Transcripts For CSPAN3 Joe Gould On The Week Ahead In Congre

The house and senate are returning from the july 4th recess. On the house agenda, the Defense Authorization bill, setting pentagon programs and policies for the next year. We were joined by a capitol Hill Reporter for details. Joe gould is congressional reporter with defense news. What does the Defense Authorization bill and whats in the version the 2018 version approved by the House Armed Services committee . Sure. The House Armed Services passed its national Defense Authorization act for 2018 earlier sorry, late last month. And what it is is the bill the annual defense policy bill. It gets reconciled with the senate version. In this case they authorized about 696 billion in defense funding and related policy provisions for the pentagon. Thats 696 billion, it exceeds the cap set in the budget control act. How will congress reconcile that . Thats a huge question. The budget cap for defense in this case, the number to know is 549 billion. What it would take to ease the spending caps is a change in the law and a change in the law takes 60 votes in the senate. 60 votes in the senate takes Senate Democrats. So, what we know is that, if Senate Democrats have leverage in this deal, theyre likely to press for more on the nondefense side of the budget which is likely to lower the defense side of the budget. So the 596 number we are talking about is likely to come down. What sort of investments does this bill call for in ships, planes and things like that . Whats interesting about this bill is that we have heard from the white house or from the president definitely on the campaign trail about a largescale military buildup. But we dont really see that in this bill. The white house number was about 603 billion, excluding wartime funds. Specti special wartime funds. So the republicans who are pro defense have actually criticized it as too little. But we do see a number of ships, jets, even forestructure that exceeds what the Trump Administration has asked for. The headline at defense news. Com. House Armed Services panel overwhelmingly approving the defense measure, the authorization measure. It also includes a new branch of the military, the space corps. How did this come about . What would that entail . Sure. Thats actually a fairly controversial provision within the bill that was discussed at markup. So mike rogers, republican from alabama who chairs the Strategic Forces subcommittee and his democratic counterpart, jim cooper, both expressed some frustration with the pace at which the u. S. Is keeping up with russia and china and their militarization of space. What they want to do is they want to break out a new space corps. Its own force. Sort of subordinate to the air force but outside of the air force. And there has been pushback from other members of the Armed Services committee, not just democrats, republicans, who say that this needs more study. The air force itself feels like its an additional layer of bureaucracy. Of course, it will have to get reconciled with the senate Armed Services Committee Version of the bill which doesnt contain this. It passed out of committee overwhelmingly. How about when it goes to the house for the same sort of support. And tell us what may be ahead in the Senate Debate on authorization. Typically the authorization bill gets passes in the house. It gets a wide array of support. Right now, as we are talking, i think there are 90plus amendments that the rules committee is considering. Next week they plan to meet on tuesday to hear from the House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry and the Ranking Member adam smith. And then on wednesday theyre going to the rules committee, that is, is going to consider amendments and whether theyre in order to be considered on the floor. So what were we have been told to expect is Floor Consideration on thursday and potentially a vote on friday. Though thats in the hands of the house leadership. Joe gould covers congress for defense news. You can read his reporting at defensenews. Com. He is also on twitter reporterjoe. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Tonight on the communicators. What theyre doing there was 5g trials. It was gig abit fast wireless. Its home broad band fast. Fiber to your house fast. Its really, really exciting. Ctia president Meredith Atwell baker on what the network would look like to consumers. She is interviewed by politico Technology Reporter margret harding mcgill. Whats the economic case for 5g . If it costs that much to invest and build out the network, how do carriers make a return on it . It will mean 500 billion to the economy and 3 million jobs. One out of every 100 persons will have a 5g job. Thats only if we get it right. That means we have to move on spectrum, we have to get a pipeline of low, medium and high band. And we have to get the infrastructure right. We need to build 300,000 smallcell sites in a few years. What is small cell looks like is maybe a pizza box. It is small and it will be attached to everything because these will be much more dense networks. Theyll be on traffic lights and streetlights. The sides of buildings. And so what we really need and this is really important we need an infrastructure that rethinks how we site. Watch the communicators tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan 2. Next, a look at medicare, its Payment Systems and provisions of the program set to expire. Members of the house ways and means subcommittee heard from the medicare payment advisory commission, an independent agency that advises congress. This is about an hour and a half