Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130222 : vimarsan

The League Debate on spending, taxes, and budget. That will be the focus of much of next weeks debate in washington. One week to do one week to go until sequestration will it matter . Here are the numbers join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Com. Sanders said send us an email. What is the definition of sequestration . One is this it is that fiscal policy procedure adopted by congress to deal with the federal budget deficit. That is according some news over the last 24 hours as the president reaches out to Republican Leaders in the house and senate. A phone conversation between the president and Republican Leaders Mitch Mcconnell and john boehner. Our guest follows the story for the hill newspaper. What news came out of these phone conversations . Guest not much from the press secretary or congressional leaders. They have been very tight lipped. It is interesting to say that things do seem to be heating up little bit. Congress will come back next week it is unlikely either version, republican or democrat, of the bill will pass. And will set up for a dramatic week that is unlikely to come towards a solution on this issue. Host how engaged is the president on all this . There have been discussions that he is on the campaign trail, campaigning on sequestration, but not meeting facetoface with congressional leaders. Guest that has been a frequent complaint from congressional republicans. The president thinks he has the high ground. During an interview with al sharpton, he said, 75 of americans agree that the sequester bill should include both spending cuts and new tax revenues, which is the president s preferred plan. He did a bunch of interviews with local television networks, radio interviews, he had an event at the white house with the First Responders that could be furloughed as part of the sequester, and next week, he is going to a shipyard in virginia to highlight how defense cuts would hit. He thinks using the bully pulpit he can force republicans into a compromise deal. Host we are talking with justin sink. Usa today poll shows a majority of americans are looking for additional spending cuts and taxes. Republicans have said that as off the table. If, as many people expect, sequestration does take effect, who was in the drivers seat . Host i think that is a big question guest i think that is the big question. It will be really interesting. Right away, there might not be obvious hits to the economy, but people start hearing, layoffs will, uh, people will see less money in their medicare payments to doctors. As these realworld costs hit, it will be interesting, and likely what drives the eventual deal will be with the political pressure lands on. Host can you walk us through the next six or seven days . As you indicated, the president traveling to norfolk, virginia, an area have the with pentagon contracts and military construction and the navy shipyards. What are you looking for . Guest the most interesting things will be the votes in the house and senate. If democrats are able to win over a number of republicans to get a compromise through, that would really upset the equation. It would be very much unexpected. That is maybe our one chance to avert the sequester. More likely, it will be a vote were democrats where democrats put forward a plan but fails. Then youll see a lot of finger pointing from both sides, with republican saying, democrats could not pass of planned. The democrats will say, republicans are the ones who blocked our compromise to be in the senate. Plan in the senate. Therell be a lot of blame shifting. It will be interesting to see the one side or the other is able to garner a political advantage. Host justin sink from the hill newspaper. Week untiling one sequestration will it matter . Federal agencies to have some win room some siggle room wiggle room. In the usa today lets get your phone calls. We will go to renee in missouri. Good morning. Are you with us . Caller good morning. Thank you. Sequestration it does not mean good morning. I just wanted to know that sequestration does matter to me. I also found out that congress forgot to put themselves in the budget. I heard that will not hurt them. I wonder why when they did the sequestration, why they did not have their own salaries put into the sequestration . Have a nice day. Host ronald from tennessee, good morning. Caller hello . I dont know about sequestration. There are people who do not want to change their minds that came up a while back. I think the president has the right to change his mind if something happens. He says, this is wrong, we are going to change and go some other place. The republicans, they do not want to change their minds on anything. If anybody has a right to change their minds, is the president. Host from the Facebook Page steve joins us from virginia, on the republican line. Caller i wanted to give you good news. A gentleman at Ohio State University has perfected Clean Coal Technology they utilize iron oxide, and the leftovers are coal ash, water, and iron. The clash and water can be added to concrete to build roads. The iron can be refined into steel to build bridges. Rejoice host thank you. We will go to ron in maryland, on the independent line. Caller i am completely frustrated with our congress and senate. We have to cut spending. We just have to. We have to get people that want to work together. We cannot continue with the social programs the way they are. We have to get out of these wars and that are prolonged. This war in afghanistan has lasted longer than world war ii and world war rahman one combined. There is no end in sight. We have to bring our boys home. We have to stop spending foreign aid everywhere that does not benefit our agenda. Host on our twitter page politico is reporting on the back and forth between two secretaries, John Boehners and president obamas. Carney toutted the president budget approach a balanced approach to the sequester to the sequester. There was this a response from brendan but who says says buck who you can get more on line by going to politico. Com. Caller good morning. This whole thing fascinates me. Once again, our president gets a pass. He stands up there and people faced lies about sequestration and boldfaced lies about sequestration. He puts up human shields. It turns out he has 100 discretion to what gets cut. He needs not threaten america. He can cut all the bloating and waste and fraud that is going on. Nope. He is going to tell us that our houses were burned down and we will die in the streets. He is evil. What he is doing to this country, i do not understand how people can still follow him. I dont know. I do not understand it anymore. Our country is lost. Host thank you for the call. From one of our viewers on twitter. Com cspanwj from the wall street journal the story from inside the washed the wall street journal. Putting the blame on sequestration clearly upon the president , from the republicans. [video clip] whose idea was the sequester . It was the white house, jack lew and rob nabors. I will veto any effort to get rid of automatic spending cuts, domestic and to defense spending. That is why is so troubling that just 10 days from now, Congress Might allow a series of automatic, severe budget cuts to take place that will do the exact opposite. Host a republican spot taking aim at the president on sequestration. Were asking you, with a week to go, does this matter . Will sequestration matter to you . Scott as on the phone on the democrats line from michigan. Caller i do not understand why they have not cleaned up our tax code already. I watched Erskine Bowles and alan simpson i have been watching cspan for 30 years. Kirsten golston and alan simpson or scandals and alan simpson, there are 180 provisions in our tax code that are only used by the wealthy people. I think it is all for the wealthy people to get wealthier. Im not against wealth. 700 billion a year we spend on the military i am very conservative. I think we are wasting an awful lot of our money. I think if we get into our actual budget and look to see what we have, i think were wasting a lot of our money. Host , for the call. Jim has this you can join the conversation on twitter. Com. The story inside the New York Times let me share with you a couple points from their peace piece further into the story bruce is on the phone, vermont, on the independent line. Caller republicans say, we have a spending problem, a spending problem. Mitch mcconnell, he gets up there, he has made about 17,000 speeches adding that we have a spending problem, and yet on the eve of the fiscal cliff deal, he inserted a 500 million gift to amgen, a company that has been investigated for fraud. Nobody in the news is saying i agree, we have a spending problem. It is the republicans in congress. They keep inserting his gifts to the people that contribute to their campaigns. It is going to dollars and they are giving way to these corporations that are making huge profits. Yet we are giving money to them. Then there are other corporations that are committing fraudulent acts on poor people, and we are giving money to them. Yes, we have a spending problem in washington. If got rid of all of them even my beloved Bernie Sanders fire every incumbent. Get them out of there. Start with some honest people who are not going to make deals. Guess what . All that spending will go away. The things that i see here in the last 30 years is that everybody the richs wealth has gone through the ruth through the roof, and everybody else is barely surviving. Host just the rumor of sequestration is affecting the economy. The national journal, according to omb, has what will happen if sequestration kicks in. The story is Available Online at nationaljournal. Com. The navy has delayed deploying an Aircraft Carrier to the persian gulf. All Aircraft Maintenance for the latter half of the year would be canceled. In the next fiscal year, 100,000 fewer soldiers would serve in the army and army reserve. As we heard from john kerry, humanitarian aid would be cut as well. He says that could have political implications in u. S. Foreign policy. The details are spelled out online. Were asking you, will it matter . Bob joins us from indiana, on the republican line. Caller good morning. Woodward and senator baucas has said this was the president s program. You have a president that comes from the community of organizers, i think that has a hatred of successful people, rather than encourage people to be successful. He wants to tear the top down and bring them down along a level of the lower echelon of people. That is not right for this country. I amknow that people amazed that he got reelected. I have a pretty much given up on things. Host thank you for the call. Anne joins us on the democrats line from ohio, good morning. Caller i agree with the caller before about the money interests. I watched a program last night that said health care is the biggest problem. You have Companies Like General Electric what you call those the mri machines. Those cost millions of dollars cost millions of dollars. They lobby and push for this that is one of our biggest expenses. I work worked for the federal government when they had we were offered a one week. It caused some much havoc. It cost so much money for us to be laid off. It was just ridiculous. I cannot figure out why they just did not go slow. Most economists say we should not be doing this. 5 across the board . Do this slowly. Were not getting to the root cause of what is causing our debt, you know, and the war . 1 trillion for the war . We cannot spend this kind of money. We do not have the economy to do it. We really dont. With that, i pass. Host thank you for the call. John has this point on twitter, referring to those potential furloughed employees another story we want to bring to your attention, on the front page of the boston globe as secretary of state john kerry troubles to the region, syria is likely to be topic number one as he focuses on relations in the middle east. The president will be traveling to the west bank and israel in late march. Dold joins us from new york on our independent mind. Caller i loved cspan and c span radio. Sequestration and debt ceilings and fiscal cliff, it is obvious we have a weak leader. What is next . Weve got four more years. Host thank you for the call. Military cutbacks are the focus of this story mike is joining us from utica, n. Y. , on the republican line. Caller they are all cowards and washington. This sequester is never going to happen. The country needs tough medicine. The cowards are led by the cowered in chief, who is dying in side inside. He is like a wife spending out there they have wives up there instead of men. This is like mediscare. What happened when our bond rating went down . The same thing a goal they stop spending, nothing will happen, except they will save the country. If they stop spending, nothing will happen, except they will save the country. When they kick the can, they should be ashamed of themselves. It is a shame that they cannot stop the spending. The republicans have obama on the hook. He is the one he is dying inside because he is a spender. For him, this is the worst week of his life. They do not even see it. It is ridiculous. They are going to kick the can down the road once again. Host , for the call. A lot of people expressing their views on our twitter page. We encourage you to share in the conversation. One saying sequestration is that incompetence and politics as usual will eventually buy to in the rear. If youre listening on cspan radio, were asking you, one week into sequestration, will it happen . From this mornings New York Times, david brooks writes about the d. C. Dubstep the blame game continues. The republicans say this was the president s idea. The president had this to say [video clip] Congress Passed a law that a Global Parties cannot about could cannot come up with a planned to avert the 1 trillion, arbitrary budget cuts would start to take effect this year. The whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that democrats and republicans would get together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth. This was all designed to say, we cannot do these bad cuts. Lets do something smarter. That was a whole point of the socalled sequestration. Unfortunately, congress did not compromise. They have not done their jobs. As a consequence, weve got these automatic payroll spending cuts that are poised to happen. If Congress Allows this meat cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize or military readiness, it will eviscerate jobcreating investments in education and energy and medical research. It will not consider whether we are cutting the bloated program or a Vital Service that americans depend on every single day. It does not make distinctions. Host in this from twitter in politico this story availabel at politico. Com. Obama has been virtually absent from the legislative process, pointing out that he is navigating a very thin line. Back to your calls fred joins us from florida, on the democrats line. A week to go before sequestration. Do you think it will matter . Caller yes, it does matter. It is like this it is a matter of simplicity. If we are going to go ahead, we are going to go ahead together as a nation. If we allow the rich to dictate all of what is going to happen in this country, and the poor will suffer. If the poor dictate all, then we will suffer again. However, the problem is Simple Congress and the government are complicating this matter by simply not coming to a negotiable agreement that would help everybody. Host let me stop you there. How do they get to that point . Caller they are not going to except the reallocation of revenue in this country. We cannot take something that somebody has already tried to establish for themselves in a free society. However, a free society is not free if everybody does not bring their equal amount when i say equal amount, it means where they stand. Host , for the call. Paul krugman has this from the New York Times gio is joining us from virginia, on the independent line. Good morning. Caller this is another fine example of the congress and our politicians in washington d. C. Washington, d. C. Being out oftouch and looking out for themselves to get reelected. Onear as im concerned, thing we do not need to be happening is cutting our military spending with the situation with north korea and china and other countries throughout the world. As a retired Civil Service worker who worked in that industry, i know for a fact that when youre putting money into military spending, your defense spending, that is when your manufacturing increases and the economy is at its greatest potential. Your creating more and more jobs all the time, because all the aspects that go into defense are there. Host a photograph of the japanese Prime Minister as he departed from tokyo in route to washington, d. C. , writing for meetings last night, including arriving for meetings late last night, including one with the president. He served during the latter years of the Bush Administration and came to the u. S. , focusing on trade and economic issues. Speaking of asia, there are a couple of other headlines we want to share with you. From the New York Times speaking of russia, a story inside the Washington Post, getting a fair bit of attention japan as number 3, 83 years. The u. S. , 51st, 78. 5 years. Russia is 164, with the average Life Expectancy of 66. 5. As you can see, a lot of young russian women smoking, which is prevalent throughout the country. President putin saying, it is time to cut smoking. Roger joins us from missouri, as we get back to your calls and comments on sequestration. One week to go. Will it matter . Caller hello, sir. How are you . At 48 years of age, i was 100 disabled. For me and others like me, how was it going to affect that part . Host will you be impacted, do you think . Caller im curious. Host what is your biggest concern . Caller if they cut off my