That the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 president ial election. And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russias efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. Because it is an open, Ongoing Investigation and is classified, i cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining. At the request of congressional leaders, we have taken the extraordinary step in coordination with the department of justice of briefing this congress leaders, including the leaders of this committee, in a classified setting in detail about the investigation. But i cant go into those details here. I know that is extremely frustrating to some folks, but it is the way it has to be. For reasons that i hope you and the American People can understand. The fbi is very careful in how we handle information about our cases and about the people we are investigating. We are also very careful about the way we handle information that may be of interest to our foreign adversaries. Both of those interests are at issue in a counterintelligence investigation. Please, dont draw any conclusions from the fact that i may not be able to comment on certain topics. I know speculating is part of human nature, but it really isnt fair to draw conclusions simply because i say that i cant comment. President trump fired mr. Comey last month. The former fbi director will testify thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee Investigating russian activities during last years election. We will have live coverage here on cspan3 of the open hearing beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. You can also watch live online at cspan. Org or listen live using the free cspan radio app for apple and android devices. This sunday, q a is in hyde park, new york, at the franklin d. Roosevelt president ial library and museum where we go inside for a rare look at fdrs personal office and collection of artifacts with paul spare rorow, the museum director. When this museum opened, he was still president of the united states, so this became the northern oval office. Fdr had an incredibly inquiztive mind. Every book in here was selected by fdr to be in this room. This room is almost identical to the way it was on the day that fdr died. You know, nothing has changed. Watch q a sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan. President trump is headed to cincinnati today to talk about his infrastructure plan. This morning washington journal talked with a member of the House Infrastructure Committee about the president s plan. Our first guest of the morning, representative john faso, republican of new york and a member of the budget and transportation and infrastructure committees. Good morning to you. Good morning. Nice to be with you. Mr. Faso, with issues of the budget being considered currently, how is that going, or how do you think thats going to play out . Particularly with the issues that are taking place not only at the white house level, but also other issues that are pending congress, as well. Well, we just received the president s budget about two weeks ago, and the Budget Committee is responsible for coming up with a budget resolution, which sets the targets for spending for the different committees, and i think what were trying to do, were trying to come up with a number that we can pass in the house. The key here is to get 218 votes in the house, and im certainly working with my colleagues and chairman black to try to make sure we can fashion something that will win broad support. What are the main hurdles as you see it . Well, the biggest hurdle is the president s number on the nondefense discretionary portion of the budget. Hes come in with a number of 462 billion of current caps are about 516 billion. And basically what hes doing is taking those savings and applying them to defense. Now, most of us on the republican side believe that we need to rebuild defense, especially in readiness and the force capacity. If we have a situation in one part of the world, we have to make sure that the u. S. Can respond in another part of the world so that potential adversaries dont seek to take advantage. So thats important. We have to rebuild the navy and our military strength generally, but many of us also want to make sure that were getting the buck, were spending the dollar wisely in defense, and i think there have been a number of defense procurements that are excessively expensive, and we need to try to streamline that process, so i think this is all a balance. Its like any other household budget. You try to figure out how much you need for your car payment and your mortgage or your rent and how much you need to set aside for the family vacation. Thats what were doing. Were trying to assess things, many of the proposals on environment, on science are things that i personally dont support, and i think would not get support in the house. So what weve got to do is, again, come up with a number that we can get to on. On the flip side when it comes to discretionary or other spending matters, what about safety net programs as they are . Whats the most concern as youre looking at the president s budget as it is . The president basically mirrors what the house did in the American Health care act on medicaid, but in terms of other mandatory spending, other entitlement spending, he didnt touch them. So i think there are other mandatory spending items that we could also be looking at besides medicare and Social Security. So the president didnt touch those, and i dont think theres a great certainly through the budget resolution process were not going to touch Social Security in any event because of the way the senate rules work, but i think there are mandatory spending items besides medicare and Social Security which we can be looking at. So, those are things that were going to try to find. Look, the country right now, and cbo, i know that, you know, cbo scores get bandied about, but one thing cbo is good at, they are good at telling us what is our projected deficit and what is our projected National Debt. And they told us early this year that our National Debt is currently 19 trillion and counting, and within ten short years, it is going to be at 29 trillion. And so this is really we have got to more Economic Growth in the country. But we also need to make sure were spending tax dollars wisely because were going to bankrupt the next generations if we dont. Representative john faso, our guest, a member of finance committee and other committees, as well. If you want to ask him questions, 2027482000. And 2027482022. Other programs that you could look the or at least that could be looked at, what are they . Well, for instance, one thing we hear about the food stamp or the s. N. A. P. Program. One of the things in mika pastie on the Agriculture Committee we are looking at a Program Spending between 66 and 70 billion a year. And there are certain aspects of food stamp spending that are unwise. For instance, this is called the supplement Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and we spend over 3 billion for soda which we had experts before us earlier this year in the nutrition subcommittee and i asked them, can you tell me if theres any nutritional value to soda and obviously all of them said there wasnt. So, the fact is, should we be spending 3 billion . We should try to make sure that a Nutrition Program is focused on nutrition. So i had my staff actually we did a comparable. I have a big darely district in upstate new york. Milk costs about 60 of what soda costs. Think about it. And so theres no reason why in my mind we couldnt reduce the expenditure on food stamps and over a tenyear period sbet 15 billion of 20 billion of savings and say mill Senior Citizen a better alternative for you. Those are the kind of things that were not trying to be punitive but lets be smart and sensible about this. When we were kids growing up, we had five kids in our family and soda was a rare commodity. Only appeared my mother would buy it when its someones Birthday Party and the notion we are spending over 3 billion a year for food stamp purchases for soda is ridiculous in my view. Couldnt you just change the rules or make it a little more stringent to use word . We should. We should restrict food stamp purchases to things that are nutritious. Now, you can get into all things. Cant buy a cake or whatever . I dont really i dont want to be the food police here. On the other hand, its so obvious that soda is not a nutritional benefit. We should get rid of it in food stamps and we could save taxpayers money and allow recipients to buy something thats more nutritionally beneficial, namely milk. First call for you comes from tennessee, republican line. This is pat or representative faso. Go ahead, pat. Reporter good morning. I just want to say that i am a supporter of our President Trump from when he was campaigning. I figured he would be our president because of the facts he was laying out about our country and the world. You are talking about food. I dont think, you know, the government should tell me what i need to put in my mouth. I have a 72yearold woman and sense enough to know if i dont have, i dont have anything, im not on any medications and should i have diabetes or Something Like that, i wouldnt do it. I have common sense and it makes common sense that a mother would know what to feed her children. I grew up when my mother put gravy, not grilled chicken but fried chicken. The pastor comes over every sunday. Sit around and things like that that we put in our mouth and wasnt bad foods but today people are on all the diet and diet drinks and causing a lot of our problems and, you know, medicine, i applaud this president for what hes doing with the va. My husband has a doctor he lost my husbands records in about 2009. If he put them on microfish the way he should have since the 1980s he wouldnt have lost my husbands records and my husband pat, we have to leave it. Thanks. Pat, no one is saying we should tell you how to spend your money how to buy food. This is the governments this is the taxpayer money that were spending. You make a very good point on the va. What the va announced the other day was a really important thing. Theyre going to expedite the procurement of medical records for the veterans served by the Veterans Administration simply using the same vendor that the department of defense is using for the very same purpose and doesnt make sense to go out and go through a whole new expensive procurement to acquire the same capacity in the va that were getting now in the department of defense. So that was an example where the Trump Administration i think is really done a good thing for taxpayers and most importantly for veterans. From democrats line, from arkansas, robert go ahead. Caller yes. Thank you. I appreciate this time. My problem is i have on the Postal Regulatory Commission careers web page and not picking on them but its where its listed. They list the compensation and its a full their compensation and then immediately goes into their benefits. They get Health Insurance paid by the federal government. They get a federal Retirement Program which is defined benefit. They get a thrift savings plan. The new ones get Social Security, medicare. They get a Life Insurance policy. They get flexible spending accounts. They get longterm care insurance, they get supplemental vision and dental. Sick leaves. I wont i mean, that lays out. Annual leave carryover, exchange. They get sick leave for dependent care. Got it. Thats a long list. What would you like our guest to address then . Caller okay. The question i have, when you talk about entitlement primogra, theres a limit. Arkansas changed the limit of 130 over poverty. Caller to 100 . You yourself get compensation and then go right into benefits. Should the discussion not be about how much money can you make a year and get no subsidies . Okay. Caller no subsidies. Lets leave it there. The caller asks a broad question, but i think that this is the crux of what were going to do in terms of how do we fix our financial situation as a country. We are demographically all living longer and getting older and thats the good news and also means with the mandatory spending or entitlement programs as the gentleman referred to them, are going to be financially stressed. In fact, if you look at your Social Security statement, youll see that on the statement that they send to people that are within five years of retirement or if you want to get it online, you can do that, as well. If youre not within five years of retirement but on the statement Social Security administration trustees advise that in 2034 just 17 years from now the system can only pay 79 of the promised benefits. And thats only 17 years from now. What we need to do is what tip oneill and Ronald Reagan with senator moynihan of new york did back in the early 80s which is to come together, create a bipartisan, nonpolitical panel to give the congress and the country an analysis of how do we fix this problem, what to do going forward. This program is too important, too many people depend on it for it to become a political football. The longer we wait, pedro, the longer it will be before we fix this problem. The folks over 55 or 50 dont have much to worry about. Its the folks under 50 who really have a lot to worry about in terms of the future financing of Social Security. So, you raise a good point. There are a lot of issues. Were going to be confronting this dealing with tax reform and budget issues later this year. This is a perennial issue. How should government spend . How should we tax and who gets the benefit . Catherine in st. Joseph, michigan, republican line. Caller yes, thank you for taking my call this morning. Going back to the food program, i think youre on to something when you say that we need to look at it, you know, what the people are buying. We even had something here in michigan where they found out that the bridge cards, which used to be the food stamp program, am i correct . Well caller we call them bridge cards now. May be in michigan. Im not familiar with that term but yes. Caller they have a card and swipe it. Like a credit card. Oh yeah. Thats the s. N. A. P. Benefits, food stamp benefits are given in an electronic benefit card now. Caller right. Well, they were using it to go to the casino. So they werent even using it for the food. And i dont know how long this happened. And until they discovered that these people that were getting this benefit were using it at the casino. So i really think we really need to take a closer look and monitor the people and once they do Something Like that, i dont think they should ever be able to get any benefits after that. Thanks for the call. I mean, the caller raises a point i hear often from constituents, and ill tell you what i heard recently from a sheriff in my 11county district in upstate new york. He told me that in every instance where were being plagued, overrun by opioid and heroin problems in upstate new york, as many other parts of the country are, but he told me in every single instance where they arrest people for dealing drugs, dealing heroin, dealing prescription painkillers illegally, in every instance they find that these folks have benefit cards on them and that they are receiving government benefits so one of the things many of us would like to see, for ablebodied people who are receiving benefits like s. N. A. P. Food stamps, ablebodied people should have some kind of mandatory work requirement. Ablebodied people. Not disabled, not elderly, not children certainly, not pregnant women but people ablebodied and we should expect a responsibility of people who are using public benefits. Not in a punitive way but to help them get the Work Experience they need to get off the programs and to get into the workforce. This is a big problem in our country today, pedro. Only about 62 of the prime working age people who are in the workforce today. Were talking about people between 18 and 64, people who should be working who are not only 62 are. This is one of the lowest numbers in our nations history and it is very alarming and because in many parts of the country youre having workforce participation rates lower than 62 so something to address and many of us feel that the ease that benefits are provided and the lack of requirements for work are one of the reasons why many people are not actually in the workforce or seeking employment. Our guest, representative john faso of new york and he serves on the budget and transportation and infrastructure committees and here to talk to you about a variety of topics. Director, former fbi director, jim comey testifies on thursday. A lot of questions going on as far as investigations into russia. What does all that mean for Republican House members and getting an agenda done . Directly, it doesnt mean a lot because much of this now that we have Robert Mueller as the special counsel in charge of this investigation and i applaud that selection, i think that was a terrific selection, former director mueller, hes a very skilled person, experienced. Has great integrity, a great reputation for probity and for character so i think that let director mueller do this investigation, leading the fbi and the Justice Department investigation. Let the chips fall where they may. I want to find out what happened but i think a lot of the hyper ventilating that goes on in the 24 7 news cycle also is unhelpful. What does it mean in terms of our legislative process here in the house and the senate . Candidly, its a diversion for a lot of people and i think that we should be focused in as elected officials on the things that we have to do. Fix the health care system. Get the budget passed. Deal with things like the debt ceiling which treasury telling us we need to do sooner rather than later do. A transportation and infrastructure bill where i think we can get bipartisan support and hopefully we can get some bipartisan support on doing tax reform. Debt ceiling then budget. What are the chances that a debt ceiling can come and go and no decision is made . I mean, i personally think that we should just handle the debt ceiling without conditions and we should get it done. Let the treasury and let the markets give them the certainty that were not playing with fire in this regard. Because it has to be done. This is for debt that the countrys already committed and accumulated. I would like to see more spending reforms, obviously. I would like to see us go after some of those mandatory spending requirements. Id like to see more economies and efficiencies. All of that is true but we have the matter and secretary mnuchin made it plain. What do you think about the whole instance about comeys firing . I thought it was mishandled. And i think that it raised more questions than it answered. And so, i dont know what were really going to find out from former director comey tomorrow. He is a skilled attorney and he speaks very carefully so im not sure what well really find out. I wont be watching the testimony. Im focused on the things that we are our work in the house. We have plenty of stuff to do. Let the investigators, especially director mueller, get to the bottom of this russia affair and lets have all the facts out on the table. But for me, its almost i wont say its irrelevant but its not a focus of my attention. Here in washington, i was sent here to work on the committees and that im assigned to and get things done for my district. One of the things thats big in our district, lyme disease and working on issues like lyme disease. Working on specific issues for Water Resources in my district. I have a district that goes from vermont to pennsylvania. Its the second largest district geographically in upstate new york, in new york state and those are the things im focused on. Should you want to watch it, cspan3 on thursday and tell the audience that, as well. I think i have a budget and Agriculture Committee both at the same time so i dont think im going to be diverted to cspan. I ask about mr. Comey in part because the president sent out a tweet nominating Christopher Wray which he calls a man of impeccable credentials to be the director of the fbi and adds detail it is follow. Good. Well, i i dont i have read a little bit about mr. Wray. Hes got a great reputation from what i understand. Lets go to bronx, new york, democrats line, joe, good morning. Caller good morning, pedro. I wanted to say good morning to the representative faso. Hi, joe. Caller how are you doing . This is joe the counselor of the bronx, new york. Mr. Faso, what i want to do this morning is to report for when i speak to the people from main street, what theyre telling me if i have the opportunity to get on cspan, what to tell the p t politicians. Now, one of the things i heard you say this morning is you want to put more money in the military. Thats thats one thing. Thats the republicans. Now, when it comes to the social programs, like the food stamps, you want to limit to cut that. But at the same times, as a republicans, you always say that you are against abortion. You want the people to bring the children here. But if some of the people who are say theyre not ready to bring the kids here, you say bring them here. When theyre hassled, i think it is your responsibility to say we want them to bring them here to do everything necessary to put money to help them. And you know, doing that. Well, joe, you use the phrase you say. You raise a number of issues i havent discussed here this morning. I did say, yes, we need to make sure our military has superb readiness and that readiness has slackened off in recent years. We need to make sure that we have our planes that can fly an our pilots are property trained and get the flying time they need but we also need to make sure that arent wasting money in defense procurements and i did raise that point, as well. And so, i appreciate your call. But i think we probably part company on a couple of issues. But theres no reason it seems to me that someone on food stamps to me it is not a cut. Its common sense. You shouldnt be able to buy soda with food stamps. Thats a waste of money and not nutritionally beneficial and id prefer that the money be set aside to buy things like milk which is nutritionally beneficial. Steve in lockport, new york. Great place. Close to you . No. Niagara county but i know Niagara County well. Steve, go ahead. Caller yeah. When i was a kid, they got needy families got a box of u. S. Government surplus food. Why cant they go back to that . Well, actually actually, good question. Actually, what we do is we distribute surplus commodities, whether its butter, cheese, other things to food pantries and food banks around the country and there are a lot of food pantries. I helped as a private attorney a few years ago helped a local food pantry get incorporated as a not for profit organization. They do very good work and volunteer run often and often run out of churches and we have School Backpack program where is we try to make sure that kids have nutritious food at home on the weekends. I mean, there are a lot of people that are hurting out there. Lets not make any mistake about it. But at the same time, we have to ensure that the taxpayer dollars are spent wisely an its not being wasted and i just feel that theres a happy medium here between being sympathetic and being charitable and a helping hand to people who are in need. Especially the aged, disabled, children, mothers who are expecting, mothers of just had kids. Lets help them if they need it but at the same time lets not make these programs into a hammock where people rely upon them. And as i related before, i dont know if you heard, you know, when the sheriff in one of my county told me every Single Person he arrested for opioid and heroin abuse has a benefit card in the pocket, he said it just annoys him to no end and i know that those are the kind of people that we could weed out with work requirements so we should definitely require reasonable work requirements for ablebodied people who are receiving public assistance. Kingston, new york, is close to you. In my district. This is michael, democrats line, go ahead. Caller yes. Good morning. Thank you for cspan. Great job, pedro. Mr. John faso, i you do not say that food stamps are opioid problem. You know, food stamps, most people work on walmart and dont get enough pay and low moderate income individuals. And so, if you say that all people should be cut, i think you should get more jobs paying higher wages and people wont be on food stamps. Second, on infrastructure, you are pushing natural gas instead of renewables and you do not come to our community to talk to our people and our organizations. And we want more of you in our area. You should support what we are doing. Thank you. Well, thanks for the call. Ill put him down as undecided. The fact is that i am frequently in kingston. I was there meeting with constituents last week. Im all over the county. One of the 11 counties in my district. But the point that im making about s. N. A. P. Benefits and public assistance generally is that, yes, we should have the helping hand for people truly in need. But we should also have responsibility. And, you know, we can talk we talk a lot in our country about rights. We dont often talk very much about responsibility. Personal, individual responsibility is something that is often lacking. And certainly, someone whos a working poor person, who cant get by and has kids at home, who may need food assistance, im all for that. Im not against that. Im against people abusing the system, people taking advantage of the system and we know there are a lot of people out there that do it, unfortunately. Mr. Faso, you are on the transportation and infrastructure committees. Yes. Amber phillips of the Washington Post has a story taking a look at at least a proposal by the president to employ Public Private partnerships for infrastructure to get done. What do you think about that approach . Well, you know, we had a briefing recently from the representatives from australia who very efficiently do these Public Private partnerships so take, for instance, an airport. You could, because theres a revenue stream from parking, from vendors, from other things in the airport, you could very easily convert a government owned facility to a private facility, either with an outright sale or a longterm lease. Receive a substantial amount of money from the private investors, the private investors, obviously have to get a return, but within as long as its structured properly, it can be a benefit to tax parls getting private capital in and when you do these kind of Public Private partnerships, the government takes those proceeds and apply it to infrastructure spending. What in australia they have done and i think what President Trump is looking to do is to create a bonus system where the federal dollars would provide a 15 or 20 bonus to the state or the local government that does a Public Private partnership that converts a public asset into a private asset but gets a substantial return from that. And the bonus, the 15 or 20 , would be required to spend on additional infrastructure. So the idea is, how do you Leverage Private sector capital and other countries do this successfully. In europe, in asia, in australia, canada. Leverage the private sector capital so its not all taxpayer dollars going in and give an incentive with taxpayer dollars for the localities and the states to do these arrangements so that then we could get more infrastructure built. The problem as i alluded to earlier is the countrys going broke. We need to get private sources of capital in to infrastructure in order to get the maximum benefit for these projects. Stony brook, new york, democrats line, janet. Caller hi. So, i am a librarian. I have a masters degree. I have been working my whole life. Im 54 years old. And i am currently poor. And im poor because of my personal situation. I decided after years and abusive marriage to leave and im much happier now but i have a lot of expenses. I live on long island, an expensive place to live. Right. Caller so i am currently, you know, familiar with being poor and i stand in the food line. Its a thing that i do to help reduce my bills. And i stand with poor people who are like me who have been working their whole lives and, you know, the situation has changed. So i really do understand what its like to be poor and i think that focusing on what poor people, how poor people are misusing the money that they receive is, you know, its a distraction and its very short sided. Its not easy to be poor in america. Its a hard, hard job. And i think that, you know, 10 maybe of people are abusing something and were wasting time focusing on that when what we should be focusing on people getting jobs that allow them dignity and that allow them things like dental insurance so that if you work in walmart for 31 hours a week, you can afford to go to a dentist and maybe have another job, as well, or if you work somewhere very hard you can i apologize, caller. The line got cut. Go ahead. Well, i certainly sympathize with what the lady is suggesting and certainly no one is out to penalize people who are striving, working hard and down on their luck or just poor for a variety of circumstances or as the lady mentioned, a Domestic Violence situation. Thats not what were talking about. What but the key here overall is she raises a very good point. Is to how do you get more growth in the economy . And we had in the post 2008, 2009 recession one of the slowest economic recoveries in post world war ii economic history in the united states. Were growing at a rate of only about 1. 6 . And this is the cause of the economic anxiety that many people feel so thats why the regulatory forum, the choice act which will repeal many aspects of the dodd frank legislation that, frankly, really destroyed local Community Banks in america that made it much more difficult for Community Banks to lend to Small Businesses. 70 of the jobs in a district like mine come from Small Business. If the Small Business cant go to the local Community Bank because they have been overcome with regulation, and regulatory requirements and it becomes more difficult for them, thats a real problem and thats one of the things were trying to do with some of the efforts were going to undertake in the house. The choice act as we call it thats going to come to the house floor is going to really unshackle many of these small Community Banks and, you know, the big banks, we used to have eight big banks before dodd frank. Now we have four. Too big to fail is shrined in law and were going to get rid of that. No more taxpayer bailouts for large banks and strict penalties for people who work in those institutions who might abuse the public trust, et cetera. So the bottom line is that we have got to get the economy going and what the lady is referencing is something that i see all over upstate new york, in particular. High property taxes driving people out. Their kids and grandchildren cant stay because thats no jobs and thats why people leave so we have got to get more Economic Growth and tax and Regulatory Reform and responsible spending at all levels of government is key to this. One concern in your area of the nation is lyme disease. Tell us a little bit about not only whats going on but your resolve to it. Well, there was good funding, my predecessor chris gibson who served admirably in the house for six years before he retired business instrumental of getting the kurls act passed last december. Its a critical portion of getting the research that we need done. Theres incredible research being done now at places like the kerry institute in my district in middlebrook, new york, doing a fiveyear Scientific Study on how to control lyme disease which is spread by white footed mice in wooded areas and areas in our state. And we are seeing an epidemic. The epicenter of lyme disease is actually in my Congressional District in the whole country so duchess county, columbia county, green county we leave this recorded washington journal segment to take you live to cincinnati and remarks by the president at the rivertown marina. It is great to be back in ohio. We love ohio. You remember ohio. Oh, boy. It was supposed to be close. It wasnt close. And so wonderful to speak on the shoerls of the very magnificent ohio river
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