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| 25 minutes left in our program this morning in that time open forum. | ||
| Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now's your time to call in. | ||
| Here's where we are in Capitol Hill. | ||
| We were expecting the Senate to come in at 10 a.m. Eastern today. | ||
| That may not happen because Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley is holding the Senate floor. | ||
| He has been there since about 6:20 p.m. Eastern yesterday and is continuing to speak. | ||
| He's had a few exchanges with fellow Democratic members of the Senate, but otherwise has carried the floor by himself, a marathon session that you can watch live over on C-SPAN too. | ||
| As you call in in this final 20 minutes of the Washington Journal, we are going to head up to Capitol Hill to the House side, where we are joined by Congressman Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin. | ||
| Congressman Grothman, good morning to you, sir. | ||
| I know you're fresh off a telephone town hall with your constituents on this 22nd day of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| What are your constituents telling you about how long they can go and how long they think this should last? | ||
| Really, right now, President Trump has done a good job of keeping as many programs going as possible. | ||
| It's not like we're going to shut down under President Obama. | ||
| So right now, I don't get a lot of urgency back home. | ||
| I have one farmer I'm worried about and that he is not getting a support check that he thought he was going to get. | ||
| We're trying to check in with him. | ||
| But largely, the public is, you know, not as engaged on this as I think we are in Washington. | ||
| Is that farmer going to be impacted by the news we're hearing today? | ||
| Farm aid funding frozen during the shutdown is set to be released. | ||
| The USDA reopening some county offices to deliver assistance. | ||
| Is that the program? | ||
| We certainly hope so. | ||
| How do you see this thing ending? | ||
| The shutdown? | ||
| Well, it's very difficult. | ||
| So your listeners understand, under normal circumstances, the fiscal year for the federal budget starts on October 1st. | ||
| We have not got our budget done, or what we call appropriation bills, the public would call the budget, since 1997. | ||
| Okay, so what we do is we pass what we call continuing resolution, just keeping spending going at last year's level. | ||
| It's uncontroversial. | ||
| They even make inflationary adjustments in there for some programs. | ||
| And the reason we're going through this is unlike every other time in the last 25 years, as far as I'm aware of, the Democrats will not vote to keep spending at last year's levels, which is such an easy vote. | ||
| I've taken it so many times myself. | ||
| We did it 13 times for President Obama. | ||
| We did it once earlier this year for President Trump. | ||
| But the Democrats, we believe, because they have an angry, angry group of people, particularly in the New York area, are afraid to be seen as getting along with President Trump. | ||
| And it's just childish and it's being to hurt people. | ||
| But that's the way it is. | ||
| I think it will end when the public becomes a little more upset and when more people see the effect of not passing a continuing resolution. | ||
| Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey, who we talked to earlier today, thinks it will end after the November open enrollment period starts for Americans looking at their health care for next year, that Republican members will begin to hear from their constituents about the importance of the ACA subsidies and that that will break this log jam, a deal will be made, and then the government will reopen. | ||
| What do you think of that scenario? | ||
| Well, obviously that's going to be one of the things that's taken up when we do get back to the negotiating table. | ||
| You've got to remember, we're dealing with the entire federal budget, so there are literally thousands of programs out there. | ||
| We're right now borrowing 26% of our budget. | ||
| Think about that. | ||
| So when you borrow 26% of your budget, if one line in the budget goes up, another line in the budget should go down. | ||
| And we'll see if that happens. | ||
| I know that's apparently a priority for Glenn Ivey. | ||
| I do think when people get their premium notices, they'll say what's wrong here. | ||
| What's wrong is Obamacare is costing way more than people thought. | ||
| And if they're going to hold the premiums in line, it's going to take putting a lot more federal money in there. | ||
| But like I said, we're already borrowing 26% of our budget. | ||
| So I think the Republicans, if we have to spend another $24, I think it's $34 billion next year on Obamacare, they're going to want to see reductions somewhere else. | ||
| So if it were up to Glenn Grothman, what would happen with those ACA tax credits? | ||
| Well, I'll stand with the plan that we passed already, but we're realistic. | ||
| I know there's some Republicans who are going to want something done. | ||
| I think to give 100% of the credits is reckless. | ||
| You know, in any situation where you have a compromise, I can speculate it's the priority for the Democrats. | ||
| They'll probably get some of what they want, but not all of what they want. | ||
| And people like Glenn Grothman will get a reduction in spending other places. | ||
| Switching gears, at the beginning of this shutdown, there was some speculation about large-scale reductions in the federal workforce. | ||
| We've seen reductions to the tune of a few thousand, but not those large-scale that were threatened at the beginning of the shutdown. | ||
| What are your thoughts on the level of reductions we've seen in the federal workforce in the past three weeks? | ||
| I'm very disappointed in our leadership in that we have not insisted on bigger reductions. | ||
| Right now we have well over 700,000 non-uniformed employees in the Department of Defense. | ||
| Nobody thinks that we need those 700,000 people. | ||
| I do not know why our committees and our leadership is going with mild reductions there. | ||
| I think we could lay off 200 or 300,000 employees. | ||
| That's what Doge showed us. | ||
| And for whatever reason, Republican leadership in both houses and not insisting that happens. | ||
| But man, when you're borrowing 26% of your budget and when the Democrats, not just this, but in a variety of areas, are holding out for spending still more, we cannot have people working at under 100%. | ||
| And I surely hope that President Trump maybe will have to lead some of these congressmen by the nose a little bit and tell them we cannot afford all these employees. | ||
| What's the roadmap for finding those 300,000 federal employees that should go? | ||
| Is it the people who are not working right now? | ||
| Well, some of them, that's true of some of them. | ||
| Some of them are working right now. | ||
| It's going to take a lot of analysis of President Trump's new appointees to go through line by line and say, what is this person doing? | ||
| What is this person doing? | ||
| This happens in the private sector, but nowhere near like it does in the public sector, where you may have people going for years and years, not working near 100%. | ||
| Like I said, that's what Doge showed us. | ||
| That's what congressmen are hearing anecdotally from people who work in the bureaucracy. | ||
| Maybe they have relatives, people from their church, what have you. | ||
| And we know there are people doing very little work and should not being paid, getting paid. | ||
| We don't like to lay anybody off, but man, we're powering 26% of our budget. | ||
| To not lay off more people is scandalous. | ||
| And like I said, I think so far I've been disappointed in the Republicans not anticipating a lot less employees. | ||
| So I think President Trump may have to step up and try to shake up Congress a little bit. | ||
| One more topic. | ||
| I know we're short on time. | ||
| You remember the Oversight Committee. | ||
| Can you just update us on the status of the Epstein investigations and where that stands today? | ||
| Well, we're releasing more documents all the time. | ||
| I think somewhere in these buildings, they'll be interviewing more witnesses. | ||
| And I anticipate more documents being released every day. | ||
| We've released thousands of pages of documents already. | ||
| I know Committee Chairman Comer is looking for more documents to release, and I think we'll give you reporters plenty to look at. | ||
| I myself am curious as to what type of people were being serviced by Epstein's crew. | ||
| Day 22 of the government shutdown, Congressman Glenn Grothman has joined us. | ||
| I know you've got to run. | ||
| What's on your agenda today on this day of the shutdown? | ||
| Well, I'm trying to go through our budget to give leadership suggestions if they do cave in and spend more money in one place where other places are that they shouldn't spend much money. | ||
| I'll be talking to the Department of Defense about that as well. | ||
| Congressman Glenn Grothman, we always appreciate the time. | ||
| Republican from the state of Wisconsin, hope we get you back on the program soon. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Back to your phone calls now in our final 20 minutes, the Washington Journal Open Forum. | ||
| Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is the time to call in. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And we have had that line open for federal workers during the shutdown. | ||
| 202-748-8003 is that number. | ||
| We'll start on the line for Democrats out of Louisiana. | ||
| This is Teddy. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My comment is concerning the health care. | ||
| I don't see any pressure or any responsibility put on the health care insurance carriers. | ||
| I'm watching the news and I've been disappointed because I haven't seen any health care carrier CEOs or representatives on TV being questioned as to why health care is going up 30, 40, 50, 100% plus. | ||
| I find that outrageous and inconsistent with the inflation rate over the years. | ||
| So I'd like some explanation there. | ||
| And I don't see it anywhere on the news where these people are being held responsible as to the cost of health care. | ||
| And what are they doing to keep the premiums down and make it affordable for the American citizens? | ||
| And I know most of these companies are conglomerates where they have public information as to what kind of profits these companies are making. | ||
| So I'm looking at the news and I'm seeing the politicians pointing fingers, but I blame this on the news media that they're not going to hold these insurance companies accountable and put some pressure on them and see what's happening or what's going on. | ||
| We're going to leave this to take you live to House Democratic leaders discussing the government shutdown as it enters its 22nd day. | ||
| You're watching live coverage on C-SPAN. | ||
| This is day 22 of the Trump Republican shutdown of the federal government. |