Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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By the end of the year, Mr. Gates, who at one point was President-elect Trump's pick to be the next Attorney General, has denied participating in any illegal activities when he was younger and noted that the Justice Department investigated and chose not to charge him.
His post reads in part, In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated, even some I never dated, but who asked?
I never had sexual contact with someone under 18.
I probably partied, womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have earlier in life.
I live a different life now.
And a reminder that when the House Ethics Committee releases their report on the Gates investigation, we'll have it posted for you at c-span.org.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country.
Coming up Thursday morning, CQ roll call budget and appropriations reporter Aiden Quigley discusses the latest on negotiations to avoid a government shutdown on Friday.
And then a conversation on federal spending, the incoming Trump administration, and congressional news of the day.
First, with Republican Missouri Congressman Mark Alford, a member of the Armed Services and Agriculture Committees.
And we'll also talk with Democratic Texas Congressman Al Green, a member of the Financial Services Committee.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
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Our first guest of the morning is California Republican Tom McClintock, a member of the budget committee, also the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, Enforcement.
Representative McClintock, good morning.
Good morning.
A short-term spending package on the table.
What do you think of it?
I don't like it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that there's no serious work on a long-term budget.
I would support a strict CR if we were engaged in the budget process, if we were in negotiations and needed a few more days or even a few more weeks.
But we haven't been engaged in a serious budget process now in years.
And so we continue to go CR by CR down a fiscal road to ruin.
When you say strict CR, just the issues at hand or some of the other things that were added to this CR, like in the US.
Well, that's the other thing.
They've added so much to it.
Yesterday, Mike Johnson reported was 1,400 pages.
I understand it's now been reported out at 1,500 pages.
So 100 pages magically appeared in the last 24 hours.
And I'm looking at some of these numbers and they're eye-popping, $100 billion for disaster relief.
Well, no one begrudges disaster relief, but $100 billion, that's $800 taken from every family in America.
To me, that sounds a little excessive, and I'd want to go through that with a fine-tooth comb.
And now, as the process works, 72 hours usually to look at these things, or do you think there's going to be an attempt by the speaker just to take it to the House floor and get a two-thirds vote out?
I can't read minds, and I can't tell fortunes, so I don't know what the speaker's planning is.
If that were the option, then how would you vote?
Well, I would say I would vote no, for the reason I just stated.
There's no serious budget discussion going on, so a CR is simply kicking the can down the road.
What would you have liked to see instead of its place?
I suppose a resolving of the budget overall, but yes.
We have a perfect process to bring spending in line with revenues.
It's the 1974 Budget Act.
It's been in place for 50 years, but it is very rarely used as it's intended.
Both houses should agree to a budget resolution by April 15th.
That sets the spending limits on both the discretionary and the mandatory side.
The appropriators are bound by the 302 limits in the budget resolution, on the discretionary side.
And on the mandatory side, reconciliation instructions are supposed to be sent to each committee with the mandate within 60 days to report out those legislative changes that are necessary to bring mandatory spending in line with these limits.
That hasn't been used in years.
It's been misused, but it hasn't been used as it was intended.
When it has been used, it's been instrumental in reducing the deficit, and I think was instrumental in producing the four balanced budgets that we saw in the 1990s, the last time we saw balanced budgets.
If it goes to the floor, if it passes, and if it goes into the next Congress, how much more difficult will it be to resolve the issue of funding in a new Congress with a new administration in place, do you think?
Well, that depends upon whether they're serious about actually bringing spending in line with revenues.
If they are, we have a budget process that can do that.
It's difficult, and it requires pronouncing the word no, which is something that's very rare in Washington these days.
And that's why we're running a historic deficit over $2 trillion a year and a debt of $36 trillion.
Are guests with us?
And if you want to ask them questions about these budget-related matters or other things, here's how you can call us.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
Independents 202-748-8002.
And you can text us at 202-748-8003.
Do you think President Trump will tell Republicans to say no to some of these add-ons and go to a strict budget?
Do you think that's his philosophy or at least his thinking?
Well, that's why he has the Doge.
And even though that's not going to be an official body, I think it's going to exert enormous pressure on Congress and give a lot of reluctant representatives permission to pronounce that word no.
And that has got to be done because otherwise market conditions are going to intervene.
We're going to see a sovereign debt crisis.
And that's a very ugly thing that few nations actually survive because this history is screaming this warning at us that the countries that bankrupt themselves simply aren't around very long because before you can provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare, you've got to be able to pay for it.
And the ability of our country to do so is coming into grave doubt.
If the Doge, as it's known as, makes these recommendations, it's going to be up to you and fellow Republicans in the House and the Senate to follow through with that.
What's the gut as far as whether they're willing to do that?
Well, again, I think that's the big question.
And so far they haven't been.
But with the moral suasion that I think the Doge will be able to muster, I think that could change the equation, particularly if the President backs it to the Hill.
As a budget person, what would you like to see come out of this?
Any specifics, either the number of reductions of employees or whether certain agencies should be limited altogether.
What would you like to see?
The answer is yes.
To all of those things plus more.
You know, we ought to be saying no to grants of hundreds of billions of dollars a year going out to rob one community to pay for local projects in another.
That needs to stop.
If a project benefits exclusively a local community, that project should be paid for exclusively by that local community.
And we ought to stop throwing money at every do-gooder and good cause that we can think of.
If the federal government needs something that it can't produce itself, it should send out an RFP, award a contract to the lowest responsible bidder, and then hold that contractor responsible for results.
That by itself is hundreds of billions of dollars.
And then when you look at the hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies that we spend every year that distort the natural flow of capital and inflate the prices of everything that we're subsidizing, there is another huge area for reform.
And that, again, is hundreds of billions of dollars.
How much do those grants and subsidies compare to total spending by the United States?
Well, the estimate for grants, exclusive of Medicaid grants, is about $900 billion a year.
Subsidies about the same.
So you're talking about an awful lot of money.
And an awful lot of money that's not producing very much.
$6.2 trillion spent in 2023, if you take a look at that big number compared to the grants and subsidies, is that a small amount?
Is that a drop in the bucket, so to speak?
No.
You're talking about nearly $2 trillion just in total grants and subsidies.
Let's talk about immigration for a second.
I think one of the things that you look at as this chair of the subcommittee, first of all, tell us what the subcommittee does and your role in it.
The subcommittee has jurisdiction over all immigration law.
We don't do the enforcement side of it.
That's Homeland Security, but we do the immigration side.
Most of HR2 came out of the subcommittee on immigration.
When you hear then the president-elects plans for so-called mass deportation, what do you think of the reality of that actually happening?
I think the reality is very high.
In fact, it has to.
If you don't enforce your immigration laws, you don't have immigration laws.
If you don't have immigration laws, you don't have a border.
And if you don't have a border, you don't have a country.
So this is absolutely integral.
It was one of the principal issues of the campaign that returned Donald Trump to the White House.
And I think that it can be done very effectively.
I would advise the president simply to go on the air and say, look, if you're here illegally, you've got 90 days to leave.
If you leave in those 90 days, we'll pay for your plane ticket.
We'll forget that you broke our laws to come here.
And if you want to return, you can apply through the normal legal process.
But if we have to come and get you after 90 days, you're never getting back in this country.
And I think that alone would do a lot to reduce the number of illegal migrants here in America.
And then, as Tom Holman has outlined, you go after the worst of the worst first.
You go after the half a million criminals who are illegally here in this country.
And then you go after the 1.3 million deportation orders of people who've already been ordered by a court of law to leave and have refused to do so.
That's going to keep everybody busy for quite a while.
Let's tie the work of your chairship then to the work on the budget committee.