to diminish the book." "clinton cash: how and why foreign governments make bill and hillary rich." also, in "the washington times," "clinton stands on a different platform." she now supports gay marriage. she told the huffington post that she supports drivers license for illegal immigrants. after a stumble in the last campaign. in the papers on 2016 politics for stop we are an open phones for another 20 minutes. mark in orlando, florida democrat. go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. several comments. first, on isis, there are reports i am reading that it was grown and directed by a former army officer under saddam hussein. who, when they dismissed the entire army and created enemies for the u.s., he has been working against us ever since but was recently killed. he is supposedly a very intelligent man who had a great logistics guy. number two, marco rubio. he's remembered famously for his haircuts. number three, jeb bush was the first republican to come up with plans to disenfranchise black voters. he used a purge list in 2000 out of texas to claim that all these voters were supposedly felons who should not be voting. black engineers would go i cannot have a license to practice from a felon. number four, a criticism of c-span -- i do not know about fact checking balance. you put the heritage economist who praised arnold laffer. i would have liked one person to say, arnold laffer, how is that working in kansas? that is my comment. host: on isis in the papers, "the wall street journal" with the headline, "islamic state sows chaos." a video claims killing in libya of christians from ethiopia. the latest from isis. charles in georgia, a democrat. go ahead. caller: how're you doing? host: doing well. caller: i just when ask -- i just want to ask. they waited so late to confirm, that do not make sense. they just want to hurt obama. anybody obama puts in there republicans do not want to do nothing about it. about the health care law, they are the same. my wife is using the health-care law, it saved her life. my wife got saved because of obamacare. about the minimum wage, they need to have a limit. two weeks where at $600 -- they cannot survive on the minimum wage. they are not thinking about the country. they are thinking about 2016. you need to worry about the country now. that is all i have got to say. host: hottie are in florida republican. -- javier in florida, republican. caller: democrats lie too. last month, a caller asked if illegal immigrants take jobs, she said no. does that mean they come to disneyland to visit mickey mouse? let's be real. republicans need to take advantage, they need to change the law. make border patrol federal employees. across the state lines like they did with the mafia, they need to make a federal law. we have americans that are serving 20 years because they were caught with one milligram of marijuana. it's a medicine. we have 100,000 americans in jail for 20 years because they got caught with one ounce of marijuana. i'd prefer to have illegal aliens in jail and americans free. thank you. host: all right. larry in new york, democrat. caller: good morning. i'm a retired teacher and a veteran. i retired this year. i'd like to point out to everyone that the country better get focused on doing something about the growing inequality between people in this country. if you do not, the threat is not isis. the threat is within our society. we've got to start taking care of each other. it is getting ridiculous, just ridiculous. both parties, i am labeled a democrat but i have not a 14 years, they no longer represent the working class. the working class does not exist anymore. host: is there -- caller: we've got to address the problem -- so what is got to figure out a way, how to get people employed with livable wages. they are not talking about it. the american people, i am not going to yell at the republicans anymore. the american people know these people in -- vote these people in. i don't think it is going to work. host: tommy in massachusetts, independent caller. caller: hi. i just want to say to c-span you are the greatest. the republican leader summit this weekend was fantastic, i could vote for anyone of this candidates. even chris christie, who i had written off, he was very impressive. donald trump. i think c-span is the gem of the nation and more people should watch it and know what is going on. have a great weekend. host: other headlines, front page of "usa today." "race to find survivors" in the mediterranean disaster. accounts of the number of people vary from 700 to 950. the associated press reported that 28 survivors and 24 bodies were pulled from the water according to officials. tens and thousands flee chaos in north africa and the middle east for europe and risk of death while crossing the mediterranean. the latest capsizing prompted officials and pope francis to call for action to stop the tide of migration. the european union's foreign minister added migration as an emergency issue to the meeting today in luxembourg. that on the capsizing of the boat with refugees from libya. below that on the domestic side in "usa today." "no turning back on gay marriage," in a poll, 51% to 35%, it is no longer practical for the supreme court to ban same-sex marriage. one reason for a transformation, close to half said they had a gay or lesbian family member or close friend married to someone of the same-sex. the poll is changing on the issue. in "the washington post" on the anniversary of the oklahoma bombing's, 20 years of good out of darkness in oklahoma. that's the story. bill clinton joined the director of the fbi officials, and nearly 1000 others in oklahoma city sunday and marked the 20th anniversary of the bombing of a federal building that killed 168 people. front page of "the new york times," i want to share this out of the shooting of water scott. "skipped child support go to jail, lose job repeat" is the headline. walter scott's headline has focused attention on police violent and also the use of jail pressuring parents to pay chad support. a policy employed by many states. the threat of jail is considered an effective incentive for people able but unwilling to pay, many of certain that punitive policies are trapping poor mejn in a cycle of debt unemployment and imprisonment. that story on walter scott. we are in open funds. bob in ohio, democrat. go ahead. caller: hello. host: you're on their. caller: my comment what are we going to do about this hate group led by mitch mcconnell john mccain, lindsey graham, and all the rest of the republicans? host: why do you say hate group? caller: mitch mcconnell said, if you remember, he was interviewed on television. they asked him and they said what would you do would you do anything to keep this man from succeeding? he says yes -- anything. host: you think that is motivated by hate and not ideological differences? caller: that is motivated by hate. let me tell you why. when he and lindsey graham went over to benghazi and they made a deal with maliki. they said do whatever you can do to get rid of this president. host: before you go on, where do you read that? caller: where did i read that? i know it, it's a fact. host: we will leave it there. up next, we look at this week's negotiations between the house and senate as they try to reconcile the budget blueprints. later, during the national crime victims rights week, we look at the doj's role in assisting victims of crime and how federal officials track crime and victimization statistics. we will be right back. ♪ >> she was considered modern for her time called mrs. president by detractors, and was outspoken on her views on slavery and women's rights. one of the most prolific writers of any first lady, she provides a view into colonial america and her personal life. abigail adams, sunday night on 8:00 p.m. eastern on "first ladies: influence an image." examining the public and private lives of the first ladies and their influence on the presidency. from martha washington to michelle obama. sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. 'c-span's new book is now available, "first ladies: presidential historian david lives of 45 iconic american women." an illuminating, entertaining and inspiring read. available as hardcover or e-book for your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us is rebecca shabad staff writer for "the hill" here to talk about house and senate budget negotiators. they start today at 3:00 p.m. let's begin with telling our viewers why a budget resolution is needed in the first place. guest: it hasn't gone back to 1974, the congressional -- it has bongone back to 1974, the congressional budget act set the process for stop it is nonbinding so it does not hold too much weight. it sets guidelines for appropriators who write of the government spending bills every year. that is really the main reason for it. at the same time for republicans who now control both chambers of congress, they use it as a messaging document to set their political priorities. it is important for them to do that in advance of 2016. it is kind of a general document that congress works on every year. democrats have not done it in the past when they could not work with republicans. now that republicans hold both chambers, it is a pretty important thing to do to show that they can govern. host: how will the process work? the house has their version and the senate has their version. both chambers are run by republicans so are they that different? guest: negotiations have already been happening behind the scenes. this afternoon's meeting is a public meeting of all of the budget negotiators. the majority of the negotiators are republicans. it are a few democrats on the panel and they are going to lay out their different priorities, what they would want to see in some sort of budget agreement. just to take a step back, what happened in late march is the house republicans passed their own budget, the senate republicans passed their separate budget. they are pretty similar documents but there are a number of differences they will have to reconcile to get to an agreement. republican leaders have set a schedule to have votes on the board, they cannot do this until they have an agreement. host: what are the differences? guest: one of the top ones is defense spending. both of them stick to the sequester level on defense. in order to circumvent those budget caps set by a 2011 law they're going to increase the pentagon's war fund. they are going to raise that to about $96 billion. there are some differences within the provisions for each document they will have to resolve. there is also reconciliation, a budget procedure that republicans can use to enact policy provisions. there are differences between medicare and medicaid that are pretty drastic. they're going to have to come to some sort of compromise before they can get a deal. host: let's stick with defense. will the defense hawks win over the deficit hawks? guest: good question. the defense hawks did win in late march in the house and even the senate. there was a big divide between the military hawks, who wanted to pop of the pentagon's spending and basically bust the sequestration budget cap. in order to satisfy everyone they had to move to a war fund. there were fiscal hawks who did not want to increase spending. that would increase the deficit. the differences between the two both of them stick to the sequester level. they pump up the war fund $296 billion without any offsets. in the senate budget it has a procedural hurdle that says if a spending bill comes to the floor , that is over 50 going dollars for the pentagon war fund. there will have to be a 60 vote point of order to advance that bill. that could be problematic, especially for republicans considering reelection. it should be an interesting battle. host: what is reconciliation? senate republicans want to try to repeal obamacare through reconciliation. there are divisions in the house, what are they saying? guest: reconciliation is a complicated budget procedure that basically will allow republicans to enact policy proposals. democrats used to this in 2009 to enact obamacare. republicans have been saying all along since the midterm election, let's use reconciliation to repeal obamacare. reconciliation bills would be the next step in this process. in order to move to reconciliation, they must have a budget agreement adopted in both chambers. there are successful in doing that, that would trigger reconciliation. these provisions in the budget agreement would instruct authorizing committees to write of these deficit-saving bills on medicare, medicaid obamacare maybe even food stamps. it is really up to republicans at this stage how they want to handle the process. the problem is, senate republicans have signaled that they only want to use reconciliation to repeal obamacare, maybe do something on tax reform but maybe not so much. house republicans especially speaker john boehner and kevin mccarthy they have all said that they want the process to be very flexible. in that original document, they issue 13 separate reconciliation instructions to committees. that kind of signals that they wanted to be a flexible process and may be decide down the line how they want to handle it. this will decide the major portion of obamacare. that could determine which have to republicans want to take in the reconciliation process. one thing that i want to add though is that president obama can veto any of these bills. republicans may not get too far in that process. host: house and senate budget negotiations kicking off today at 3:00 eastern today. that is our conversation here. talking about what is inside these two pieces of legislation. the president has said it will veto any repeal of obamacare or what else has he said in drawing a line in the sand and thing i will be told that? announcer: "washington journal" continues.guest: president obama has joked about how many times republicans have tried to veto a obamacare. the one thing that what -- he has signaled his that he would not sign a budget that sticks to the sequester level task. i should mention that president obama does not sign the budget agreement, but what he does sign are the spending bills that eventually come out of this budget agreement later this fall. the sequester level cap basically limit the pentagon to a certain amount of money -- around $523 billion. it is in nondefense and a mastic spending to 493 billion dollars next year. he wants those caps to be raised by a total of $74 billion next year on both sides. he has not exquisitely said, oh well, if i get this does not have this amount of money, then i'm going to veto it. they cannot get to that point yet because the bills have not been voted on. a kind of signals that there could be another fight, possibly another shutdown looming later in september and that could be pretty problematic on both sides of the aisle. host: we are talking with rebecca shabad, a staff writer for "the hill" newspaper. you can start dialing and now. we want to hear from republicans. your party is in control of both chambers. what do you want to see republicans do on fiscal issues, specifically the budget proposal? and democrats and independents can call in. let us get to our first call here. it comes from washington d.c., and dependent collar. what is your question or comment on the 2016 budget proposal? caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: let me comment about the color prior to your guests indicating that the priority for the senate was to get rid ofi think during -- prior to his second term, you can pull the tape and check that out. in terms of your guest, isn't it true that the pentagon's budget -- it's not really slashed or cut. they would take away money from let's say building future fighter planes and program that money towards building up their intelligence arena. or they would take money away from recruiting and they would put it into submarine technology or nuclear subs that type of thing. do they really slashed the budget or redirect the money in another prioritized mill attire -- military necessity? guest: basically it is really up to military leaders in the pentagon how they want to spend their money. i should go back to the 2011 law that these budget caps were made for a decade. that basically reduced funding for each of the fiscal years from 2013 until 2021 or something like that. that means that the pentagon's budget next year is already cut. what that is doing to the pentagon is that it is really squeezing them. military leaders constantly go before congress and congressional panels and complain the congress about what this is doing to their programs on the hill and how it is hurting their programs to prepare soldiers to go overseas to fight isis. it is a pretty big problem according to the pentagon. there are other experts who say that the pentagon knows how to handle this. then basically done exactly what republicans are trying to do an order to circumvent these budget caps i turning to the war fund and a useless flexibility to do that. democrats, however, a lot of them call this war fund a slush fund. they hate the use of it and called a gimmick. it is a problem according to the pentagon bath the same time, there are critics who say well, we are the biggest military spender in the world and we really don't need to spend any more than that. host: our republicans looking to bust the spending caps not only on defense, but also on the this fence -- domestic side? guest: that is a great question. tons of republicans complain about the level of the fence and they want to increase that. democrats on the other hand say they want to increase defense, but they really want to ingress -- increased the messing programs. -- domestic programs. the obama administration officials have pointed out that homeland security and the department of veteran affairs are not within the pentagon's spending caps. that is on the domestic discretionary side. republicans normally want to increase defense. there are a number of some republicans, particular john mccain who is the leader of the senate armed services committee and lindsey graham who might run for president next year, they have said let us try to find a way to boost both defense spending and the spending on domestic programs. that is exactly what obama wants. he wants equal dollar for dollar increases on both sides. host: rebecca shabad has been writing about the budget. you can find her reporting on the hill.com. she is writing about the differences between the house and the senate bills. they're going to come together this week, starting today at 3 p.m. eastern time on c-span. reuters recently reported that the speaker of the house named his allies to negotiate with the senate over this budget. what do you think that means for the outcome for any proposal? guest: it is an interesting group of people. there are basically 30 lawmakers on this house-senate budget conference committee. most are members from the senate. in fact, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell appointed every single republican from the senate budget committee to this compromise panel and all members on that democrat budget committee. there are much fewer people from the house on this committee. it is hard to say how much influence speaker boehner's allies might have. one of them is a freshman so there is a newbie in this panel. what i wanted to say before -- and i think i mentioned this -- negotiations have really been going on already. tom price, the chairman of the house budget committee and the chair of the senate budget committee have been meeting for weeks. the habit and constant touch. there have been working on making sure that all the topline numbers lineup. it is really up to the republicans on this conference committee to work out the sticking points that we were talking about earlier to make sure that there is some sort of agreement on those fronts. host: they have been working behind the scenes for weeks, but the first public hearing will be today. when then could some sort of agreement come to the floor? guest: i think i mentioned this before. house majority leader kevin mccarthy has already scheduled to spending bills to come to the floor of the house before the house goes on its next recess in early may. what that means is that i was looking at the calendar before and republicans basically only have two weeks or less than that to get a budget deal done. they cannot hold those floor votes at that time unless they get a budget deal done. i think we might see something in the next week. it might not necessarily be this week because there's a lot going on on the hill, but it could be i think next week that we will see something. host: we will go to salem oregon. a democrat. go ahead. caller: hello. good morning. i had a question for rebecca. why do the rich always get tax breaks and the poor get entitlement programs? that's my question. thank you. guest: thanks. republicans and their budget do not want to increase taxes at all. they have pretty much stuck to that point. it has been a point that republicans have always tried to emphasize in their spending priorities. at the same time, they want to lower spending for the government. now i cannot really explain to you why republicans want that but that is pretty much how they frame their budget documents. host: jeff in new jersey, and independent. caller: good morning. i like to ask rebecca. i would like a balanced budget and i would like to see more coverage on the fast track negotiations. host: let us talk about a balanced budget. guest: the house and senate republican budgets are balance. they would balance a nine year time frame. the senate budget would balance and attain your friend -- and a ten-year timeframe. center of public and have been skeptical on what a budget that balances in less than 10 years would mean. that basically would mean that they would have to cut even more faster. for example, the house budget balances in nine years. by doing that, they have to cut $5.5 trillion over that budget window in order to get to that point. republicans have emphasized that they definitely want a balanced budget. if they want to erase the deficit. it a lot of economic experts have said that a balanced budget would be ideal, but at the same time, sometimes having a deficit actually stimulates the economy. since we are still kind of in a recovery from 2008-2 thousand nine recession, that might be a good thing having a deficit. host: ron in new hampshire. caller: good morning and thank you, c-span. the priorities of the house and senate have been pretty obvious at this point. the president has been trying to get loretta lynch confirmed. he has had legislation over there at the house to take the threat to isil in the house won't sign the legislation and send it back to him. they have had plenty of time to come up with tax breaks for the rich and do away with the tax. but austerity for everybody else. they just want to cut spending. they want to balance the budget off the backs of the poor and the sake of the elderly. i think the poor approval rating for the house and the senate speaks volumes. the single digit, low double-digit approval rating. it just tells me that nobody really approves of the republicans and what they are doing and how they continue to get elected -- i really have no clue. host: ron, we will take your statement. we are talking about priorities for the republicans. guest: some republicans -- you are right. it is pretty obvious what they want to do. the real issue surrounding these budget negotiations and everything republicans have been doing in the first few months of their majority in congress is 2016. that is really what is on everyone's mind. we already have three republican candidates for president in the senate -- marco rubio, ted cruz, and rand paul. we might even have lindsey graham jump into the rest -- race. that really is kind of pressuring republicans to show that they can govern, show that they can get things done, and republican leaders in both chambers said from the get-go that since they won in the midterm elections that they want to restore regular order. what that means is getting everything done in time and making sure that that use the proper procedures to get everything done. so far republicans have been able to show that. they did have some sort of double over funding the department of homeland security and february, but since then, they have gotten back on their feet and passed a compromised last week. that was a big success for everyone involved. it is pretty clear that looking forward that they are all talking and thinking about 2016. host: sgr means that medicare doc fix. that is the rate that doctors get for the medicare patients. that was brokered on last week. when democrats were in report -- control, republicans were critical that they did not pass a budget in the senate. is there any chances falls apart and republicans don't pass a budget? guest: there is always a chance. looking out republicans and their internal divisions, there is always that possibility. but at the same time, because there are two budgets that they have adopted in the house and senate in march that they are so similar that we are going to get an agreement. i would be pretty shocked to see something fall apart at this part of the timeline. i think we will see something but there's always that possibility. host: new jersey. wayne, an independent color. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wish that everyone would stop calling this obamacare. it really should be called nixon care. it was first considered by president nixon back in the 1970's. and he would approve it so long as all the profiteers of health care where place, which are in place now. are there any congressman or senator's being proposed that would take the affordable into the 21st century and make this a nonprofit system? host: rebecca shabad. guest: that is a good question. democrats have really hit republicans over why they can't come up with some sort of republican in the obamacare replacement. they say they hate obamacare and want to repeal it, but at the same time, they have not really come up with a comprehensive package of health care legislation that could be used instead of obamacare, especially if the supreme court rules against the obama administration. now democrats constantly attack republicans for this. republicans may want to focus on that, especially in this budget process. maybe if they do use the reconciliation process to repeal obamacare or try to, they might try to infuse some language or some sort of alternative bill that would be used to replace obamacare. host: the supreme court has to decide whether or not congress meant to allow subsidies for exchanges that were set up by the federal government or if those exchanges are just meant for states that did their own. john in new hampshire, a democrat caller. caller: good morning. i just have a couple of quick questions. and it's regarding the budget that is being put together. the first one is -- has anyone or i should say, i forget the acronym specifically. the nonpartisan budget markup where they go through and they look at cuts. host: the cbo? caller: yes. thank you so much. i want to know if that has happened or if that has been reviewed at this point, which i don't think it has, where a budget has been passed. that is the first question i have. the second is -- the austerity that they are putting together based on the old paul ryan bill. it was proven back then -- the budget is not going to balance and a time that you say it is in 10 years. generally where all the cuts are, such as food stamps, medicare medicaid, and all those crucial institutions that we have that hope and assist the people in need. and then there is no tax reform such as you know you are talking about cuts or payouts to companies like exxon mobil or tax breaks for the wealthy and the banks and what have you. and i just want to know if anybody has ever taken a look at that and has that been under consideration? has a compromised and set up between the senate and the house? that is about it. i'm really concerned. host: all right, john. guest: to adjust your first question, the congressional budget office which i think is the office that you are referring to -- they would be expected to analyze the final budget documents just to show what sort of affects it would have on the budgetary process and whatever economic effects it might have. that would probably come later on in the process. that is if republicans do get some sort of budget deal. to adjust your second question on getting the balance and cutting the spending, a lot of skeptics have agreed with you and said that it would be very hard to get to balance. republicans are kind of using this document to show what the ideal situation for them would be. they do think that they could get the balance by cutting 5.5 chilean dollars or 5.1 chilean dollars" budget documents. the question is -- what president obama signed spending bills, or even the next president whoever is elected in the white house and 2016, would they signed spending bills that would lower government spending to that effect? i'm not so sure. we don't know who will be elected in 2016. at the same time on tax reform, paul ryan, who is now the chairman of the house ways and means, and they write taxes. and orrin hatch on the senate finance committee -- they both talked about doing some sort of tax reform deal. they both talked about how important it would be to do on a bipartisan basis. when i mentioned using reconciliation before to get tax reform done, that might not be the case. they might try to work with democrats to get some sort of deal on obama's desk. host: west palm beach, stephen, independent color. hi there. caller: i thought it would add something constructive to the conversation for the first time in my life. and that is concerning this concept of proper procedure. now i would like rebecca yes? host: yes. caller: i would like you to explain to the viewing public when the last time was why on the miss bills were passed in the last time congress passed 12 independent spending bills. when i say independent, i mean 12 independent, not 11 as a package and the and one like in the case of homeland security a few months ago. these congressman use these on the miss hills to hide the dirty deals that are cut between themselves. an example being obamacare. i went obamacare was passed, we all remember the cornhusker kickback with ben nelson from nebraska. the gator aid to twist the arms from the senators of the state of florida. the reason to so that mary landrieu could actually said that i voted for obama care for a reason. could you explain to the viewing public why congress uses these optimists builds -- on the bus bills that think a high heaven? guest: let's explain the omnibus bills. they basically send spending guidelines to the appropriate as an congress who write these government spending bills for all the different agencies in congress. there are a bout 12 appropriations bills in each chamber and they come to the chamber's floors. they are passed in each chamber but as you pointed out it has been a wild since they have been able to pass all the appropriations bills individually that they need to get done. what normally happens is july passes in congress goes on recess. i that recess time, they don't really have all those bills done. maybe they have brought some of them to the floor and some of them have passed, but some of the appropriations bills have not even gotten to the floor. what normally happens this that once congress gets back from its august recess every year, they have september. the deadline is september 30 to get all the spending bills done and sent to obama's desk. that is a pretty short timeframe to get all the spending bills done. what happens is they package all of them together into what is called in on the bus -- omnibus bill or spending package. it is all the appropriations bills in one and they sent to the floor and voted on and sent to obama. that basically happens almost every year. and fact, i think the last time that congress has been able to pass each one individually was back in the 1990's. the omnibus bill should be expended this year. they basically passed what is continuing resolution and that basically keeps the government funded at last year's levels. then we got this debate in the lame-duck session last year where they almost passed an o omnibus spending bill, but because of immigration issues, the white house republicans only funded the department of homeland security until february. republicans -- i guess my main point that i want to emphasize is that republicans have said that they want to use this spending process to kind of point out their priorities. and this could be a problem later on down the line this year when republicans send an omnibus spending to the white house and the white house sees that they are sticking to the sequestration and obama would veto this. host: gary on twitter is saying, be honest that there is no balance budget is spending his past 10 years down the road since future congresses are not down by it. guest: a number of experts say can that really happen? that is kind of an ideal world. the last time that a budget was balanced was back in the late 1990's under president clinton, i believe. that is an ideal situation where we are spending the same amount that we are taking in and taxes. at the same time as i pointed out before, we are still in economic recovery from the recession. a number of economic experts have pointed out that having a deficit could actually stimulate the economy. so maybe we want to be on this sort of track in the next year bill. host: cincinnati, ohio. eric, a republican. makes for waiting period you are on the air. -- thanks for waiting period you are on the air. caller: we talk about on god we trust on money. do you think the color of money might have a provision? host: what are you referring to? caller: what i am referring for is that when we were picking out different lands for people, they have their own products in their own things. we live in a world where money is all green. but if we add color to the money, can we see their money is spent during tax time and what is being productive during different people and genders. host: i don't think were following. let us go on to houston, texas. caller: i just want to say hi to rebecca. i think is a great thing what republicans are trying to do because we have had a president for four years and they have not attempted to try to have a budget. i think that is a disgrace. the democrats have sit back on their hands and let this president have full reign of doing nothing, absolutely nothing concerning the budget. i don't see how he can just veto anything when he is not doing his job at all. host: ok. provocative shabbat -- rebecca shabad, let's talk about how republicans deal with obamacare. they want to use wrestling affiliation processes -- reconciliation processes, but they have to deal with it and their own budget. how do they deal with it? guest: both budget say they will try to repeal obamacare and it will have to use this process is to get it done. the supreme court is expected to rule on that in late june. then the reconciliation process would happen around july, so that we give republicans a little bit of wiggle room, depending on how the supreme court rules in that case. if the supreme court rules against the obama administration and unravels obamacare republicans might say, well, we don't need to use reconciliation to torpedo obamacare. let us use it for something else. let us use it to reduce medicare spending and medicaid spending. it is kind of unclear at this point how they want to repeal obamacare, but they keep saying, let's use reconciliation. host: carl in arkansas. a democrat. hi, carl. caller: how are you doing? host: good morning. you are on the air. caller: i want to bring up the facts that republicans are bragging about tax cuts. are we talking about taxes on a sickly the top 20% of the wealth in the country? they are actually raising everybody else's taxes. so when they say they are not raising taxes and are against it, that it is really not true. guest: republicans say that they don't want to raise taxes and it does have the effect of affecting everyone in the country. the real priority for republicans at this point is not raising taxes and maybe even cutting them at some point, depending on how they want to reform the tax code. and then reducing government spending. that is really their goal in this process. host: rebecca shabad wrote a story yesterday, "gop divided on medicare overhaul." what are you reporting here? guest: there are drastic differences between the house budget that they passed in march and the senate budget. the house budget basically mirrors the proposal that paul ryan put forward in his budget for the last few years. that is partially privatized programs for seniors by offering vouchers. republicans in the house have all been gung ho about this proposal for the last few years. the senate budget however does not offer some sort of major overhaul for medicare. they basically said let's honor president obama's request to say 400 and $30 billion from the program of the next 10 years. what i reported basically is that senate republicans are kind of skeptical about the house proposal to partially privatize medicare. lindsey graham spoke to me last week and i asked him, could this make it through your conference? he said, i don't think so. he is pretty ingrained in the senate republican congress. he has a good idea of how much support would be behind the proposal. you might want to -- you might want to run for president and he does not think it could muster through this budget conference. even other senate republicans who are vulnerable enough for reelection next year. i said both with rod -- i spoke with rod and he wants to see the budget proposal. what we might see in this agreement is a topline number for cutting medicare at a certain amount. maybe that would be done through the reconciliation process, but it might not actually define and detail what overhaul if any they would want to do. host: how does president obama, with savings in medicare --, with savings in medicare? guest: from what i had read and heard, he does not specify how to get that $430 billion. it is a cop can he process and senate republicans want to stick with that number. even the republicans want to do this major overhaul and partially privatize medicare that proposal would actually cut less and the program over the next 10 years. it is a very interesting dynamic between the two sides and that could be one of the sticking points in these negotiation's. host: that and other issues likely to come up when these house and senate negotiators meet with the house and the public for the first time. that is three clock eastern time on c-span. caller: you are throwing out all these numbers. the two biggest numbers -- 51% of our children live in poverty in our schools. you can throw all these numbers and cutting taxes for these guys. how do we look at our children in the eyes and look and know that 51% are hungry every day at school? 27% of florida school system children live in daily motels. i don't know what you are fighting about on this budget. we aren't the only country in the world -- we are the only country in the world that have these problems. they have free education and health care. you have none of the problems that we have in the european countries. they don't. we say don't follow their model. look at our motto. i worried about taxes up here on this hill. i have people starting on the street that i'm feeding. small business owners and i am a veteran and i am embarrassed by this country now. we are worried about the isis problems. he better worry about the civil unrest here. people on the streets are talking about rising up and we are getting to the point of no return. host: michael, thank you. guest: democrats and congress are talking about the sequestration budget cap on both sides. on the pentagon side and discretionary spending. what that spending is on the food stamps and on the department of veterans affairs for veterans benefits. democrats want to raise a breach those year. president obama has said that he would not sign a bill that only increases defense spending while it doesn't increase domestic discretionary spending. there might be some sort of agreement later down the line this year that lawmakers will try to get to. paul ryan, when he was chairman of the budget committee and patty when she was chairwoman of the budget committee -- late in 2013, they got a deal that said that sequestration would be relieved for the next two years. part of that deal is basically still in effect. sequestration is not really happening right now too much. it did not really completely reverse sequestration, but it eased it to the poor -- point where most people were satisfied. there have been wrongly sent capitol hill over the last few weeks of lawmakers saying that maybe we can get another one of those deals to really ease sequestration of the next two years. even the republicans are negotiating a budget at this point in the process maybe we will get to another sort of agreement similar to that ryan-murray deal later this deal that would boost spending on veterans benefits and food stamps. host: rebecca shabad. you can follow her reporting at the hill website at rebecca.com -- the hill.com. up next, we are going to turn this conversation to national crime victims rights week. we will look at the department of justice's role in assisting victims of crime. they check crime and victimization statistics. later, our weekly "your money" segment continues. we will look at a government accountability report on duplication in the federal government and discuss how agencies are working to accelerate -- consolidate those redundant funding programs. we will be right back. ♪ >> challenging the new fcc internet rules, and filing lawsuits against the fcc. tonight on "the communicators," we will speak with the president and ceo of one of those organizations. walter mccormick and the support of the rules, christopher lewis, vice president of affairs of public knowledge. >> what we are challenging as the reclassification of internet access from being an information service to a tell commissions service regulated as a common carrier pursuant to 19th century railroad regulation. common carriage is a vestige of the english common law. it was originally applied to railroads and trucking companies and airlines. it has been repealed for all those industries going on 30 years ago. it puts new cost on consumers. it delays the climate. it slows innovation. and it really chills investment. >> we both agreed that net neutrality protections are important. that is an important thing to start with. we do disagree with the lawsuit. we have been very supportive of the rules that the fcc enacted and have no become force of law. we think that after a decade of working towards a way to have net neutrality rules that could hold up in court that this is the strongest protections that we have seen in the three different attempts at the agency to ensure that the internet remains open. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span2. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: yesterday kicked off national crime victims rights week. here to talk about that is the director of the department of justice's office for victims of crime, joye frost. thank you very much for being here. what is your role and mission here? guest: the office for victims of crimes really has the role of changing policies, practices and programs throughout the country, creating a more favorable climate for crime victims. so crime victims feel comfortable enough to report to law enforcement, to ask for assistance, and really not to be ashamed or embarrassed or afraid because they are crime victims. host: favorable climate -- why do you think that is necessary? guest: while we know that crime itself, but violent crime and property crime have been decreasing steadily since the 1990's, we also know that the vast majority of crime victims never reach out for help. only about 14% to 50% at the very most. less than 50% of victims of severe violent crime report. there are a lot of different reasons for that. some people, like children, are people with severe cognitive or communication disabilities and may not be able to report. others may feel, like in the case of sexual assault victims that they might not be believed. others feel that law enforcement would not really do anything. and sadly, a lot of victims don't understand that what has happened to them is in fact a crime. host: what sort of help are these victims seeking from law enforcement and the department of justice? what can they find? guest: i think one of the most important things, not just from law enforcement, but from the community as a whole -- i cannot think -- be for every crime victims. every victim is unique and different. there are certain characteristics. first of all like i mentioned earlier, crime victims want to be believed, whether it is law enforcement, your spouse, your parents, your roommate, your colleagues at work. people want to be believed. a want to show faith and i think law enforcement, of course, can play an important role there. a want to feel supported. -- they want to feel supported. they want to know about services available to them. and law enforcement plays a critical role, i think, in time crime victims to longer-term support. all victims want to be treated with dignity and respect. host: we are talking about national crime victims rights week. it kicked off yesterday. here is how we are going to divine -- divide the phone line. if you are in the eastern part of the country call it we will get your calls here in just a minute. we are joined by joye frost, the rocker -- director of the department of justice office of victims of crime. what are you trying to do here? guest: what we are tried to do is raise public awareness about the issues that that face every crime victim. even if you yourself have not been a victim of crime, i would say that it is almost universally that you know someone who has been. a family member, a love one, a work colleague, a fellow student. everybody has a role. this year's theme is engaging communities and empowering victims. if we meet those basic needs that i just talked about. most victims are going to feel supported and will be able to access services and benefits from the services. this is actually the 35th year that we have celebrated national crime victim rights week. president reagan actually designated the first national crime victims rights week. tomorrow at the national archives, we have a national crime victims rights week award ceremony that will involve the attorney general. i have to put a plug in here for this. it starts at 2:00 p.m. and runs until three -- 3:30 p.m.. it is open to the general public. you can register online at obc duckovc.gov or you can register online at the national archives. we will love to see people in the washington dc area come. host: what do you mean by victim's wrrights? guest: back in the 1980's, crime victims had very few rights. it was actually a presidential task force in the 1980's that really outlined quite frankly the dilemma and plight of crime victims. and the way that in many instances, they were just treated as another piece of evidence. we have come a long way since then. all the states and territories have crime victims rights laws. many of them have constitutional amendments that allow victims certain rights. some of the most important ones are the right to be heard. many of them are things such as the right to be treated with dignity and with respect, the ability or the right to seek restitution from who ever has offended against you to help cover some of the expenses associated with the crime, the right to apply for safe crime victim compensation. every state and most of the territories have safe crime victim compensation fund as well. there are other rights, but those are some of the key ones. host: what was happening in the 1980's to prompt the congress and the president to set up the office that you now run? guest: they had hearings all of the country. they listened and in some instances, the abysmal way that victims were treated and they were not believed. they do not get information back from their cases. some of the saddest cases had families of murder victims that were completely excluded from the courtroom. this task force came forward with numerous recommendations about how to change that. some of the rights that victims need, but also some of the services and support that would benefit crime victims. host: the crime victims fund which is federal state, tribal assistance programs to receive formula grants in 2012. money was $2.8 billion. the hundred $59 million in grants from the fund to states for victim compensation as you were just talking about. an $870 million for victim assistance. if this program successful? -- is this program successful? guest: yes, absolutely. there are millions of victims served annually through the crime victims fund. one of the thing that i hope the people watching this program understands is that this crime victims fund is composed of not a single taxpayer dollar. it is fines, policies -- penalties, and assessments against criminal offenders. it is one of the most innovative federal programs whereby criminals pay dollars into the crime victims fund. as you mentioned, it is not insubstantial. this particular year 2015, congress set the appropriations level for the crime victims fund at $2.361 billion. host: less than 2012 number? guest: 2012 was a big increase. the states will have a considerable now -- amount of funding this year's. i don't want to talk about the dollars and statistics. i want to talk about the lifeline of services that these funds represent. you can go to any domestic violence shelter like a crisis center or children at this busy center. -- advocacy center. if you ever come into a prosecutor's office, it is almost a certainty that money from the crime victims fund is supporting their salaries. host: less talk about that in just a minute. for viewers,ovc,gov is the website. let's get to calls. eric in minneapolis. caller: i just want to say thanks to "washington journal." i love the program. i'm a first-time caller. my first time question for joyce is that most people seem to break a law, minor or major, which turns almost the entire population into a criminal at some point. now how has this shaped the relationship between the public and law enforcement? guest: wow. that is a great question. one of the things that we are learning is that the lines between victim and offender is not as clear-cut as it used to be. you can't always just draw a clear line. i think that when you look at rates of youth violence, for example, it is actually young people between the ages of 17-24 that are most likely to be victimized, but they are also the age group that is most likely to be offenders. i do think that again the role that law enforcement place is critical. and how they respond to victims and for that matter, to offenders can make a german does difference. my agency, the office of victims of crime is actually supporting several products -- projects including some with the international association of chiefs of police that really look at changing the culture of law enforcement said that they consider crime victims. and consider them one of their major constituents and stakeholders, which is somewhat of a departure for many and law enforcement. host: consider victims how? guest: consider them as a major constituent. in other words, it is not just about solving the case. it is about treating the victim in such a way and understanding the particular needs of crime victims. crime victims are almost always traumatized by what has happened to them. and so they may not always, for example, be able to tell their story in a sequential way or they may remember things the day afterward. it doesn't mean that the crime victim is lying or making things up. it means that that is just the way that a typical victim is going to remember the story. educating law enforcement and for that matter, other practitioners and other people who come into contact with crime victims about their needs, about the way that they respond is incredibly important. we will go to new york. host: polycom and good morning. caller: my interest is the increasing number of sexual crime victims. they are especially aimed at children. we have a lot of things and our tv and newspapers and everything. i think we need to take a different stance. not just about the victims -- they are the most important. i think we need to take a great look at what we are doing with the perpetrators. i do not think that this is a much of a crime as it is a sickness. i think these people need to be taken out of the general population and never to be returned. i think our government and our medical professionals need to take a look at this. i think it is a mental health thing when you have adults that are supposed to be caring for children that are abusing children. there something. i don't know if it's retroactive or if they were abused at -- as children. i don't know what causes it because i'm not a medical professional, but i think we have got to because it is increasing daily. host: we will have joye frost jump in. guest: i agree that safety for victims is incredibly important and our criminal justice system has to focus on ensuring that reducing the re-victimization and additional victimization. there's actually a great deal of discussion and reform going on right now in the criminal justice system. we are increasingly learning that we can't just throw more and more people into prison and jail. i think it is particularly important with juvenile offenders. as the caller rightfully mentioned, some of these offenders have been victimized themselves. that in no way justifies what they are doing but trauma impacts all of us. and i agree. i think reform of the criminal justice system is really important not just for victims, but for offenders as well. host: we're going to michigan. go ahead. you are on the air. caller: i like to know. if you are dealing with a criminal enterprise, and i'm giving a hypothetical situation that is so vast that it would even involve law enforcement the doj itself, and even foreign entities like interpol, let's say that person wants to leave the country and go immigrate for safety reasons because his or her life is in jeopardy. say that moscow or russia or iceland. do you provide funds? i know you have the doj asset and they are estimated at $600 billion because they were created in 1984 by eric holder and christine morrissey. that is what i understand. do you think that money to victims that if you can't protect them, the oj, the fbi the u.s. marshals, etc., that you could send them overseas and let them live in a country where the other law enforcement can take over? host: ok. guest: that is a hypothetical question and the would have to be more information. i think you may be referencing the witness protection program of the u.s. marshals service. the obc does not fund that. what i do want to point out is is that most crime and most violent crime is actually investigated and prosecuted at the state, local, and tribal levels and not at the federal level. i do know that, for example there have been some large human trafficking cases that involve international organizations. my office actually does find a grant program that provides services to human trafficking victims that reside here in the u.s.. i would say that you do not have to be a victim of a vast criminal conspiracy to have concerns about your safety. i think about domestic violence victims for example. one of the most chilling statistics is that it is exactly at the time when a woman or a man for that matter actually leaves an abusive spouse that they are at the highest risk of being injured or killed. this is why victim services are so important. most of us it violence programs -- one of their bedrock services is safety planning, for example. host: who qualifies for the crime victims fund and the compensation part of it and how? guest: the compensation part -- i want to emphasize that we do provide funding to the states, but actually these are state crime victims compensation fund. because of that, each state has its own rules. the federal guidelines in the state guidelines as well -- i will say that the things that are in common. the individual victim in almost all cases has to report to law enforcement and cooperate with law enforcement. beyond that, it is also the payer of last resort. if you have large medical bills the medical insurance would pay first and then you can turn to your state crime victims compensation program to pick up the additional expenses, the co-pays and so forth. all state crime victim compensation fund's do pay for medical expenses, mental health expenses funeral and burial expenses, and for some, lost income and wages. host: describe the victim assistance program that you oversee from your perch as director. guest: we don't directly overseas -- oversee victim assistance programs. the vast majority of the money that ovc guess every year, we turn around and give directly to the state. there are two different grant programs. one goat -- goes to the state victim crime compensation programs and that supplement state funding. much more the funding goes to the state victim assistance program. each of the state with subcontract funding to local assistance services. again, that could be crisis centers or domestic violence shelters. it could be a support group for family members of homicide victims, for example. host: we are talking about victims rights. yesterday kicked off national crime victims rights week. it is an annual event and joye frost is the director of the department of justice office for victims of crime. she is here to take questions and comments. we have divided the lines and to eastern time and mount pacific. we will go to corey and steel missouricaller: my question is, what does it help going against a crooked judge? i've tried everything possible. phone numbers i have called, i've talked to governors and i have left a president and message. i got a call back from his secretary or somebody. i got a call back from the governor's secretary. i have got numbers to call. different ways i can approach the situation. host: ok. joye frost? guest: without knowing the specifics of the situation that you are describing what i would suggest is that you go to our website, ovc.gov. we have an e-mail called ask ov c. if you would send your question directly to ovc with more specifics, we would be glad to give you some contact us in the state of missouri. judges have ethical standards and legal standards that they have to uphold. there are ways that if you believe strongly that a judge is being unethical we can certainly direct you to some resources. host: what rights do victims have in the courtroom? mike on twitter says come "victim testimony should be rendered during trial to establish innocence or guilt's. it should be limited to relevance to the act." guest: i'm not sure what the question is but i think maybe he might be referencing cross-examination by defense. that's when it is important to have a judge in the courtroom who understands what the limitations are. as well as a prosecutor. one of the things that -- one of the newer developments is having a victims' rights attorney for crime victims. this is really a dream for the crime victims. prosecutors, while they certainly are pushing for crime victims, prosecutors themselves are not representing crime victims. they really represent the community. the idea behind a crime victims' rights attorney is you have your own attorney, just like an ascendant has -- like a defendant has a defense attorney that can understand what your rights are. not just in the courtroom, and most crime victims never see the inside of a courtroom. but your overall rights. there is an organization out of oregon, the national crime victims law institute, working with ovc-funded legal clinics throughout the u.s. in every state you can find attorneys that are willing to represent you. i have to put a plug in for the department of defense. one of the things they have initiated is a special victims counsel program. initially, it was for sexual assault victims but it is my understanding that they have expanded this to victims of domestic violence and child abuse. host: in the military? guest: in the military. this means that those victims in the military have their own counsel that represents their interests. host: louisville, kentucky, barbara. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling in reference to child protection services. host: ok. caller: i'm a victim. my grandchildren were taken from me and my daughter. my daughter is an addict. we had been fighting for her to get off her addiction. i had taken one of the children and since she was born. we went to court because my daughter was pregnant and she gave birth to a child that was addicted. she gave birth to a child and it came out with drugs and its system. the doctor said there was not enough drugs and the system to report it. however, they took the child anyway. they called me at work and told me to come get the child. i said when i get off work i will come. before i could do that, they took the child. when we went to court, they not only took that child but they took all of the other children from me. the child protection services started to build these lying stories over and over and no one but me speak in court. everyone was in the courtroom were attorneys appointed by the judge. the judge was very biased. i have been working and trying for three years now to get my children back, my grandchildren. i am sorry. i have gotten no results and no help whatsoever. host: ok, barbara. we will have joye frost jump in. guest: i'm so sorry for what you describe. i know that the primary importance here is the safety of the children. but i know that one of the hallmarks of child protective services is typically to try and place children with other family members as possible. i actually started my career in south texas as a child protective services worker. i'm not going to give you specific advice here. because, frankly, it sounds like what you need is legal assistance. if you are unable to find an attorney locally, you can go to your state bar association and ask for help. there's also an organization called the national center for victims of crime that might be able to help you find an attorney. again, you can always access our website, ovc.gov. and e-mail us, askovc. we'll send you some potential resources. host: susan in florida, you are next. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm a victim of 6 violent crimes over the years, i am pushing 72 years old. people do not seem to understand it is not just our military who have ptsd. every time someone becomes a victim of a violent crime you do end up with ptsd, which is never diagnosed. and if it is diagnosed, you are earmarked. so you try not to go into that view. i do believe that i'm sick and tired of the offender and the aggressors. either they are mentally ill they have family problems or whatever. why is it that we as a nation have so many mentally ill people and excuses for every crime committed? the victims do not have any rights. it's absolutely disgusting. no amount of money could replace my last 42 years, when i was almost murdered. no one can bring that back. i think it is unconscionable what attorneys do. i believe it is. i do not feel that we are any different from boko haram or isil, a horse of a different cover. -- color. it is still aggression and violence. there are millions of us who try to live our lives. we never commit crimes. yet we do not have any rights. then we have to pay for all the legal fees and court costs for the assailants. i think that is extremely wrong to do. host: all right. joye frost? guest: i'm so sorry to hear about your victimization. the research shows that many victims do progress to ptsd or. severe depression. i do think that when someone is repeatedly victimized that the odds of developing ptsd are another serious emotional syndrome is certainly higher. i do think that our system is far more balanced than it used to be. again, if you will contact us directly, we would be happy to try and find some resources for you locally. it really sounds as if you have been dealing with this victimization alone and without the kind of support that all victims need. this brings me back to our theme this year -- engaging communities and empowering victims. how you are treated makes such a difference. host: you started out saying that a lot of victims do not report what has happened to them, it is difficult to help people who have not told you they need help. so how is it that the justice department your office, is compiling statistics and asking homily victims there are, how much money do you need and resources to help people? guest: there are two major reporting systems. one is the uniform crime reports from the fbi. actually it only collects information on crimes reported to law enforcement. there is also a national survey called the national crime victimization survey. that is conducted by the bureau of justice statistics, which is a household survey. it addresses statistics on reported in unreported crimes. but i will say that getting the precise figures for crimes is very difficult. and just because you do not report crimes does not mean there is not assistance available. for example rape crisis centers, many victims that go there for mental health counseling or support groups have never reported to law enforcement. the statistics also show, again from the national crime victimization survey, that victims who do report to law enforcement are more likely to receive services and support. many victims have no idea where to turn in the community for assistance. host: ok. we will hear from seattle. good morning. caller: how are you? thank you for c-span. i was just curious -- i was on trial for a dui. this is one of those pre-internet things where it the cop introduced his evidence. the actual written report contained a number of details regarding evidences that i fell out of my vehicle, i was slurring speech. and there was video. the jury saw the video and it was clear that none of the things in the written report were evidenced by my behavior in the video. i was clearly talking and thank goodness for the video. the jury saw that and throughout everything the police officer said and i was declared innocent. i believe i was victimized by that officer. what do i do in a situation like that? guest: i really cannot give you legal advice. i do not know how long ago this happened. you can certainly file a complaint with your state. again, we can provide you information on specifically where you can go. but i -- it sounds like if you want to take action, that you actually need an attorney to assist you with that. host: dennis in illinois. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. i was victimized by a crime over 21 years ago by my own family. my brother's two children set me up in an evil scheme to defraud me of my freedom and assets. i hired two attorneys, one of which i knew well. his name was richard. richard was a former assistant u.s. attorney. he became an assistant state's attorney to ed in chicago illinois. subsequently, he arranged for the murders of fred -- host: whoa. you are making some accusations on national television. i'm going to leave it there and we will end the conversation with joye frost director of the office for victims of crime at the department of justice. yesterday kicked off the annual national crime victims rights week. learn more if you go to their website, ovc.gov. you can follow them on twitter. guest: thank you. host: next, we turn our attention to redundant programs. part of our weekly your money conversation -- how taxpayer dollars are being spent. we go to a new government accountability office report on duplication in the federal government. we will be right back. ♪ >> here are a few of the book festivals we will be covering this spring on booktv. this weekend, we will be in maryland's state capital for the annapolis book festival. hearing from others such as alberto gonzales. in may, we revisit maryland for live coverage of the gaithersburg festival. with tom davis and mark frost, as well as former senior adviser to president obama david axelrod. in new york city, the publishing industry showcases their upcoming books. in june, live for the chicago tribune printers row lit fest. that is this spring on c-span2's booktv. >> she was considered modern for her time, called mrs. president by her detractors, and was outspoken about her views on slavery and women's rights. one of the most prolific writers of any first lady, she provides a window into colonial america and her personal life. abigail adams on c-span's "first ladies: influence an image." examining the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. from martha washington to michelle obama. sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. c-span's new book is available from "first ladies: presidential historians on the lives of 45 iconic american women." providing stories of these fascinating women, creating an inspiring read. it is available as a hardcover or e-book through your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: on mondays in our final hour of "washington journal," we turn to how your taxpayer dollars are being spent. today, we are taking a look at the gal's -- gao's fifth report on redundant federal programs. nikki clowers is the co-author. show our viewers some examples of what we are talking about. hundred 12 mental health -- 112 mental health programs across 8 agencies. 42 transport services. 8 federal agencies are involved in consumer product safety. how do you go about finding the programs and what is the report mean for the federal government? guest: thanks for having me. we find these opportunities to reduce fragmentation overlap or duplication or achieve other cost savings through routine audit work. the mission of gao is to improve the performance of accountability of the government. so that leads us to follow the federal dollars wherever they go. we are often at department looking for opportunities to improve efficiency and reducing opportunities for fragmentation overlap and duplication. it is one of the ways we can improve the effectiveness and efficiency. as you illustrated, the areas covered in our five years of reporting touch on the spectrum of government programs. from defense to health to transportation. host: why do you do this report? guest: we are required by law to annually examine issues of duplication across the government. in addition to looking for opportunities to reduce duplication, we include opportunities to achieve cost savings or revenue enhancement in this report. we think bringing attention to these issues can help us get traction on these issues. host: let's talk about the fifth report that came out last week. what is the takeaway and how much money are we talking about that is being spent on redundant programs? guest: in this year's report, we identified 24 new areas that need additional re-examination. 12 areas where we found evidence of fragmentation, overlap and duplication. 12 areas where we found opportunities for enhanced revenue or cost savings. addressing these issues could achieve tens of billions of dollars in savings for the government. host: the gao has been doing this report for five years. started tracking redundant programs in 2011. they have made 440 recommendations for consolidation to congress and to the white house. only 37% of those programs have been addressed, at a savings of $20 billion. of those 440, how many have congress said you are right, we will get rid of this. guest: about 37% are fully addressed. another 40% are in some stage of implementation. that has resulted in significant savings, 20 going dollars to date with another $80 billion expected through 2023. we are pleased to see progress. host: what needs to be done? guest: we have opportunities for consolidation throughout the government. we have identified opportunities to enhance collaboration among agencies where we could believe additional collaboration could reduce inefficiencies. one example is in the consumer product safety area, over 20 agencies in that area. there is unclear roles and in some cases agencies might be stepping on each other's toes and creating regulatory gaps. we made a recommendation to create a formal coordination mechanism to help ensure the roles are clearly delineated. host: redundant programs in the federal government with nikki clowers of the government accountable the office. republicans, 202-748-8001, democrats, 202-748-8000 independents colinall in at 202-748-8002. a 4th line for federal employees 202-748-8003. call and tell us what you are seeing on the ground as a worker in the federal government. nikki clowers is in some redundancy a good thing? if you have different agencies responsible for different aspects of a federal program? guest: absolutely. we note that in the report. that is one of the reasons we distinguish between fragmentation, overlapping duplication. i like to think about a continuum. on the one hand you have fragmentation, which we define as having multiple agencies in the same area of national interest. as you suggest, in some cases that is appropriate. you want multiple agencies coming together and bringing resources to bear on a particular need. what we highlight in our report is when we have multiple agencies together that are not properly coordinating, where there is some inefficiency or bad effect that we find with fragmentation. moving over a little bit, we find overlap. that is what we defined as having multiple agencies providing similar services to similar populations. again, that can create inefficiencies. of fragmentation and overlap can be a harbinger for duplication on the far end of the continuum. multiple agencies providing the same services or the same benefits to the same populations. as you move along, there is the potential for a greater bad effect. host: what prompted the gao to do the first report in 2011? was it congress? also how did we get to this point of so many redundant federal programs? guest: it was required by congress in a public law that we begin examining on an annual basis opportunities to reduce duplication. in terms of how we got to this place, the root cause for any duplication or overlap or fragmentation that we find can vary by program. in some cases, programs evolve over time. you might have mission creep or scope creep that starts to create overlap with other programs. in other cases programs are created because existing programs are not effectively working. so another program is created to help achieve the intended public service. also one of the things we highlight in our report, a key issue is a lack of visibility. there's not good information on existing programs across the federal government. there's not a centralized list that congressman or policymakers can go to to see a program already in existence in a particular area before they create a new one. host: $45 billion spent on redundant federal programs and 2014. the gao out with their latest report. linda in connecticut, a democrat. good morning. caller: my question is regarding overlap between government state, and private industry. you also look and see if federal dollars are being used to overlap at the state level? more importantly, with private contractors. it seems as though many times when we are dealing with state or federal issues, somewhere in the middle there is a private contractor. i was wondering if that is something you look at or had any numbers on. thanks. host: nikki clowers, go ahead. guest: great question. in past reports, we have focused on deep federal level. looking for evidence of duplication, overlap or fragmentation at the federal level. this year we included export promotion at the federal and state levels. we did that vertical look that you are mentioning, looking at whether or not we found overlap, fragmentation or duplication among federal and state levels of export promotion and we did find fragmentation and potential overlap. a number of federal agencies are involved in that area and they will be working in the state sometimes that is not properly coordinated and can create an efficient use of resources will that is one example of where we have included a state issue. the issue of private contractors is interesting. it came up in one of the issues that we raised this year. in the area of homeland security, where we are looking at a vulnerability assessment of critical infrastructure. we found that there are five components within the department of homeland security that conduct vulnerability assessments of private sector infrastructure or critical, other critical infrastructure across the country. in addition, private sector companies are responsible for conducting phone ability assessments. what we heard out in the field there's a lot of fatigue especially federal fatigue of people conducting the same type of assessment. as we make recommendations to enhance coordination in that area. host: in iowa, federal employee and independent caller. caller: hi. i wanted to know what you have on authentication methods used within the government. seems like a defense department uses one method and the department of homeland security uses a different system, a different way, different cards to authenticate. seems like every time you want to use one of their systems, which sometimes they have to use each other's information systems, they have to have multiple authentication methods. what have you done with regards to that. i will take my answer off-line. guest: thank you. in this year's report, we did not examine this type of issues. in the past, we have looked at different agencies' security clearance processes and have found opportunities for greater efficiency and coordination. host: steve, ohio, republican. caller: first, let me thank you for your service. i would also like to state that i am fiscally conservative, socially liberal. and independent across all three. couldn't sequestration -- is the white house communicating with the gao? this should have been part of sequestration, it would have saved $45 billion in prior your money -- and probably prior your money that could've been used so it would not have to cut defense and key areas. what is the relationship between what you do and the white house so that sequestration would not be punitive the way it was without any kind of discretion as to which area the cuts were made? guest: i appreciate that question. that is one of the ways we frame this report. given the nation's physical condition, it is important -- fiscal condition, it is important that we are looking for opportunities for efficiency. one of the ways is to root out issues of duplication, overlap and fragmentation. throughout our work we have continuous communication with the office of management and budget. sharon what we are learning in -- sharing what we are learning in the field. they are eager to learn how agencies are making progress on recommendations. they encourage agencies to take action. we work with congressional committees, sharing our results and providing technical assistace as appropriate so they can take action. this is a very important body of work that could be used to help achieve significant cost savings. host: the gao has come up with 400 40 recommendations of the past five years they have been doing the report on the mountain -- on redundant programs. part of your money on mondays in the last hour of the "washington journal." republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. also, a fourth line for federal employees. tell us what you think about redundant programs, 202-748-8003 . nikki clowers is co-author of the redundant programs report from the gao. jim in new york, independent caller. caller:. good morning. i was just wondering if your office takes into account any of the studies that senator coburn have done over the years. it seems like he has been doing similar types of analysis on government spending during the period of time. i think he classified a lot of his work as the waist -- waste book. i was wondering if you take into account those studies. guest: good question. we do take into account studies, not only produced through the senators' office, as well as studies produced throughout the government. whether it be from legislative bodies such as the congressional budget office, or other agencies. dr. coburn, as you know, was the author of the amendment that required the gao study enacted in 2011. we work with his office, especially when he was a member of leadership on the senate homeland security and government affairs committee, which is a committee that takes rate interest in this body of work. host: the headline in "usa today" last week in the report was released, 42 ways to get you to a doctor. explain? guest: that explains when we were examining overlap in nonemergency medical transportation. we found overlap that there are 42 programs offered by six different agencies to provide transportation to those who may not be able to provide transportation for themselves due to disability, age or other factors. what we found is that there is not efficient coordination to prevent overlap in these services. in particular, once you get to a state level, two major players -- medicaid and v.a. do not participate in coordinating. we make recommendations to enhance coordination to make short resources are provided efficiently. everyone is leveraging their resources and not overlapping. host: andrew, new jersey, independent caller. caller: good morning. i think the american people ought to read the book -- it came out in 1992 or 1994 but is still relevant today. washington, d.c. is known as the grand bazaar. everything is up for grabs and paid for by the taxpayers of this country. thank you so much. host: ted in los angeles, a federal employee. caller: good morning. ok the point i would like to make, as a former federal employee i worked with the social security administration. i think the biggest waste they have is the social security card itself. they manufacture this paper card that requires a great deal of cost just to produce it. it does not last long. and, by updating the social security card with a picture card it would reduce fraud it would solve the problem of voter registration but the social security administration, for some reason, will not change the card from paper to modern-day plastic. that is the point i would like to make. host: nikki clowers any thoughts on reassessing how the government and federal agencies have done things over the years? incorporating more technology to reduce redundant programs. guest: for this year, we did not address this issue but i know gao has looked at different services the government has provided and looking for ways to move us to the 21st century. using technology and moving away from paper-based products. one area we did look at in the social security administration in this year's report was the children's disability reviews. we found that we could save every $3 billion over a five-year period if the social security administration and the federal government conducted the reviews of children's disability claims on a regular basis. a number of reviews that are supposed to happen on a periodic racist do not happen. either they are delayed or do not happen at all. there might be improper payments in this area. we make recommendations to address this stop at is significant savings, about $3 billion. host: that is one program, you have medicare as well. congress and house negotiators are getting together today in public for the first time to talk about budget blueprints for 2016. a lot of conversation about what should be done about medicare. when gao looks at medicare, can you give us some examples of where there is redundancy? guest: in terms of the body of work we have done outside of redundancy in this arena, it also falls on cost savings. we find opportunities for significant savings and medicare. whether it be program integrity or improper payment issues, better coding could create more efficiencies. for this year's report we touch on medicare in a couple ways. in particular, looking at the department of defense health care plans. we find opportunities for some savings. regarding medicare, we look at cancer hospitals. there are 11 cancer hospitals across the country that are paid a little different under medicare than other hospitals. they are given pay based on actual cost rather than the negotiated fee. as a result, we find there is significant savings to be had if we moved is 11 cancer hospitals in line with all the other hospitals to provide similar services. we are talking about significant dollars, about $500 million annually could be saved if all hospitals were treated equally under medicare for cancer services. host: on twitter, "how many veteran jobs the assistance programs do we have?" there is controversy, congress quickly passes a legislation to address an issue, and then you have got federal program after federal program during the same thing. guest: that is a great question and that is something that can happen. there is a great interest to addressed particular problems that come up and everyone is doing it for the right purpose but the right of visibility i talked about earlier not knowing which programs already exist or which programs are effectively working, that is information that is needed to inform decisions. in terms of veterans' employment, we have had it in our past body of work where we found multiple programs designed to help veterans and have made recommendations for better coordination. so that we are ensuring that we are maximizing every dollar that is invested. host: our line for republicans steve in idaho. good morning. caller: good morning. my question for nicole is this -- we live out here in the intermountain area in idaho. i would like to know why we cannot get money into our infrastructure and put some money into serious country infrastructure. that is all. thank you. guest: thank you for the question. your question reminds me of one issue we examined in this year's report. we found opportunities for significant revenue enhancement. that was the strategic petroleum reserve. we currently, it is currently valued at about $45 billion. we make recommendations that the government should re-examine the size of that reserve. right now, we exceed international standards for the amount of reserve that we have. we believe that government should go in and examine whether we need to maintain those levels of reserves that exceed international standards given our domestic production right now. so we note that if we decide that the reserve is too large we could sell off some of those reserves creating significant revenue that could be used for other national priorities as congress and the administration determined. host: missouri, mike, independent caller,. caller: good morning and thank you for the program. you are the heartbeat of america. that event any survey. -- better than any survey. someday i hope you do a round robin with all the hosts. this is a branch off about waste. i have an 11th grade education i got into middle management and realize that it does not work because you do not get kudos for spending money. you've got to spend everything at the end of the month. three people leaving so they can spend the budget. i wonder if you have talked about that. it is a big waste. i saw it happening in a company that one from a mom-and-pop company to a corporation. it made no sense to me. somebody said it is like your checkbook at home. i said no, if you save money you have it for next month and they do not take it away and penalize you. host: let's talk about that concept in the federal government. guest: you are correct. there can be a lack of incentives for achieving greater efficiency in that the agencies, if they identify potential savings or recommend cuts to programs, they do not necessarily receive additional funding next year. that was one of the areas that i know that we, one of the issues we have talked about in testifying on this body of work. looking at incentive structures for agencies to encourage action. particularly in the strategic area, where we find that greater , the government to do a better job of leveraging its buying power and achieve significant savings through that leveraging of buying power. we have to look at the behaviors and the incentive structures that would encourage agencies to move towards strategic sourcing rather than what they are currently doing. host: indiana, larry, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for your service. it is really exciting to actually see a bill that is being acted upon and you are having a positive effect for the american public. my question is, is that report available to the public, who do we order it through? do you have any idea of the cost? guest: thank you for your comments. you can obtain a free copy from gao if you go to w ww.gao.gov. find this year's report as well as our previous 4 reports online. we've set it up in an interactive way that you can read it online or print out copies. it's very long so i would encourage looking at it online before you hit print. in addition, there are a couple other tools on our website that you might find interesting. first, two years ago we created the action tracker. we must all our previous recommendations from this body of work. if you are interested in a particular topic, go to gao.gov find the link for duplication and see another link for action tracker. go into the tracker, search by agency or topic, pool of the relevant recommendations find what we have previously. reported in the recommendations we have made and in poorly, what progress has been made. we update it twice a year. is information for the public and policymakers. this year we added a two for policymakers and analysts across the government. to help them identify and root out instances of fragmentation overlap and duplication. we refer to it as a management and evaluation guide. it contains two parts, one is designed for policymakers. the other is designed for analysts. if you want to think about it, it is a series of questions that would lead analysts are policymakers through the process of identifying duplication overlap or fragmentation starting from the beginning. defining the problem, thinking about what type of data is needed, what type of evaluation could be used. and possible ideas for crafting recommendations. this is an interactive tool that we have added to our website. we think it will be useful for analysts and policymakers. host: over the past five years as gao has done this report, where do you find the most areas of growth and hence the most redundancy? guest: it is not surprising that we have made the most recommendations to the largest agencies. so we have made the most recommendations to agencies such as department of defense, health and human services treasury. with that said, the issue of duplication, overlap and fragmentation is something that we find across the government. we have made recommendations to all cabinet departments as well as over 15 other federal agencies. it is not something that is isolated only to the bigger players. host: elizabeth on twitter wants to know, "is military redundancy ok but food for poor programs not?" guest: no. redundancy in any fashion regardless of program, that creates inefficiency is something we need to examine. and have data brought to bear to make informed decisions about how we can better identify it and dress it -- address it. host: steve, massachusetts, democrat. caller: i have a question. the bill senator coburn got passed to do the study by the gao it has been completed now in its entirety is my understanding. is that correct? guest: no. the requirement for us to conduct a study is an annual requirement. it does not sunset. we have conducted 4 reviews and issued 4, i guess we have issued 5 reports now as of this past april. as soon as we finished that report, we have started on the report for next year. this is something that we will continue to do to highlight these issues, both for congress and the executive branch agencies. host: does gao know how much it costs to do this report? guest: it requires significant resources across the agency. all our different teams, we are divided into teams based on subject matter expertise. all of our institutional knowledge and expertise is brought to bear when we are producing the report. the good news is over the years we have been able to incorporate this into our routine audit. conducting audits throughout the government every year. so now when we are in the field this is one of the questions we built in an area of opportunity to reduce any duplication, overlap or fragmentation that we see. we have become more efficient in carrying out the study. host: all year long you are collecting data for the annual report. guest: through routine audits. for our annual report, this is based on gao reports throughout the year. we roll them up, the ones that have evidence of duplication overlap or fragmentation, and pulled those together. we highlight them again for policymakers. host: this reviewer wants to know, "if we consolidate services, how can we be certain we would be spending less and doing things more efficiently?" guest: services in terms of all government services? that is important and one of the issues we have raised in this body of work. we need better performance information in terms of what is working and what is not working. we can identify, for example over 40 employment and training programs but we do not know which ones are working and which one should be kept and which one should be consolidated or eliminated. we need performance information to make good, informed decisions as the viewer was suggesting. host: beverly, democrat, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to talk to you about medicaid. in our state of ohio, we have john kasich. he has cut everything out that he can cut. i can name 12 or 15 things he has cut. the last one was a week or so ago. he's going to charge $20 to $25 for every medicaid person. i could go on and talk more about how the doctors are operating on people when they do not need an operation. it happened to me three times. i was diagnosed with different things. i had a second opinion and i did not have that. i'm a wright-patterson cancer patient. these doctors out here are getting by with doing operations , it is their own thing. host: all right. nikki clowers? guest: we did not examine those issues in this body of work but i encourage you to go to our website, www. gao.gov. you will find numerous reports on the medicaid program that you might find of interest. there is also contact information for each of those reports. host: this is a question from a viewer on twitter. "if one food program serves only seniors, one only families with children the supplements are different, are they redundant?" guest: not necessarily redundant if they are serving different populations. and have different missions. one might consider the programs fragmented. we would examine that to see if it is creating any inefficiencies and opportunities for them to better leverage the resources. host: dover, new hampshire, margaret, independent caller. caller: hi. i actually do not know whether you have already corrected this problem. quite a few years ago, i was interested in getting a federal job. at the post office, there was a computer of sorts. i applied for a number of jobs in a number of departments. i was shocked when i got these fake, heavy packages. -- big heavy packages. the applications were all different. i spent five years in human resources so i knew better. i am wondering now is there a standard form for people to apply for federal jobs? you could always have a supplement for specialties each person would need but by and large i think it would be really good for those of us who would like a federal job. host: got it. guest: thank you for the question. we did not examine that as part of this report but i would encourage you to go to www.gao.o gov. we examine federal hiring issues and other human capital issues across the government and issue a number of reports each year on that topic. i would encourage you to go to the website and see if we have examined the issues you are raising. host: barbara, cleveland, ohio, republican. good morning. go ahead. caller: yes. i wanted to ask about the cdtb programs. how many cities get cdbg funds and how much is spent? in the 1970's when it started it was for elimination of slum and blight. now it has turned into another low income program that is supposed to help people. it is used for many different things including printing up cities and things of that sort. cities are having great problems with their budgets. host: ok. nikki clowers? guest: we did not examine that particular program in this report but we have examined grant programs in our past work or we have looked at the department of justice grants or fema grants were we have found opportunities for better coordination to ensure that there is no overlap in the grants that the federal government is providing. host: jason, hyattsville, maryland, democrat. caller: good morning. it seems to me it would be logical with the departments, just looking at where all the money is, dod has a rather unique mission. but health and human services as a recent retiree from there, u.s. handholding services. there is so much money that goes through there and there's already a shared service provider within that organization. within hhs none of the operational divisions are told to use that common service shared service provider. i think that would stand and have a lot of potential for taxpayer savings. thank you. guest: we have looked at shared service opportunities in past reports and have found in particular areas where there would be greater efficiencies if we want to -- went to use shared services on a more frequent basis. host: we are talking with nikki clowers, co-author of an annual report by the government accountability office on redundant federal programs. part of our weekly your money conversation, how your taxpayer dollars are being spent. according to this report, $45 billion spent on redundant programs in 2014. find it on gao's website, gao .gov. on twitter, "look at all the money congress could be using to save money instead of trying to repeal obamacare." george, madison, democrat caller . caller: i am wondering disability was supposed to run out in 2016. i'm wondering if it is funded under the recent budget. guest: i am not sure. we have looked at disability programs in the past. whether it be programs for employment or also opportunities for cost savings, looking at where beneficiaries might be receiving both unemployment and disability insurance. in this cases, the government would be replacing lost wages twice. so we have included this types of issues in the past and made recommendations to both agencies as well as congress to address the issue. host: how do agencies react to this report and the recommendations that you make for them? guest: generally we get agreement with the recommendation we make. before we issue a product, we share the draft with the responsible agencies and obtain what we refer to as agency comment. they have an opportunity to react to what we are saying, make suggestions or the opportunity to disagree. if they disagree, we will reprint their disagreement and what we think about their disagreement. in general, we find agreement with what we are seeing here in this body of work, which i think is reflected in the fact that we have made such steady progress over the last four years. we have 37% of all our recommendations addressed, as well as almost 40% that are in some stage of implementation. host: who does the agency? is it the federal agency or is congress that says we are going to write into law on this appropriations or authorization bill for the pentagon that they are going to reduce this program or do something with this redundancy to save money? guest: it can be both and frequently is both. of the agency and congress taking action. for example, a couple years ago we made recommendations in the area of combat uniforms. we found that different services were pursuing different acquisition strategies in different families of camouflage for the services. we found that that created inefficiencies. also potentially putting our servicemen and women at greater risk on the battlefield. he made recommendations that they should better coordinate these efforts and not only did the department of defense take action, congress took action as well. as a result, the army decided not to pursue a new family of camouflage saving $4.2 billion. host: one of our viewers once to know, "explain how you differentiate between redundancy overlap and fragmentation." guest: fragmentation, we define that as multiple agencies being involved in the same area of national need. for example, we talk about the consumer safety products, we found 20 agencies in that same arena and we found opportunities for greater coordination. overlap is next on the continuum. we find multiple agencies providing similar services to similar inefficient areas. in this year's report, one of the examples we gave was nonemergency medical transportation. we had 42 programs across six agencies providing similar services to similar populations. and then on the far end of the continuum, we have duplication. that is where we have multiple agencies providing the same services to the same beneficiaries. the one example we did not talk about yet was duplication in the department of defense's health care system. there is a component within that referred to as the family health plan. it provides the same benefit as tri-care now provides. the family health care plan was created in 1982 to provide the benefits in certain locations across the country. tri-care was introduced in the 1990's and now provides this benefits to military beneficiaries across the country. country. what we found is there is duplication in the benefit that are being provided and eliminating the family health plan to save significant administrative costs in the range of millions of dollars per year. [indiscernible] one example of many. you can go to the website if you are interest did in a certain federal program. you can find the action tracker to see what action they have. thank you for talking to our viewers about this. that does it for today's washington journal. thank you very much. we will be back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern time. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150420

these are programs that serve people that are already walking on an economic tightrope. i consider that a mistake. i will close on upbeat note with a question about how tax reform should be built around the middle class. the amendment i offered got 73 votes. it makes things a little bit easier. if you are a parent with several children and you are struggling to get by, i am very hopeful that i am looking forward to working with you on a host of these issues. let's build on bipartisanship and we are able to do that with an amendment that says the tax reform we know is going to be a challenging debate. it will be built around tax relief. >> congressman moore. congressman moore: thank you so much for yielding. i do want to join my other colleagues in thanking the house and the senate for calling this conference together and acknowledging all of the distinguished members of the committee. i have been on the budget committee for over four years. and i am just not accustomed. i have not become accustomed to how we, in this democracy, how we can continue to attempt to balance the budget by doubling down on a failed economic theory of just providing more and more tax benefits to the wealthiest 1% of americans. while literally throwing the poor under the bus -- i know on a bipartisan basis, people don't have that much regard for the poor. but we are doing it to displace workers, working moms. the expense of our infrastructure. it disabled infants and children that can't work. our debt ridden students trying to take care of us in our older years. our elderly and infirmed, it's just amazing to me. 59% come from low income people from moderate income programs. this is stuff that used to be bipartisan. and so i just think what we are doing is dangerous. it will eviscerate our safety net and drive millions more to poverty. i am grieved by the snap cuts proposed in this budget. the cut to prosperity, asking the wealthiest to provide one single time. it is just outrageous. as the chair of the federal reserve recently said, the extent of and continuing increase of inequality greatly concerns me. it is no secret the past few decades of widening the inequality can be summed up as a significant income, stagnant living standards for the majority. it is for us to ask if it is equality of opportunity. i oppose the strict coney and budget cuts. there is one thing i want to commend the senate on. senators on a bipartisan basis including both my senators from wisconsin established a deficit neutral reserve fund to allow workers to earn paid sick leave. that is a good starting point for helping the economy and for helping working americans. suffer tremendously and average 3.5 days of pay loss. it is good for the economy and good for our society. it is set to make agonizing choices. particularly women when they don't have six time. given the standstill we are having over health care, i think we can ill afford the compensated care. i don't think we can afford a next her $1.1 billion. let me end by saying that i think it is admirable to try to deal with our deficit. we are willing to do this at the expense of our democracy. in the first depression, we had inequality greater than it's ever been. 2008, when we saw the greatest great recession here in our country again. again, inequality was greater than it had ever been. caution, my colleagues. i yield back. senator crapo: i want to join those that have commanded you and representative price for coming together for the first time in years have a budget. it doesn't seem to get to year two. the make the hard decisions and make no decisions in the early years were very weak ones. we ought to start getting ourselves to year for five and six of the budget. not only have we recently got into a problem with year two, we haven't gotten to year one. we must deal with a national dad. i say that little differently. it doesn't solve that perfectly but it is down the road of addressing that difficult question. we do have a 10 year window in this budget. interest on the national debt is the fastest-growing element of the budget. interest on the national debt will exceed all discretionary nondefense discretionary spending within five years. it will exceed our entire national defense budget within about seven or eight years. it helps people understand the urgency of the need to not only adopted budget. a mandate that we must adopt a budget to make some of these tough decisions about how we need to move forward. many of those attacking the budgets put forward by the senate and the house are attacking them because they don't raise taxes. as the old philosophy of taxing and spending was the solution for our country and our economy. it's not. i commend chairman for not only resisting the urge to just raise taxes once again, but going even stronger and giving us the opportunity to contemplate reforming the tax code. giving the economy the opportunity to grow. you would be hard-pressed to come up with one that is more unfair, expected to comply with, and anti-competitive to our job growth in the united states. instead of defining tax reform as raising taxes. i have agree with my colleague senator wyden. the explosive spending is driving our government and we will be able to significantly address the kinds of problems that others are bringing forward. i want to talk about a couple specifics in the budget. a couple of amendments are in the budget. to stop the congress from continuing to use fannie and freddie g fees. another to stop congress from basically robbing the crime victims fund. and using it to mask spending on other things and stopping the money from being able to be used for some of the most vulnerable victims of domestic violence and our society. i see i am running out of time so mr. chairman, i'm going to quickly say i support the comments made by senator sessions and others that we've got to find a way to offset the sgr vote. hope we can continue to successfully address those issues. and how we deal with the funding as we move forward. the hard work and the hard decisions you have made bringing us to this point. congressman black: let me say what an honor it is to serve on this so we can begin the important work of adopting a unified budget agreement. we know the stakes are high and we can be encouraged by the knowledge that our house and senate passed budgets already reflecting many of the same core principles. we have said today that budgets truly are a statement of our values. i am pleased that they agree on the importance of a plan that balances within 10 years. we agree that we shouldn't take more from hard-working families to fuel washington's runaway spending with another tax increase. we agreed we must offer americans a way out of regulations, mandates, and cost of obama care. we agree that budgets aren't an optional part. they are a fundamental responsibility of governing. in both parties in both chambers in the coming days, to craft this rigid agreement -- budget agreement. as a nurse for over 40 years i'm particularly interested in discussing how our budget can lay a vision for a better way forward for health care. we know that the president's health care law is failing to live up to some of the most basic promises. i hear that in my town hall meetings across my 19 counties. with providers here in washington and in the phone calls and e-mails i receive on a daily basis. the congressional budget office says obamacare will cost our economy the equivalent of more than 2 million full-time jobs. and when it's all said and done, those same estimates tell us that 31 million americans will remain uninsured. that is why the budget agreement repeals obamacare, allowing us to start over with real reforms. not washington bureaucrats. the unified budget document needs to maintain these provisions. if you want to offer real-world solutions that strengthen the relationship, let families keep more money in their pockets, it is stirring with a racing the damage of obama care and offering a clean -- a clean slate to work from. i'm looking forward to the important work ahead and i want to thank chairman price and chairman nancy. >> senator -- >> i appreciate your courtesy through this process. we appreciate you being here. it's great to have another michigan person on the committee. the budget process is our opportunity to have a debate about our values and our priorities. we should ask ourselves how do we make sure every american has a fair shot to work hard and succeed. how does everybody make sure that we have a chance at what we call the american dream? the answer is clear. to make sure the budget works for the middle class. the republican budgets passed by the house and senate do not do that. we are not hearing that much today, but there is good news. it when the president took office we were in the biggest all we had seen since the great depression. it was 15.7%. it was a very difficult and painful time. it is now 5.6%. that is a huge shift. two thirds of our yearly deficit has been eliminated. two thirds of our yearly deficit has been eliminated. the challenge for us is to make sure that every american has the opportunity to succeed in this economy. to work hard and succeed with one job, not two or three. we need one good paying job where you can raise a family and succeed. that means a middle-class budget. that protect social security and medicare and other health care services. we're not coming out of college with more debt than it would take to buy a big house. and the cut taxes for middle-class families. these budgets keep the system rigged for the wealthy and the well-connected. these budgets don't do enough to create jobs. we know the economy will the go as far as the infrastructure will take us. that infrastructure is crumbling. by closing corporate tax loopholes and conversions that take jobs overseas, oftentimes just on paper. and equal pay for women. it would make sure the affordable care act would continue for 16 point 4 million americans instead of having the massive tax increase that comes with getting rid of the tax credits. it would stop the cuts in medicare and medicaid. i do want to mention one other thing as chair of the agriculture nutrition enforcement committee during the 2014 farm bill. we made very tough decisions at that time. we cut over 100 different programs and authorizations. we cut billions of dollars more than was required. the only committee that did that. our ranchers and families need the uncertainty of this farm bill. thank you for not including agriculture in the reconciliation instruction -- structure in the senate. we have different organizations led by the farm bureau and others that ask us not to include the house language in the final document. and unfortunately, if we open up the farm bill, everything has opened up. if we open up the farm bill, it will be cropped insurance and conservation as well as nutrition and rural development and other things that are absolutely critical for certainty in rural america. i look forward to working with you. i hope this final document will recognize the work that was done on a bipartisan basis. it was my pleasure to work with chairman lucas to achieve what i think we want to do, making smart cuts, consolidating and putting in place a path for economic development. i hope that that will be recognized in the final document. compass minerals and our -- congressman moolenaar: i want to complement the chairs for their leadership and say what a privilege it is to serve on this conference committee. while our backgrounds vary, we are here in an important step towards governing the way the american people expect. it is a positive step in the right direction. there is a real possibility that both chambers of commerce will adopt a resolution for a balanced budget. this will set the guardrails for federal spending in the coming year as well as the decade. they need to tighten their belts and balance their budget. and that is something we need to do in washington as well. this balanced budget will not raise taxes on hard-working americans and will keep the promises made to seniors. it took more than 200 years for the government to accumulate $5 trillion in debt. by 2008, it had doubled to $10 trillion. and it has skyrocketed to $18 trillion. it has been mentioned already that a child born today inherits 56,000 $250 in debt. to hundreds when he $5,000 for a family of four. if we fail to act debt payments will crowd out spending for the bipartisan priorities of the american people. programs to protect the great lakes and funding for the roads and bridges. our debt to gdp ratio is over 90% hindering job growth and job creation. tax reform has the potential to add one million new private sector jobs. this budget calls for tax reform. they had to deal with the long and constituted federal tax code. he was fond of saying the tax code is digger than the bible with none of the good news. middle-class americans say that it is $160 billion trying to comply with it every year. we leave middle-class families filling out the return correctly and the irs will not audit them. a better system cannot come soon enough. the federal tax code complicates plans to expand and hire new workers. it buries them and pulls their time and talent away from running their businesses. these and nations -- they are left at a competitive disadvantage. it is time for a better tax code that is simple and fair. the federal government makes it easier for families to pay taxes. this budget addresses our country's fiscal problems in a responsible way. thank you. >> i just completed a bipartisan markup on a contentious issue. with the result of the 22-zero bipartisan vote on a new elementary and secondary education act. we just witnessed a unanimous bipartisan result in the senate committee on foreign relations on another difficult and contentious question. the bipartisan and why chemical record of the murray negotiations. we just resolved the annoying doc fix. bipartisanship progress is possible. but not in the budget committee. this budget effort has been a partisan ramrod. when i have said my piece here this morning, we are all done. republicans can ram their budget through. this has made the budget process ridiculous. nobody cares. virtually nobody came to our hearings and markups. appropriations now have to pass the senate by 60 votes. even the 60 vote budget point of order is meaningless. which is not surprising because none of the hard work went into this budget. they have produced a foreseeable result. a budget so bad that if it were applied to actual appropriated accounts, i doubt even most republicans would vote for it. if republicans did a ply this budget, once the american people got a good look at its extremism and its favoritism, i suspect it would put a quick and to the republican majority. what will happen in stead is that our republican friends will ask president obama to bail them out by negotiating them out of this dreadful hole they've dug for themselves. if it weren't for the price regular families would have to pay, it would almost be worth letting republicans have two apply this budget just to educate the american people. they will say this is strong medicine, but necessary to avoid fiscal catastrophe. the deficit hawks themselves don't believe it. there is a test that proves what i say. look at the federal benefits that help the rich and the powerful. those benefits tend to come to the tax code and almost as much revenue flows about the backdoor with loopholes and reductions than actually gets collected by the government and spent. name a special interest tax benefit reduced to address the deficit. big oil gets massive and completely unnecessary tax benefits. do we ask them to sacrifice one dime towards this terrible deficit? not one dime. hedge fund billionaires pay lower federal tax rates than truck drivers and brick masons. do we ask them to sacrifice one dime towards this supposedly terrible deficit? not one time -- dime. do we ask the private jet set to contribute anything? not a dime. many american corporations hide revenue overseas so that they don't pay taxes. big corporations sometimes pay literally zero corporate income tax. the house just voted to add $300 million to the deficit. by bailing out the long-suffering top 0.2% for having to pay any estate tax. they can load up the defense contractors and sometimes beyond what the military is asking for. and there is a gimmick that will allow them to raise the deficit and fast-track reconciliation bills. if people arsons here republicans need to put in a special budget gimmick to let them increase the deficit. the concern of app or eight surround wealth and power. -- deficit is at its -- evaporates around wealth and power. i hope that when we get to appropriations and actually funding the country, we will come to a more sensible middle ground. >> senator portman is not here. senator warner is not here. senator toomey is not here. senator merkley is not here. senator johnson: thank you, mr. chairman. this is a rare moment. it shouldn't be, but it is. i take the position of the glass half-full as opposed to glass half-empty. he mentioned a number of areas of bipartisanship. that's a good thing. there are an awful lot of areas of agreement. as we pass out some handouts here the opening statement i will start looking at some numbers. we have difficult choices and we really want to solve problems as opposed to just demagogue issues. there's a first step you have to take. it to admit you have one. our budget process is really centered around a 10 year budget window. it is a problem but it is not the problem. this congress has made promises to all kinds of americans. we can't honor all those problems. looking at the proper definition to enable america to collectively mean we have it. it is to provide the information of the american people. we take a look at the first page of the handout here. this is the 30 year projected deficit. you see the first decade about a trillion dollars of projected deficits. that is massive. in case you are thinking this is just pie-in-the-sky and way too large, there is a range. take a look at the percentages of gdp. you argue that these projections are still low when it comes to defense spending and other programs. you can see the ultimate fiscal scenario coming true and the debt to gdp ratio will be 224%. that is a problem. the defense spending, it is funding of the wars causing these massive deficits. historically, we are still at a pretty low rate. we need to look at the facts and figures. the last point we want to make we did pass this by unanimous consent. and some members on the democratic side. when i was looking for democrat sponsors, we compromise. it was pretty understandable. they see the first two columns of social security medicare. that's about $50 trillion of that $127 trillion deficit. on one page, we show where we are spending our money. we show where we are getting our income and it kind of directs our activities. i hope this budget conference adopts that amendment. we start showing american people the truth. you have to first admit we've got a problem. i thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, chairman enzi. thank you, chairman price. i am very clean's to be here with the members of this committee. the first time in many years i've had the opportunity to pass a joint senate house budget resolution that will guide spending decisions for the next fiscal year. this is an important first step. and too long we've waited to get this done. it's a basic thing we need to do in governing this country. the national debt was $14 trillion. one of the reasons i ran for the united states senate is i am the mother of a seven-year-old and a 10-year-old. i firmly believe that if we don't start taking the steps to get our fiscal house in order it's not just about my children. and what kind of we will be for them going forward. and according to the long-term outlook, if we continue over the next 24 -- .5 years, it includes many important entitlement programs. they are not only going to become unsustainable and go bankrupt we are not going to fulfill those promises but the growth squeezing out important discretionary spending. we must address these important issues. the budget that was passed includes a number of priorities in terms of the state of new hampshire. i think this is very important. we thought what happened to our veterans was shameful. and we gave people a private choice options of they did not have to wait in line. the obama administration wanted to shift funding saying that this wasn't being adequately used. veterans are not being informed of their rights and they are not getting the response that they should. i hope this amendment stays in this budget. both budgets make tough choices to create a fiscally responsible blueprint. to provide the best opportunity to address obamacare and don't raise taxes. by contrast, the budget was never balanced. i voted against because it failed to address the big picture problems in terms of addressing the federal spending. i continue to be concerned about the harmful cuts to jeopardize our ability to defend the nation. i included an amendment to include funding. i hope this remains in this budget. if you look at where we are with the threat we face from isis the threats we face around the world, what we are facing the responsibility is to protect national security. i'm glad the house took this measure as well. this doesn't address the long-term issue with sequestration. i hope we can take on the big picture problems and ensure we can defend the nation and prioritize things like medical research. today we take an important step moving forward in this conference. i hope we pass a joint budget resolution and finally bring some certainty to a budget process that has been any and but certain and has been broken for far too long. it will require leadership and courage and i appreciate the leadership from both of our chairman. working together, we can reduce waste and inefficiency. i am glad we are doing that today. i hope going forward, we can work to ensure that not only my children but all of our children , that is not possible. that we can show this is an important first step. >> senator king. senator king: i have been a mayor and governor that did a lot of budgets. the white house submitted the budget on time this year. both houses of congress acted on time. we are a little bit late. i wanted to take a selfie. in 2013, both houses acted on time. but when the democrats tried to start a conference, it was resisted by a handful and would not allow us to start a conference. that led to the shutdown of government. and it was only after the government had to shut down that we were able to get back to a conference table and try to find a deal. i hope you will try to find a serious deal. one of the problems people have with congress is the high blown rhetoric. to say that a budget balances when you keep all the revenue from obama can -- obamacare and repeal obama care, it's not serious. when you count all the revenue of the estate tax and vote to repeal it, it is not serious. it is not seriously balance and demonstrates a lack of seriousness about the deficit at all. i doubt we will find a serious deal. ultimately after the government was shut down, we shut down -- sat down and chairman came up with a serious deal. each side had to give a little bit. we did not embrace the foolish sequester cuts. i hope we will find a serious deal that won't rely on the gimmicks i just described. that it would involve a form of bryan murray part two that would relieve the arbitrarily low budget caps that are hurting us. since then, we've got ebola north korean cyberattacks. a bellicose vladimir putin. are we going to stick by a vote that was taken in august of 2011 when the world was throwing curveballs at us? if we are going to be serious about it, we have to look at tax expenditures. here is where tax expenditures are as part of the budget right now. by .1% of gdp is spent on major health issues. 4.9% is being spent on social security. 3.3 is spent on nondefense discretionary. tax expenditures, 8.1% of the gdp is being spent on tax expenditures. but when we talk about where we will try to find savings, we ignore that part of the balance sheet. if we're going to try to find a sequester program, we ought to do it with an examination of tax expenditure. if we are going to be serious we have to. the notion in budgets that we are going repeal the affordable care act is not serious. eckstein .4 million americans? 16.4 million people? we are going to take away their health insurance? that is the combined population of wyoming, the district of columbia vermont, north dakota alaska, south dakota delaware montana, rhode island, new hampshire, maine, hawaii idaho nebraska, west virginia. we are going to kick all of those people? we keep them and we keep 16.4 million people. it's not serious. thank you. click -- >> [indiscernible] senator king: ok. mr. chair, i start with the premise that i think all of us share. it is serious for several reasons. in equals $120 billion a year on it and teachers and it is not counting social security debt. we haven't principal problem. children will have to repay it. it's not right, it's not ethical. we have no margin for an emergency. we have used up our slack. we cannot continue to just ignore this problem. i am in total agreement with the chair. how do we deal with it? a serious deficit problem. three basic ways. cut expenditures, increase revenue, and grow the economy in order to create more revenue through growth in the economy. that is how we got to the balanced budget. it wasn't because of cuts or new revenues, the economy was growing in such a rate that it produced additional revenues. the problem i have with the budgets that have been passed they focus on one aspect of the problem. we've had a worldwide experience , a worldwide experiment over the past six or seven years. cutting for the solution for budget deficit. and it has been an ad jack failure. we have empirical evidence. you can look anywhere in the world and people that of tried to cut their way out of this problem, the economy has gotten worse in the deficit itself gets worse. think cuts are part of the answer but not all the answer. there is rarely a silver bullet. there is often silver buckshot. multiple solutions. not just one solution. the idea that spending is out of control, discretionary spending right now as a percentage of gdp with the exception of the two years at the end of the 90's when we had a balanced budget are at the lowest level in 50 years. the idea it is all about -- defenses at the lowest level of percentage for gdp and 75 years. this one part of the budget is missing the big target which is democratics and health care. it is driving the growth and the budget. it is like bobbing brazil after pearl harbor. it is a vigorous response but not aimed at the right target. they talked very specifically about tax expenditures which are now more than actual expenditures. more money leaks out of the tax code than it collects in terms of the size of the current budget. 17.4% of gdp. last summit about's budget, it was 19.2 there has to be a higher level of revenues. not because we want to go crazy but because health care until recently has been growing at a very high rate. in the demographics of all the baby boomers about to retire. and given the demographic changes, we have to have more revenues or the entire function of the federal government will be squeezed out. take the grass out, nothing is left of defense for pilgrim or any other discretionary expenditures. experience in the last 10 years has proven that austerity is not an economic stimulant. where the g.i. bill after world war ii and the interstate highway system, both were investments in both cost money. both require revenues in order to pay for them. and that is what build the economy we've been writing on since the 50's and 60's. in this budget, we are going to cut expenditures for r&d, education, job training. that is madness and where economic growth comes from. i agree that we've got to find a way out of this. i would love to work with you guys on this. there are ways we can do it. but you can't just put blinders on and say no more revenues when you have 10,000 people a day becoming eligible for medicare. that is an unbelievable number. i welcome the opportunity to work with my colleagues on this. it is the only part we are focused on. >> i thank you for your perseverance and leadership. we are now prepared to resolve differences for the first time in many years, have a meaningful budget. it is an important micro step. we still have a lot of work to do over the coming years. we need to put together a responsible framework that eliminates the need for budget gimmicks. we need a budget resolution to return our nation to fiscal stability. it is the first step in restoring faith of the american people. you have an outside perspective that allows me to see the current financial situation from a unique if. people are outraged. i am outraged by the financial irresponsibility of washington on both sides of the aisle. this federal government spent $21.5 trillion doing this business. we borrowed a trillion dollars of it. that simply cannot continue. it's over $18 trillion. there isn't enough urgency terrain that in. if business rates were to go to the 30 year average alone, we would be paying twice what we allocate for military spending and equal to what we have at the total discretionary budget. for a generation, dysfunction has created gridlock. one side wants tax increases another want spending cuts. neither one will solve the problem entirely. we cannot tax our way out of this mess and we can't cut our way out either. we have to get serious over this coming year. to get our economy growing and do the things washington can do best. the free enterprise system getting this economy going. one simple point of growth means over $3 trillion in general tax revenue. let's grow this economy. it is anemic right now and has been for the last decade. the 30 year averages over 3.5% and we can get back to that. combined with eliminating agencies that would go a long way to setting up kids and grandkids. further, we need to restore the promise of a brighter future. to ensure that these programs will so be there for the people that need them most. they are facing bankruptcy today. right now, we have an opportunity to lead. this provides us with an open and transparent process. i believe both the house and the senate have included important budget reforms that i wholeheartedly embrace. we need to debate those front and center. it is just the first micro step. to cut out wasteful spending allow us to balance the budget sooner, and develop a long-term debt crisis plan. merely balancing the budget is not good enough. we need to develop a long-term plan. and put our nation back on a path to fiscal responsibility. we measure our debt, the size of our government as a percentage of gdp. that makes sense when you have a benchmark with which to compare. people want this government to work. they want washington to be functional. this process gives us an opportunity towards meeting the goals and making washington work again. we have had about six weeks to deal with six years of fiscal irresponsibility. the time to stand up and do what is right is now. thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman: thank you. senator baldwin followed by senator murphy. senator baldwin: thank you, mr. chairman and chairman price. i'm proud to be serving on my second budget conference committee as a u.s. senator. the last time we were all here together in a conference room like this one i said we needed to pass a responsible budget that invests in the middle class, strengthens our economy and takes a balanced approach to reducing the deficit without shortchanging our future. i believe that the murray-ryan budget deal didn't very best to hold true -- it it's very best the hold you to those goals -- true to those goals. the past budgets solutions before us are more partisan. they slash investments in the middle class they threaten our economic recovery and there anything but balanced. there is not a single tax expenditure or tax loophole that is closed in these budgets. millions of americans would lose the health insurance they rely upon today. under the house republican budget resolution, over 873,000 wisconsin seniors would be kicked off traditional medicare and forced into a voucher program. almost 90,000 wisconsin seniors would pay more for prescription drugs next year because of the resolution would reopen the so-called doughnut hole. the economic recovery that every day wisconsinites have worked so hard to bring about would be threatened. in wisconsin alone, over 40,000 workers would lose access to job training and re-training programs to help them rejoin the workforce. the dream of a college degree would become that much further out of reach for 117,000 wisconsin students as more than 90 billion in pell grant funding is cut over the next decade. one thing thatb both republicans and democrats should be able to agree on is the need to pass a budget that grows our economy for the middle class instead of reading the rules in favor of special interest and millionaires and billionaires. we should be able to find agreement that what america needs is a middle-class budget that gives everyone a fair shot to get ahead and to build a stronger future for themselves and their families. these budget proposals miss another opportunity for all of us. unfortunately, they will not help our budget -- our economy rise. most importantly, that will not help hard-working middle-class americans rise. i thank you, mr. chairman, for this opportunity. mr. chairman: thank you. senator: thank you, mr. chair. as i compare the two versions of the budget from the house and senate i was asking myself the same question as when we deliberated. is this a budget double work for working of -- that will work for working americans or is it a budget designed for powerful special interests because there has been a lot of rhetoric on both sides of the aisle about helping the middle class and fighting for workers. a budget document puts down real numbers, real concepts in which we could see if it is just rhetoric or indeed if this is a vision for expanding and strengthening the middle class. i was totally disappointed the knee that neither of the budgets passed the test. both budgets in a parallel fashion are designed to help the powerful special interests and the best off. sony sectors -- so many parts of our community will be affected in a negative way with this vision. our seniors will be either effected -- affected by the house version of it or the senate version of $400 million in cuts. our infrastructure is failed in both budgets. we have an infrastructure deficit. both budgets fail to address this to create good paying jobs and a strong economy in the future. this budget fails our children. it cuts headstart on the house side. and sequestration plus additional cuts on the senate side, perhaps as many as thousands of students who would have had the opportunity to get a fair start in life and will not get that. it certainly fails our children when it comes to doors of opportunity for higher education. pell grants are an essential component for our families that are struggling. open those doors of opportunity for our children for higher education. yet, here we have it. two budgets that slash tell grants. it also fails our hungry. on the senate side, unspecified cuts that most would estimate dramatically impact the snap program. the house side was more detailed and specifying the money of cuts for the hungry. like my colleague from wisconsin, i searched for those efforts to ask sacrifice of those best off. we all understand, americans all understand programs for the best off is in the tax code. not subject to an annual appropriations process. they certainly can be identified in the budget process. yet, we see not a single dollar, not one dollar. so, take the axe to the hungry and the seniors and the children and the consumers by trying to eviscerate the independence of the watchdogs against predatory practices so common in the financial marketplace. they axe all those but not one dollar asked of those that are best off with their programs deeply embedded in the tax code. when we went through the senate budget i gave it a failing grade for all of these factors. the house budget does no better. we sit here as a conference committee, we have a choice of choosing or -- how do i put it? the mid-distance between two failing visions or engaging in a bipartisan conversation to address the significant education deficit, the significant infrastructure deficit, to address the significant inequality in america, to address this shortcoming in good paying jobs in america. that is the path we should take. thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman: thank you. that concludes the presentations. i want to thank everybody for their participation. i want to thank the house members for their patience and participation and staying under the five minutes. some of you very substantially. i think the senators for staying under six minutes for the most part. i would mention that statements can be submitted by the close of business tomorrow for anyone that wants to add or put in a statement.a with all statements concluded this meeting of the conference committee the 2016 budget resolution is done. that's a nice gavel. [inaudible conversations] >> challenge the new internet rules, organizations have filed lawsuits against the fcc. tonight, we will speak with the president and ceo of one of those organizations. walter mccormick and christopher lewis. >> what we are challenging is the reclassification of internet access from being an information service to a telecommunications service regulated as a common carrier pursuant to 19th-century railroad regulation. commong carriage is a vestige of a english law which a originally applied to railroads, trucking companies but it has been revealed for all of those industries going over 30 years ago because it proved to impose new costs on consumers. delayed deployment, slurred innovation and chilled investment. christopher: we both agree that meant neutrality protections are important, but we do disagree with the lawsuit. we have been very supportive of the rules that the fcc enacted and have become a force of law. we think that after a decade of working towards a way toto have net neutrality rules that can hold up in court, this is the strongest set of protections we have seen in the three different attempts at the agency to ensure the internet remains open. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span2. >> during this month, c-span is pleased to present the winning entries and this year's studentcam documentary competition. it is an annual competition that encourages middleton high school students to think critically about issues that affect the nation. students are asked to create a story based on the three branches and you that demonstrates how a policy has affected them or their community. destin bigby from long beach polytechnic high school in long beach, california is one of our second prize winners. his entry focused on weapon availability and background checks. >> i hate guns. >> it is the right to bear arms. >> i find them frightening. >> if i can snap my fingers and all the guns could be gone, i don't see why not. >> when is it appropriate? what is appropriate for our citizens of the united states to carry? ♪ >> i was born in the age of suicides street justice and mass shootings all because of the second amendment. >> the constitution is beginning to show its age. destin: a voice for america's youth. nearly 20,000 people commit suicide with a gun every year. once that trigger is pulled, there is no stopping the bullet. like so many others, my cousin committed suicide with a gun putting my family into shock and disarray. to this day, a void has been left in that can never be filled. i think any depressed kid that walks into a pondawn shop to be able to buy a gun without any kind of background check whatsoever, probably not. >> sim got a gun. he threatened suicide. we were able to intercept him prevent the suicide, take the gun away from him. get rid of the gun. get him in therapy. but, that only lasted so long. then he got another got. >> we tried to get him a lot of help and he ended up walking into a pawn shop and buying a gun. he used that gun to kill himself. >> he evidently didn't have any problem buying the second gun even though he was already in the database, as we say, as a mentally ill person who i believe should not be able to buy a gun. destin: i live in los angeles county, the home of compton inglewood and long beach. three cities with gun violence. here in content, california, one of the most dangerous cities in the united states. to speak with the people. >> either way, there are easy ways to get around it. >> killing innocent people is totally wrong. it is not about that. that is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. >> probably seven or eight and i was playing with my friends and it was a drive-by shooting. bullets flying everywhere. it was very scary. i could have lost my life. i did not want anybody else to lose their life either. >> they call it street justice. and the end of the day, it is not justice, it is just someone losing their life over something really stupid and trivial. >> the drive-bys -- they just cower in the car. >> every year, more than 230,000 guns are stolen from those who legally purchase them. >> we ended up harming -- arming criminals. that was not the intent on why we had those guns. >> the committee is changing its view on guns. snoop dogg is leading the charge. snoop dogg: we are the ones that can help prevent gun violence as we speak as one as a whole rap community. it should not be when somebody's affected directed to you that you do something about it.d destin: i'm here in newtown, connecticut to speak with the people and to make sure the tragedy like the one at sandy hook elementary never happens again. on december 14, 2012. six teachers and 20 elementary school students lost their lives at sandy hook elementary. i sat down with the people of newtown to hear their story. >> i'm walking around looking for his little brown head. i didn't see it. it was never a thought in your mind that anything could happen to your child. destin: she never did find his little brown ted. head. her son lost his life that day. >> i felt numb. it was survival mode at this point. two years later and it still -- i will always be credibly difficult. >> as we see more and more weapons in our society or more opportunities to get very powerful weapons, you may see the body count go up. >> the weapons that were in his hands should never have been able to reach his hands and will hopefully never reach the hands of anyone. >> limiting the size of the magazine. it would not have made any difference. it did. when he stopped to reload at one time a group of children were able to run out of the room and escape. >> his final action in the classroom which was instrumental in saving nine of his classmates ' lives. as the gun men ran out of bullets and was reloading comedy called to his friends to run. the gunman reloaded and murdered jesse. destin: it is a shame the world lost jesse but he cannot die in vain. something must be done to make sure something like this never happens again. >> this is an absolute epidemic. when there was no response from congress, not a single legislative act passed to try to do something about this. it sends a message of quiet endorsement. destin: it is time for the legislative branch to pass stricter gun laws. our future depends on it. how many more children have to dive, mothers have to cry before something is done? quest to watch all of the winning videos and learn more about our competition, go to c-span.org and click on student cam. tell us what you think about the issue on facebook and twitter. >> on tomorrow morning's washington journal, a conversation on legislation that would require a vote with no amendment on a trade deal between 12 nations along the pacific ocean. the trade agreement is called the transpacific partnership. our guest is linda dempsey. colorado democratic congressman jared polis to discriminate. jennifer lawless on her book "running for office: why young americans are turned off by politics." it is every morning at 7 a.m. eastern and right now, a conversation from today's program. . here to talk about that is the director of the department of justice's office for victims of crime, joye frost. thank you very much for being here. what is your role and mission here? guest: the office for victims of crimes really has the role of changing policies, practices and programs throughout the country, creating a more favorable climate for crime victims. so crime victims feel comfortable enough to report to law enforcement, to ask for assistance, and really not to be ashamed or embarrassed or afraid because they are crime victims. host: favorable climate -- why do you think that is necessary? guest: while we know that crime itself, but violent crime and property crime have been decreasing steadily since the 1990's, we also know that the vast majority of crime victims never reach out for help. only about 14% to 50% at the very most. less than 50% of victims of severe violent crime report. there are a lot of different reasons for that. some people, like children, are people with severe cognitive or communication disabilities and may not be able to report. others may feel, like in the case of sexual assault victims that they might not be believed. others feel that law enforcement would not really do anything. and sadly, a lot of victims don't understand that what has happened to them is in fact a crime. host: what sort of help are these victims seeking from law enforcement and the department of justice? what can they find? guest: i think one of the most important things, not just from law enforcement, but from the community as a whole -- i cannot think -- be for every crime victims. every victim is unique and different. there are certain characteristics. first of all like i mentioned earlier, crime victims want to be believed, whether it is law enforcement, your spouse, your parents, your roommate, your colleagues at work. people want to be believed. a want to show faith and i think law enforcement, of course, can play an important role there. a want to feel supported. -- they want to feel supported. they want to know about services available to them. and law enforcement plays a critical role, i think, in time crime victims to longer-term support. all victims want to be treated with dignity and respect. host: we are talking about national crime victims rights week. it kicked off yesterday. here is how we are going to divine -- divide the phone line. if you are in the eastern part of the country call it we will get your calls here in just a minute. we are joined by joye frost, the rocker -- director of the department of justice office of victims of crime. what are you trying to do here? guest: what we are tried to do is raise public awareness about the issues that that face every crime victim. even if you yourself have not been a victim of crime, i would say that it is almost universally that you know someone who has been. a family member, a love one, a work colleague, a fellow student. everybody has a role. this year's theme is engaging communities and empowering victims. if we meet those basic needs that i just talked about. most victims are going to feel supported and will be able to access services and benefits from the services. this is actually the 35th year that we have celebrated national crime victim rights week. president reagan actually designated the first national crime victims rights week. tomorrow at the national archives, we have a national crime victims rights week award ceremony that will involve the attorney general. i have to put a plug in here for this. it starts at 2:00 p.m. and runs until three -- 3:30 p.m.. it is open to the general public. you can register online at obc duckovc.gov or you can register online at the national archives. we will love to see people in the washington dc area come. host: what do you mean by victim's wrrights? guest: back in the 1980's, crime victims had very few rights. it was actually a presidential task force in the 1980's that really outlined quite frankly the dilemma and plight of crime victims. and the way that in many instances, they were just treated as another piece of evidence. we have come a long way since then. all the states and territories have crime victims rights laws. many of them have constitutional amendments that allow victims certain rights. some of the most important ones are the right to be heard. many of them are things such as the right to be treated with dignity and with respect, the ability or the right to seek restitution from who ever has offended against you to help cover some of the expenses associated with the crime, the right to apply for safe crime victim compensation. every state and most of the territories have safe crime victim compensation fund as well. there are other rights, but those are some of the key ones. host: what was happening in the 1980's to prompt the congress and the president to set up the office that you now run? guest: they had hearings all of the country. they listened and in some instances, the abysmal way that victims were treated and they were not believed. they do not get information back from their cases. some of the saddest cases had families of murder victims that were completely excluded from the courtroom. this task force came forward with numerous recommendations about how to change that. some of the rights that victims need, but also some of the services and support that would benefit crime victims. host: the crime victims fund which is federal state, tribal assistance programs to receive formula grants in 2012. money was $2.8 billion. the hundred $59 million in grants from the fund to states for victim compensation as you were just talking about. an $870 million for victim assistance. if this program successful? -- is this program successful? guest: yes, absolutely. there are millions of victims served annually through the crime victims fund. one of the thing that i hope the people watching this program understands is that this crime victims fund is composed of not a single taxpayer dollar. it is fines, policies -- penalties, and assessments against criminal offenders. it is one of the most innovative federal programs whereby criminals pay dollars into the crime victims fund. as you mentioned, it is not insubstantial. this particular year 2015, congress set the appropriations level for the crime victims fund at $2.361 billion. host: less than 2012 number? guest: 2012 was a big increase. the states will have a considerable now -- amount of funding this year's. i don't want to talk about the dollars and statistics. i want to talk about the lifeline of services that these funds represent. you can go to any domestic violence shelter like a crisis center or children at this busy center. -- advocacy center. if you ever come into a prosecutor's office, it is almost a certainty that money from the crime victims fund is supporting their salaries. host: less talk about that in just a minute. for viewers,ovc,gov is the website. let's get to calls. eric in minneapolis. caller: i just want to say thanks to "washington journal." i love the program. i'm a first-time caller. my first time question for joyce is that most people seem to break a law, minor or major, which turns almost the entire population into a criminal at some point. now how has this shaped the relationship between the public and law enforcement? guest: wow. that is a great question. one of the things that we are learning is that the lines between victim and offender is not as clear-cut as it used to be. you can't always just draw a clear line. i think that when you look at rates of youth violence, for example, it is actually young people between the ages of 17-24 that are most likely to be victimized, but they are also the age group that is most likely to be offenders. i do think that again the role that law enforcement place is critical. and how they respond to victims and for that matter, to offenders can make a german does difference. my agency, the office of victims of crime is actually supporting several products -- projects including some with the international association of chiefs of police that really look at changing the culture of law enforcement said that they consider crime victims. and consider them one of their major constituents and stakeholders, which is somewhat of a departure for many and law enforcement. host: consider victims how? guest: consider them as a major constituent. in other words, it is not just about solving the case. it is about treating the victim in such a way and understanding the particular needs of crime victims. crime victims are almost always traumatized by what has happened to them. and so they may not always, for example, be able to tell their story in a sequential way or they may remember things the day afterward. it doesn't mean that the crime victim is lying or making things up. it means that that is just the way that a typical victim is going to remember the story. educating law enforcement and for that matter, other practitioners and other people who come into contact with crime victims about their needs, about the way that they respond is incredibly important. we will go to new york. host: polycom and good morning. caller: my interest is the increasing number of sexual crime victims. they are especially aimed at children. we have a lot of things and our tv and newspapers and everything. i think we need to take a different stance. not just about the victims -- they are the most important. i think we need to take a great look at what we are doing with the perpetrators. i do not think that this is a much of a crime as it is a sickness. i think these people need to be taken out of the general population and never to be returned. i think our government and our medical professionals need to take a look at this. i think it is a mental health thing when you have adults that are supposed to be caring for children that are abusing children. there something. i don't know if it's retroactive or if they were abused at -- as children. i don't know what causes it because i'm not a medical professional, but i think we have got to because it is increasing daily. host: we will have joye frost jump in. guest: i agree that safety for victims is incredibly important and our criminal justice system has to focus on ensuring that reducing the re-victimization and additional victimization. there's actually a great deal of discussion and reform going on right now in the criminal justice system. we are increasingly learning that we can't just throw more and more people into prison and jail. i think it is particularly important with juvenile offenders. as the caller rightfully mentioned, some of these offenders have been victimized themselves. that in no way justifies what they are doing but trauma impacts all of us. and i agree. i think reform of the criminal justice system is really important not just for victims, but for offenders as well. host: we're going to michigan. go ahead. you are on the air. caller: i like to know. if you are dealing with a criminal enterprise, and i'm giving a hypothetical situation that is so vast that it would even involve law enforcement the doj itself, and even foreign entities like interpol, let's say that person wants to leave the country and go immigrate for safety reasons because his or her life is in jeopardy. say that moscow or russia or iceland. do you provide funds? i know you have the doj asset and they are estimated at $600 billion because they were created in 1984 by eric holder and christine morrissey. that is what i understand. do you think that money to victims that if you can't protect them, the oj, the fbi the u.s. marshals, etc., that you could send them overseas and let them live in a country where the other law enforcement can take over? host: ok. guest: that is a hypothetical question and the would have to be more information. i think you may be referencing the witness protection program of the u.s. marshals service. the obc does not fund that. what i do want to point out is is that most crime and most violent crime is actually investigated and prosecuted at the state, local, and tribal levels and not at the federal level. i do know that, for example there have been some large human trafficking cases that involve international organizations. my office actually does find a grant program that provides services to human trafficking victims that reside here in the u.s.. i would say that you do not have to be a victim of a vast criminal conspiracy to have concerns about your safety. i think about domestic violence victims for example. one of the most chilling statistics is that it is exactly at the time when a woman or a man for that matter actually leaves an abusive spouse that they are at the highest risk of being injured or killed. this is why victim services are so important. most of us it violence programs -- one of their bedrock services is safety planning, for example. host: who qualifies for the crime victims fund and the compensation part of it and how? guest: the compensation part -- i want to emphasize that we do provide funding to the states, but actually these are state crime victims compensation fund. because of that, each state has its own rules. the federal guidelines in the state guidelines as well -- i will say that the things that are in common. the individual victim in almost all cases has to report to law enforcement and cooperate with law enforcement. beyond that, it is also the payer of last resort. if you have large medical bills the medical insurance would pay first and then you can turn to your state crime victims compensation program to pick up the additional expenses, the co-pays and so forth. all state crime victim compensation fund's do pay for medical expenses, mental health expenses funeral and burial expenses, and for some, lost income and wages. host: describe the victim assistance program that you oversee from your perch as director. guest: we don't directly overseas -- oversee victim assistance programs. the vast majority of the money that ovc guess every year, we turn around and give directly to the state. there are two different grant programs. one goat -- goes to the state victim crime compensation programs and that supplement state funding. much more the funding goes to the state victim assistance program. each of the state with subcontract funding to local assistance services. again, that could be crisis centers or domestic violence shelters. it could be a support group for family members of homicide victims, for example. host: we are talking about victims rights. yesterday kicked off national crime victims rights week. it is an annual event and joye frost is the director of the department of justice office for victims of crime. she is here to take questions and comments. we have divided the lines and to eastern time and mount pacific. we will go to corey and steel missouricaller: my question is, what does it help going against a crooked judge? i've tried everything possible. phone numbers i have called, i've talked to governors and i have left a president and message. i got a call back from his secretary or somebody. i got a call back from the governor's secretary. i have got numbers to call. different ways i can approach the situation. host: ok. joye frost? guest: without knowing the specifics of the situation that you are describing what i would suggest is that you go to our website, ovc.gov. we have an e-mail called ask ov c. if you would send your question directly to ovc with more specifics, we would be glad to give you some contact us in the state of missouri. judges have ethical standards and legal standards that they have to uphold. there are ways that if you believe strongly that a judge is being unethical we can certainly direct you to some resources. host: what rights do victims have in the courtroom? mike on twitter says come "victim testimony should be rendered during trial to establish innocence or guilt's. it should be limited to relevance to the act." guest: i'm not sure what the question is but i think maybe he might be referencing cross-examination by defense. that's when it is important to have a judge in the courtroom who understands what the limitations are. as well as a prosecutor. one of the things that -- one of the newer developments is having a victims' rights attorney for crime victims. this is really a dream for the crime victims. prosecutors, while they certainly are pushing for crime victims, prosecutors themselves are not representing crime victims. they really represent the community. the idea behind a crime victims' rights attorney is you have your own attorney, just like an ascendant has -- like a defendant has a defense attorney that can understand what your rights are. not just in the courtroom, and most crime victims never see the inside of a courtroom. but your overall rights. there is an organization out of oregon, the national crime victims law institute, working with ovc-funded legal clinics throughout the u.s. in every state you can find attorneys that are willing to represent you. i have to put a plug in for the department of defense. one of the things they have initiated is a special victims counsel program. initially, it was for sexual assault victims but it is my understanding that they have expanded this to victims of domestic violence and child abuse. host: in the military? guest: in the military. this means that those victims in the military have their own counsel that represents their interests. host: louisville, kentucky, barbara. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling in reference to child protection services. host: ok. caller: i'm a victim. my grandchildren were taken from me and my daughter. my daughter is an addict. we had been fighting for her to get off her addiction. i had taken one of the children and since she was born. we went to court because my daughter was pregnant and she gave birth to a child that was addicted. she gave birth to a child and it came out with drugs and its system. the doctor said there was not enough drugs and the system to report it. however, they took the child anyway. they called me at work and told me to come get the child. i said when i get off work i will come. before i could do that, they took the child. when we went to court, they not only took that child but they took all of the other children from me. the child protection services started to build these lying stories over and over and no one but me speak in court. everyone was in the courtroom were attorneys appointed by the judge. the judge was very biased. i have been working and trying for three years now to get my children back, my grandchildren. i am sorry. i have gotten no results and no help whatsoever. host: ok, barbara. we will have joye frost jump in. guest: i'm so sorry for what you describe. i know that the primary importance here is the safety of the children. but i know that one of the hallmarks of child protective services is typically to try and place children with other family members as possible. i actually started my career in south texas as a child protective services worker. i'm not going to give you specific advice here. because, frankly, it sounds like what you need is legal assistance. if you are unable to find an attorney locally, you can go to your state bar association and ask for help. there's also an organization called the national center for victims of crime that might be able to help you find an attorney. again, you can always access our website, ovc.gov. and e-mail us, askovc. we'll send you some potential resources. host: susan in florida, you are next. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm a victim of 6 violent crimes over the years, i am pushing 72 years old. people do not seem to understand it is not just our military who have ptsd. every time someone becomes a victim of a violent crime you do end up with ptsd, which is never diagnosed. and if it is diagnosed, you are earmarked. so you try not to go into that view. i do believe that i'm sick and tired of the offender and the aggressors. either they are mentally ill they have family problems or whatever. why is it that we as a nation have so many mentally ill people and excuses for every crime committed? the victims do not have any rights. it's absolutely disgusting. no amount of money could replace my last 42 years, when i was almost murdered. no one can bring that back. i think it is unconscionable what attorneys do. i believe it is. i do not feel that we are any different from boko haram or isil, a horse of a different cover. -- color. it is still aggression and violence. there are millions of us who try to live our lives. we never commit crimes. yet we do not have any rights. then we have to pay for all the legal fees and court costs for the assailants. i think that is extremely wrong to do. host: all right. joye frost? guest: i'm so sorry to hear about your victimization. the research shows that many victims do progress to ptsd or. severe depression. i do think that when someone is repeatedly victimized that the odds of developing ptsd are another serious emotional syndrome is certainly higher. i do think that our system is far more balanced than it used to be. again, if you will contact us directly, we would be happy to try and find some resources for you locally. it really sounds as if you have been dealing with this victimization alone and without the kind of support that all victims need. this brings me back to our theme this year -- engaging communities and empowering victims. how you are treated makes such a difference. host: you started out saying that a lot of victims do not report what has happened to them, it is difficult to help people who have not told you they need help. so how is it that the justice department your office, is compiling statistics and asking homily victims there are, how much money do you need and resources to help people? guest: there are two major reporting systems. one is the uniform crime reports from the fbi. actually it only collects information on crimes reported to law enforcement. there is also a national survey called the national crime victimization survey. that is conducted by the bureau of justice statistics, which is a household survey. it addresses statistics on reported in unreported crimes. but i will say that getting the precise figures for crimes is very difficult. and just because you do not report crimes does not mean there is not assistance available. for example rape crisis centers, many victims that go there for mental health counseling or support groups have never reported to law enforcement. the statistics also show, again from the national crime victimization survey, that victims who do report to law enforcement are more likely to receive services and support. many victims have no idea where to turn in the community for assistance. host: ok. we will hear from seattle. good morning. caller: how are you? thank you for c-span. i was just curious -- i was on trial for a dui. this is one of those pre-internet things where it the cop introduced his evidence. the actual written report contained a number of details regarding evidences that i fell out of my vehicle, i was slurring speech. and there was video. the jury saw the video and it was clear that none of the things in the written report were evidenced by my behavior in the video. i was clearly talking and thank goodness for the video. the jury saw that and throughout everything the police officer said and i was declared innocent. i believe i was victimized by that officer. what do i do in a situation like that? guest: i really cannot give you legal advice. i do not know how long ago this happened. you can certainly file a complaint with your state. again, we can provide you information on specifically where you can go. but i -- it sounds like if you want to take action, that you actually need an attorney to assist you with that. host: dennis in illinois. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. i was victimized by a crime over 21 years ago by my own family. my brother's two children set me up in an evil scheme to defraud me of my freedom and assets. i hired two attorneys, one of which i knew well. his name was richard. richard was a former assistant u.s. attorney. he became an assistant state's attorney to ed in chicago illinois. subsequently, he arranged for the murders of fred -- host: whoa. you are making some accusations on national television. i'm going to leave it there and we will end the conversation with joye frost director of the office for victims of crime at the department of justice. yesterday kicked off the annual national crime victims rights week. learn more if you go to their website, ovc.gov. >> tomorrow morning, a conversation on fast track that will require a vote on a trade deal with specific nations. the agreement is still being negotiated, the transpacific partnership. our guest is lyndon-- linda dempsey. then representative jarend polis. 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