Inauguration coverage. Speaking of congress, republicans at the house retreat this weekend have decided upon a plan they will vote upon next week to extend the debt limit by three months with hopes of using the federal budget as a way of tackling spending. What do you think of that strategy . You can call us at 202 5853880 for democrats and 202 5853881 for republicans. 202 6280205 for independents. Send us a tweet at twitter. Com cspanwj you can send us comments on our Facebook Page and our email at journal cspan. Org. From the Baltimore Sun a story about the weekend retreat and a detail about the plan. Writing debt limit vote set. Heres what they write host attending the retreat and writing a story about it, jonathan strong from roll call. He is their staff writer. Jon, can you give us a little bit of the thinking by house leadership as to how they came up with this as a plan . Good morning. Im happy to explain it. One of the parts of this plan thats been a little misconstrued, its not exactly a quid pro quo that if the senate promises to do the budget then well raise the debt ceiling for three months. What this bill will actually do is set a provision that if the senate does not pass that budget in three months then their pay checks would be withheld, so thats the enforcement mechanism. It actually doesnt require any promise that the senate do its budget. Theres conceiveably still the thought that they could not do the budget and not get paid. Host so then the house would respond in kind . Tell us a little bit then why use this as a mechanism . The strategy here is they are trying to go on offense again, because they had a brutal holiday stretch of sort of failed negotiating ploys and infighting and they are trying to turn the tables so people will talk about why went to democrats cut spending . One way they can do that is by talking about the fact that the senate hasnt passed a budget in four years. Its uplimited value theres a conventional wisdom that its not that important but when the people in the country hear that the senate hasnt passed a budget which sounds like a basic failure of their duty and its an effective talking point the republicans think. Host we have photos of Speaker Boehner in the papers. Did he come up with this . Who was the driver of the details of this plan . I have been trying to track down the exactor begin. There seem to be it shall the exact orie gin. One was the democrat from the south who proposed this a year ago and there was some democratic sponsors to this idea. But what happened at the retreat is it kind of gained some steam, and on the morning of the decision to put this plan out, boehner and cantor and mccarthy met with a group of top influential conserves who gave their blessing to this deal, and that is how it was able to get in place to be announced before people quite expected it. The day before on thursday people were saying no major announcement was going to come out of this. Then the next day these conservatives signed on to this. Then boom, you had a deal, so to speak. Host what about paul ryan . Stories coming out about his being quieter in the background, especially since the election. Did he have any say in this or shaping of the policy . Yes. Paul ryan since hes come back to congress from the president ial trail has avoided taking questions and kind of kept his head down. But at this retreat he played a very Important Role in a couple ways. First of all, he was very active in leading discussions with the republicans when they were trying to decide what their strategy was, and he also came out and talked to reporters and kind of floated this idea of the shortterm debt ceiling increase, and he was part of a group of five conservatives who blessed this deal on friday morning. Jeb hencer ling of texas and steve of louisiana and jordan of ohio and ryan. So it remains to be seen whether that will be kind of a center of power going forward. Host as far as those five signing on to this deal, whats been talking about the members, especially on the republican side and will all of them go along with this . Its going to be tough for them, because they have to get 218 votes. The democrats have already signaled they are not going to provide any votes for this on their side of the aisle. I would say that would be so difficult for them to do when you have, you know, the last four chairman of the Republicans Senate committee saying they are onboard with this, it doesnt give, i mean, it seems it would be difficult for so. More ranking file members to say this is not good enough. I mean, it seems the right ones were onboard with this in a pretty significant way. I guess the timetables of this, where do we see next week and where do we go from there . What were going to see is a vote in the house. They are planning to do a vote in the house on this bill which has yet to be written, but it will set this principal of no budget no pay. Because they say you cant vary the compensation of Congress Without an election in between. So they are going to have to work that out, write the bill, put it on the floor next week, and then next major question is will the senator harry reid feel the need to take this bill up . And his response initially yesterday, he didnt kind of rule it out right, i mean, he didnt say no right away, but he did suggest he was not ready to commit just yet. So we will have to see what happens. Host the expected no pay on the senate side i guess a driver for them, is this something they would be overly concerned about . Some who are independently wealthy, it probably wouldnt be a big deal. But the house cut its Office Budget and i think they cut their pay, and some of the house members on the democratic side complained very vigorously about this. Theres a whole lot of different people that make up the congress, and some of them are in great shape financially, millionaires. And some of them are not so great. Those are probably going to be the squeaky wheels when and if that were to happen. They may be the ones saying we have to do this budget because i need to pay my car payment and rent. Host jonathan strong roll call staff writer. We appreciate your time. Again, your thoughts on this proposal from House Republicans on the federal budget. And the extension of the debt limit for three months with some conditions that you heard our guest talk about. Heres how you can give your thoughts on it. If you want to give us a call, its 202 5853880 for democrats and 202 5853881 for republicans and 202 6280205 for and 202 6280205 202 5853882 for independents. Charles scott adding a thought here saying theres already too much uncertainty in our tax structure to be doing this again in three months adds to the uncertainty. There are other thoughts as well. Twitter available to you, too. Stuart, you are up first. Good morning. Caller this goes along with the war on weapons. What Congress Needs to talk about is the everyday city crime, the shootings among drug dealers, the prison industrial complex, what ron paul and ralph nader talk about. Real solutions to the debt limit and taxation of illegal drugs, at least marijuana will reduce the deficit, increase revenue, increase jobs. Decrease crime in half. Host so what do you think about the strategy from House Republicans . What do you think specifically on this as a strategy . Caller i think its just a big joke. Without new revenue. They know. They dont care that were going down the tubes. They dont care about sese quest ration. Now they are talking about the Construction Industry is going crazy. We need more cheap labor from third world countries. Like thats going to help. Host ela is on our democrats line from charlotte, south carolina. Youre on. What do you think about this proposal . Caller i think its crazy. Because the president is not going to go for it. He has already said that he wants a clean debt ceiling bill. Not three months that we have to go through the same thing again. He wants it for a whole year. So i dont understand why the republicans are doing this. They know they are not going to get it. They are not going to get this, so this is wasting precious time. They should do the debt ceiling for a whole year. Host so ella, hole on we have a statement from the press secretary saying we are encouraged there are signs the republicans may back off on the insistens of holding our economy hostage to drathsically cut programs and democrats and republicans must pass a clean bill. Caller i heard this. And i heard jay cornyn say that. I know what he said. But they also said that they want a clean debt ceiling. Not every three months youre going to have the same thing over again. They want it for a whole year. Not this threemonth extension. Host jeff this morning off twitter said this is a reasonable offer if the democrats do not accept it he adds nice play, g. O. P. Host republican line . Caller yes, there are two features on this proposed legislative action. They have Different Levels of support for me. I do support the concept of withholding pay for not having a budget. I mean, not only should the federal government have a law regarding that but i think each individual state should enact a legislative negligence act that if you dont fulfill that responsibility of having a budget, you do not get paid and you get barred from running for future elective office. With regard to the debt ceiling, here we go again. The republican party, if it goes along with this deal in my opinion ought to change its name to the caveman party and boehner and mcconnell would be the cavemen in chief, because every time we come to this debt ceiling what do the republicans do . They give in. And every amount of money that this country spends is showing its unsustainable. Weve got to reform them and get our budget in order and weve got to get our spending under control. Host lori who is one of the 65 people on facebook who has commented on this this morning says that this makes the seventh debt ceiling plays the obamas term while the democraticallycontrolled senate hasnt passed a budget. It seems silly logical to me at but hell by the way, it gives an advertisement to our plans for inauguration weekend. Allday coverage. You can tune in on sunday and monday for activities monday all day starting at 7 00 a. M. And sunday for the official swearing in at the white house. Again, if you want more information on what we are planning and what we can give you as far as content and details, cspan. Org is the place to go if you want to find out more. Again, thats our Facebook Page youre looking at. As youre looking at that. New york, independent line good morning, this is mike. Caller good morning. Thank you for having me on. I great will he appreciate it. I just wanted to as a side wanted to mention i am a physician of 22 years and i wanted to tell everybody that passing the Health Care Bill on Christmas Eve we shouldnt forget about that without one republican vote after they were going to lose the midterm elections and everybody was fine with it except five or seven years from now when we have to pay that bill, nobodys going to know why the middle class taxs are going up. But the debt ceiling, i think its on both sides a very show boaty type of way is saying we have to raise revenue and cut spending but people never want to talk about cutting spending. So the republicans i try to give them the benefit of the doubt but they always look like the bad guys and people love to hear im going to get this and that. Im a Small Business owner and i dont like to think of myself as a Small Business owner but my employees are not going to get pay raises as quickly and i will not be as quick to give them benefits because they keep raising taxes on me. Host so the extension of the debt limit at least the proposeling put out by House Republicans, what do you think of that as a strategy . Caller quell, well, again, im not too happy with it. I think we need real solutions. And were not solving any problems by voting for three months. We need a budget as well. Im not traying to beat up on the republicans but without the senate having a budget people of america need to stop watching reality tv and start listening to whats going on in washington. And im not blaming it on the democrats. Both sides are to blame but we need a budget and we need to stop spending money and we need to raise revenue. Host mentioned your work as a physician, theres word on the Affordable Health care act and what it does specifically for colleges. The Headline Health law pinches colleges. They wrote its prompting some colleges and universities are causing schools to cut the hours of someed a junk professors. Host from portland, oregon, this is on our democrats line. Good morning, fred. Caller good morning. Thank you for having me on. Id like to speak on behalf of every one of the citizens of the United States and on a very important nonrenewable resource that we have. My suggestion is every robot that takes a job of an american citizen ought to pay the taxes that that person would be making if they had the job. Host got that. But back to our topic of this proposal by the House Republicans to extend the debt limit for three months. What do you think of that . Caller well, its important that we continue to pay our debts that we have incurred. We desperately need to get our spending in order, but thats not something that we ought to hold them these talks and making sure that we pay our debts. Host thank you. From twitter, this is Tomas Henderson who actually just said, sounds like more kicking the can down the road to me. The editor of the Washington Post this morning used the story of this proposal to write an editorial on it saying this presents mr. Obama with a choice. He can continue driving a hard bargain on political policy terms that would entail using the entitlements until the republicans capitulate with the regard to the sequester or and partial Government Shutdown or the president could act on his past promises to tacking entitlements and engage in good faith with republicans now so they have no further reason to exploit the quest station. Another writes if the house approves the stedges the next budget deadline would occur march 1 when the 1. 2 trillion in automatic spending host this comes as the larger proposal of what we have been talking about, headlines you may have seen already, headlines much like those in the Baltimore Sun that morning says house g. O. P. Leaders and you heard our guest jonathan strong talk about the change in strategy to gain support. Thats what were talking about the remainder of our time. Hunter, from fort lauderdale, florida. Our republican line. Go right ahead. Caller good morning. I think what people are missing is that in a way the republicans are doing the American Public a service. We go through these decisions im not sure what you call them, deadlines or whatever, and people are getting tired of it. So really what republicans have done is they have moved the debt ceilings bypassing the date for the se quest ration. And i think the republicans are doing us a favor, because if the sequestration is done in one way, the debt ceiling becomes a subject. The other thing people are missing is really the big problem is that the republicans do not press the president and the Democratic Party to make the tough decisions that we have to make. We need a plan. We need a plan to get out of this debt problem that we have. And that plan begins with a budget. I dont understand why people have a problem with congress being forced to come up with a budget. They are required to do so by law and we really need that to solve the problems of this country. We need a plan and the plan begins with a budget. These people, you know, lets get together on this. And get behind the idea that we have to make the right decisions, the tough decisions and have a pran. Host any belief with this proposal that some type of meaningful dialogue will come about the several partiesal involved when it comes to budget and fiscal matters . Well, you know, thats the beauty of the nopay idea. Caller because if you dont start talking, youre not going to get paid. So i think theres a little bit of brilliance in that idea, too. They just have to get together. The republicans had a retreat. Maybe the republicans and democrats need to together have a retreat and just talk together instead of this forum and grandstanding that they do. Host hunter from florida, thanks for your participation. Joseph ramirez off twitter says this g. O. P. Go big. And the mortgage lending industry getting targeted described in the pages of the wall street journal. Host curtis is from hills heinzville, georgia independent line talking about this proposal from House Republicans about the debt limit. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. A couple points i want to make. You know, a budget is basically just a guideline for what youre going to spend. The problem is its the spending. Spending, spending, spending. Thats whats going on. We are spending way too much money. You can lay out the foundation of the budget of what you want to propose and do but it actually comes down to what the spending is. And this kicking the can down the road every three, four, five, six months has got to stop. It gives the markets no stability. And it just puts us on a foot hold to play these political gamesmanship up and down. Host so whats a better strategy in your opinion . Caller we have to cut spending. Host where . Caller i wish i could waive that magic wand. As the budget negotiations were going and the debt ceiling crisis was going on there were all these proposals, and the problem is you dont know who to believe when they come out of these meetings. The president says this and the House Majority leader says this. Speaker boehner says this. Its hard for any of them to have any credibility, because all of them can sit in the same meeting but theres always a different take on what goes on. Host from facebook, it is a reasonable offer but should have an additional rule that during a period of nonal productivity the body must not be supported by outside interests