| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Washington. | |
| Former Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones and former Ohio Republican Congressman Steve Stivers come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the shutdown and top issues facing the country. | ||
| They join host Dasha Burns. | ||
| Bridging the divide in American politics. | ||
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|
unidentified
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MediaCom supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | |
| Coming out this morning on Washington Journal, along with your calls and comments live, we'll talk with Erica York of the Tax Foundation about tariff rebate checks, an idea being considered by President Trump. | ||
| And the Consumer Federation of America's Sharon Cornelison discusses President Trump's proposal for a 50-year mortgage and housing affordability. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| The longest shutdown in US history is over. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| Welcome to the Washington Journal on this Friday, November 14th. | ||
| After 54 days with no votes in the U.S. House and 15 attempts to open up the government in the Senate, the shutdown came to an end after 43 days. | ||
| We want to get your thoughts this morning to your party post-shutdown. | ||
| What's your message and how they handled the impasse? | ||
| Democrats, dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you don't want to call, you can text at 202-748-8003, include your first name, city and state, or post on facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Morning, everyone. | ||
| We're going to get your message to your party post-shutdown here in just a minute. | ||
| Punch Bowl News notes this morning that in 47 days, the enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act will expire. | ||
| And in 77 days, the government will run out of money again unless there's a bipartisan deal to move forward. | ||
| Let's begin with the ACA credits. | ||
| Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy spoke about his disappointment with the Senate vote last week to reopen the government. | ||
| He made these comments at St. Elmsam College in New Hampshire on Wednesday. | ||
| The difficulty here was that there was going to be harm and there is harm either way. | ||
| The shutdown was terrible. | ||
| It hurt people. | ||
| But ending the shutdown without a protection for people whose premiums are going to go up, well, that's pain as well. | ||
| It's both life and death pain, but arguably more life and death pain if 22 million people in this country have their premiums go up. | ||
| I went down to South Florida with Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith, senator from Minnesota about a week ago because there's more people on the ACA down there than any part of the country and nobody's telling their story in Washington because they have representation in the Senate and mostly in the House who are just employees of Donald Trump. | ||
| And the stories we heard there were just like heartbreaking. | ||
| I mean, one woman who's got multiple malignant melanoma. | ||
| Her husband has a really complicated form of diabetes that involves a lot of seizures. | ||
| They have coverage right now through the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| Their premium isn't going up by 10%, 20%, 50%. | ||
| It's going up by 100%. | ||
| Their premium is doubling. | ||
| They cannot afford it for both of them. | ||
| They can afford it for one of them. | ||
| They have four kids. | ||
| So what's the conversation they're having at home? | ||
| Who's going to survive? | ||
| Who isn't? | ||
| Right? | ||
| I mean, that's just no, that's a conversation in the richest, most prosperous country in the world. | ||
| We should never be having, but certainly not having as a consequence of a piece of legislation that took their health care in order to pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations. | ||
| That's fundamentally immoral. | ||
| So the challenge here is that no matter what decision we made, hold out to get the tax credits taken care of or continue the shutdown, there was pain either way. | ||
| But I do believe, I do believe, to the heart of the question, that, well, not everyone in this country was willing to let this shutdown continue to go on. | ||
| There were a lot of folks who understood what I was telling you, that if you allow a despot to weaponize our compassion against us, it never ends. | ||
| It gets worse. | ||
| Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut in New Hampshire, earlier this week. | ||
| Now, on health care, this health care debate in the government shutdown, according to a poll conducted by KFF, 74% of adults supported extending the ACA tax credits. | ||
| That includes 94% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 50% of Republicans. | ||
| 81% of Democrats supported congressional Democrats holding out for a deal to extend credits, even if it prolonged the government shutdown. | ||
| Even 44% of MAGA supporters wanted the credits extended. | ||
| This morning, your thoughts, your message to your party post-shutdown. | ||
| Now, on the Democrats who voted to reopen the government, you heard Senator Chris Murphy talking about them. | ||
| Here they are. | ||
| Senator Cortez-Masto of Nevada, Senator Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassen of New Hampshire, along with Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Angus King, an Independent of Maine, Jackie Rosen, Democrat of Nevada, and Gene Shaheen, also from New Hampshire. | ||
| Those eight voted with the Republicans to reopen the government. | ||
| John Fetterman, the Democrat who voted yes, was in an interview with MSNBC, and this is what he had to say about his decision to vote with Republicans to reopen the government. | ||
| These subsidies, now that was wrote by us, the Democrats. | ||
| The Democrats wrote that. | ||
| And they were designed to expire at the end of the year. | ||
| I mean, when we were in the majority, we wrote that to expire. | ||
| And now here we are back now to have this conversation. | ||
| Now, compare that in Pennsylvania, 2 million Pennsylvanians rely on SNAP to feed themselves and their family. | ||
| And around 400,000, they receive these kinds of tax credits. | ||
| And now we can fight for both. | ||
| And that's for me as a Democrat, that's what I'm doing. | ||
| For me, the core kinds of disagreement, perhaps, is that shut our government down and hold all those people hostage. | ||
| And I refuse to do those things. | ||
| It's been a very easy vote. | ||
| And I know many Democrats think that's smart to plunge us into that kind of chaos, but I refuse to do those kinds of things. | ||
| And that's really at the core. | ||
| And now we have a lot of time to make that argument. | ||
| And if this is going to touch a lot of Republicans and their constituents, and I think it will, and now they will agree some version of that. | ||
| Say, hey, let's now create more kinds of tax credits to make health care more affordable. | ||
| And I do. | ||
| I think that is possible. | ||
| John Vetterman, the senator from Pennsylvania, on his decision to vote with seven other Democrats to reopen the government early last week. | ||
| We're getting your message to your party post-shutdown. | ||
| And unrelated news to Senator Fetterman, here's Politico with a headline. | ||
| He fell and has been hospitalized after sustaining minor injuries. | ||
| He was on a walk in Pennsylvania. | ||
| We'll go to Gordon in Plant City, Florida, Republican. | ||
| We'll begin with you, Gordon. | ||
| Welcome to the conversation. | ||
| As a Republican, what's your message to your leadership? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Greta, longtime no-see. | |
| As you guys remember, I'm Gordon, the guy that did better in court on the Terry Chago issue than Governor Jeb Bush, people that are old enough to remember. | ||
| But the reason I'm very upset at my party, the Republicans, is because the Lakeland Ledger and Yahoo, this past Sunday, published my letter to the editor as the lead-off letter because my bipartisan Middleman Elimination Act, which, by the way, President Trump, after emails went out to John Thin's office, he started copying my idea. | ||
| And I can't prove it. | ||
| And Gordon, is this related to the shutdown? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, absolutely. | |
| Because here's the thing. | ||
| Eliminating the healthcare middleman and the student loan middleman would save so much money and it would prevent the planes from crashing, of course. | ||
| But here's the situation. | ||
| No fifth grader has a student loan middleman, okay? | ||
| Indigen health care in Imperial Polk County, one of the reddest places where Grady Judge, there's no health care middleman, and it would save more money. | ||
| And here's the thing. | ||
| So, Gordon, do you like the president's proposal of sending tax credits directly to Americans rather than these insurance companies to help them pay for health care? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, a little bit should go to the students and to the patients, but it should be not. | |
| I'm going to sound liberal, but hang with me. | ||
| The college and healthcare should be directly funded, just like every other nation does, like fifth grade, like your grandparents and my grandparents had free college. | ||
| And I know I'm sounding liberal, but all right, Gordon, I think we understand your point. | ||
| Jake in New York, Democratic caller. | ||
| Jake, what's your message to the Democratic leadership? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| How are you doing today? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like to start by saying as a Democrat, I am completely ashamed at Chuck Schumer. | |
| I think he has sold us out to the whole country basically by taking on a deal that he knew that he intentionally put eight Democrats in that are not going to be coming back or already have won reelection. | ||
| And now at that point, he also is trying to protect himself because he knows that the rumors about him, about him getting primaried by someone, is scaring him. | ||
| And at this point now, for the ACA credits, if I'm in health care, and I can tell you right now, as a clinician in Manhattan who pays $800 a month without tax credits, it's already ridiculous as enough with a bronze plan from Blue Cross Blue Shields. | ||
| So you think about how people who are struggling right now in this country who don't even make enough money or just trying to make enough just to survive or even to afford a health care plan, the Republicans have no plan. | ||
| Donald Trump has no plan. | ||
| It's coming in three weeks story. | ||
| I've heard this now for over 10 years. | ||
| And basically now, because of that, they're now in a position where they can say, oh, we have a new plan and we have ideas of what Mike Johnson said recently. | ||
| There's nothing. | ||
| There's absolutely nothing. | ||
| And what they really want to do is create this so-called free market where pretty much they're going to just change the goalposts of insurance plans of raising their costs left and right, which is going to basically just have a cash grab for anyone to make as much money as possible off the American people. | ||
| And then now, through the, you know, I'm not going to say it online, how I call this big bill, whatever, it's just going to take Medicaid costs away. | ||
| It's going to divert that money all to the slush fund that the Republicans want. | ||
| And you're seeing it now with the money that's probably going to go that's going to Argentina at this point. | ||
| I mean, I can go on to hours and hours about it, but the bottom line here is that right now there is no health care plan. | ||
| This is going to screw over a lot of people. | ||
| And the Democratic Party right now has sold themselves down the river. | ||
| And right now, guys, I'm scared. | ||
| Well, Jake, who is it, though? | ||
| Is it those eight Democrats or is it the leader, Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's all the above. | |
| It's all the above. | ||
| And listen, I'm going to say this on independent media right now. | ||
| You see this online. | ||
| They are begging for all these corporate Democrats to be primaried. | ||
| Because I'm going to tell you, even when the Democrats won last Tuesday, which was a massive, massive win, we're talking this was a blue tsunami. | ||
| This is not the blue state wins in New York City. | ||
| The point is from that, is that they know that they had the leverage and they screwed it up after they had that on Tuesday. | ||
| So they know that even if they win next year in the midterms, because let's tell you, the Epstein files is going to be as damning as possible for the Republicans and Donald Trump. | ||
| If they win the midterms next year, they better take that and they better go with it and do something with it because otherwise they will be primarily again in 2028. | ||
| So yeah, so Jake, the eight Democrats who voted to reopen the government in the Senate, they said it was because a vote was promised, at least by the Senate Majority Leader John Thune, on these ACA tax credits. | ||
| Listen to Speaker Mike Johnson post-vote in the House, which sent the bill then to the president for his signature and reopened the government. | ||
| Listen to what he had to say. | ||
| Am I going to guarantee a vote on ACA unreformed COVID-era subsidies that is just a boondoggle to insurance companies and robs the taxpayer? | ||
| We got a lot of work to do on that. | ||
| The Republicans would demand a lot of reforms before anything like that was ever possible. | ||
| And we have to go through that deliberative process. | ||
| We have 430, well, currently 433 members of the House of Representatives. | ||
| There's a lot of opinions in this building and on our side, certainly a lot of opinions on how to fix health care and make it more affordable. | ||
| I have to allow that process to play out. | ||
| I'll leave you with this. | ||
| The biggest objection that I had to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, who are playing political games with people's lives when they shut the government down, was Chuck Schumer came out and said the quiet part out loud. | ||
| I don't even think you realize he has no self-awareness. | ||
| But he came and cried to all of you that I would not agree to go into a back room and make a four corners agreement on these issues. | ||
| That just he and I and Hakeem Jeffries and Leader Thun would go in a room and make this decision for the entire population of America and block out all of our colleagues as if they had no voice in it. | ||
| That is why Washington is broken. | ||
| That's why Congress hasn't worked well for people. | ||
| That's why they don't have a lot of faith in what goes on here. | ||
| And I'm committed to trying to restore that faith. | ||
| And one way we do that is we get back to regular order. | ||
| We allow all the duly elected members of this body to have their voices heard. | ||
| I'm not playing games and Chuck Schumer, I'm not going in a back room with you and making a four corners deal on anything. | ||
| And I hope you understand that. | ||
| Thank you all. | ||
| We got the government open. | ||
| Let's celebrate tonight. | ||
| Speaker Mike Johnson, after the House voted to reopen the government and send that legislation to the president's desk for his signature, there were Democrats in the House who also voted with Republicans to reopen the government. | ||
| Were six of them. | ||
| Congressman Henry Cuare of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Adam Gray of California, Maine's Jared Golden, Tom Suazi of New York, and Mary Glusenkamp Perez of Washington State. | ||
| Those six joined Republicans in reopening the government. | ||
| Next week in the House, there will be a vote on the Epstein files. | ||
| This is from the New York Times reporting. | ||
| What's behind the coming House vote on releasing the Epstein files? | ||
| Now, Speaker Mike Johnson has decided not to run out the clock and that he would instead schedule the Epstein vote next week and says that this is going, he's just ripping off the band-aid here. | ||
| That's what the New York Times says. | ||
| The Epstein, if every representative who signed the petition also votes for the Epstein measure, it would pass the House. | ||
| In fact, it is expected to draw even more votes than that. | ||
| Republican leaders expect that some of their members who did not sign the discharge petition, which many lawmakers frown upon as an act of party disloyalty that undercuts their leaders, are likely to vote for the resolution itself. | ||
| So there could be more than the 218. | ||
| If the bill were to pass the House, it would be sent to the Senate where it would face tough odds. | ||
| It would take 60 votes to bring up the bill in that chamber. | ||
| Democrats hold 47 seats. | ||
| So even if all of them back the measure, they would need 13 Republicans to back Mr. to buck Mr. Trump and join them. | ||
| So that is the latest on the Epstein files. | ||
| And look for our gavel-to-gavel coverage in the House here on C-SPAN next week. | ||
| Emma in Washington, D.C., an independent this morning, we're talking about your message to your party post-shutdown. | ||
| What is it, Emma? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would say to independents to hold the line because at this point, neither party deserves our vote. | |
| I was a Republican until this week, and I switched to being independent this very week because I was so disgusted by the way the Trump administration handled the food stamp issue for the 40 million Americans that are on food stamps. | ||
| I mean, I just thought trying to get out of that obligation to provide this grocery money to these hungry people was just despicable. | ||
| And for me, that was the last straw. | ||
| So, Emma, what did you, why, I mean, why this issue? | ||
| What was it about SNAP and food benefits? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just thought it was so cruel to use people that are already struggling as pawns, you know, and it's I'm a conservative because I'm a religious person, so I'm not going to go to the Democratic Party because I'm pro-life. | |
| And I really thought that the Republicans were going to help try to focus on helping the working class, but, you know, to just damage these people that are already poor and hungry and using these people as political pawns and just trying to do anything he could in the courts to evade giving these people the food stamp money. | ||
| I mean, that just really was a bridge too far for me. | ||
| And Emma, did you vote for President Trump in every election cycle that he has run, 2016, 2020, 2024? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I actually voted for a third party called the American Solidarity Party, which is a Catholic values party, which I know they wouldn't win, but at least I feel good about my vote. | |
| But I like Trump. | ||
| I mean, I like certain things about him, you know, but this, for the reason I just stated, just felt too much for me. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Emma there in Washington, D.C., an independent caller on SNAP funding. | ||
| This is from the Wall Street Journal, What to Know as the Government Reopens. | ||
| And they report on SNAP funding. | ||
| At least 16 states paid out November benefits in full after a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the federal government must fully fund SNAP payments. | ||
| Many other states were waiting for the matter to be settled in court as the Trump administration appealed the decision, leaving millions across the country who rely on the program without food assistance. | ||
| Once the government reopens, how quickly SNAP funding will be available in states that haven't dispersed payments is hard to determine. | ||
| Wall Street Journal this morning, what to know as the government reopens. | ||
| Jim, Winter Park, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Good morning to you, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Please give me the time that you gave the first two people that were on. | ||
| You give them about three minutes each. | ||
| The first guy from Florida was not a Republican. | ||
| He was on the Republican line. | ||
| He even said twice. | ||
| All right, Jim. | ||
| Let's get to your point then. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so let's get to my point. | |
| My point is that we have the ACA is failing. | ||
| It's been proven. | ||
| And so we put subsidies on it during the COVID. | ||
| Are we still in COVID? | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| But the bottom line is common sense. | ||
| We want to put a subsidy that's paid by whom? | ||
| The taxpayers. | ||
| So everybody that's working, everybody that has any kind of income gets taxed, and that subsidy is then going to be paid for by that money. | ||
| So every person that buys insurance, whether they're in a business or they're on the ACA, is paying for their insurance already, and then they're paying a subsidy to the government so that they can subsidize this program again. | ||
| Common sense has to tell people that the government is screwing this whole thing up. | ||
| Every time they turn around and put a subsidy on something, it's because the business is failing and they aren't addressing the problem. | ||
| The problem is that because the government's in the middle of this thing, the insurance companies know they can do whatever they want. | ||
| So, Jim, does the president resolve what you are outlining here? | ||
| Does he resolve it with his proposal to send tax credits directly to consumers rather than the insurance companies? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't think that's a good idea either. | |
| The reason I say that is because people will then spend that money on something else, and then the government's going to go and say, we've got 40 million people that don't have insurance because they don't have the money. | ||
| And President Trump sent them money, but they couldn't afford to spend it on their rent, their rent, their car, they're this, they're that. | ||
| No, what we need to do is we need to get the government out of the insurance policy business. | ||
| So, Jim, it sounds like you agree with Speaker Johnson, and you want him to hold firm then on the House side. | ||
| What did you think of Senate Majority Leader John Thune promising a vote to these eight Democrats? | ||
| Not an outcome, but a vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, you can have a vote. | |
| I mean, you can have a vote on anything. | ||
| But the problem is that we just, you know, Trump was elected into being the president because of the policies that he put forth while he was campaigning, like getting rid of waste and abuse. | ||
| Greta, there is nobody in this world that doesn't see waste and abuse, especially in the food business, in the snap cards. | ||
| I'll give you, for instance, I went to a store a couple of weeks ago. | ||
| I was online in the express lane, and there was a woman in front of me that had a full cart of food. | ||
| And when she got finished with them running the 50 or 60 items through the express lane that's supposed to have 10 items, she whipped out two or three snap cards to try and get one that would cover the total price on the food. | ||
| And then what they had to do is they had to break it down because one snap card had enough money for this and one stop card had enough money for that. | ||
| And then she walks out and she's in like a designer jogging outfit and she gets in a BMW X5. | ||
| Now I worked in the automotive industry my whole life. | ||
| That BMW X5 is a $100,000 car. | ||
| I drive a $2,000 2006 car because I can't afford to buy an X5. | ||
| But, you know, I'm standing there looking at this woman and I'm thinking to myself, she doesn't need these snap cards. | ||
| She's putting her. | ||
| Understood. | ||
| Jim there, Winter Park, Florida, Republican. | ||
| We'll go to John, who's in St. Louis, Missouri, Democratic caller. | ||
| We are getting your message to your party and how they handled the government shutdown. | ||
| John, what is it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Democrats. | |
| And the reason why Chuck Trumer and the Democrats shut the Cocoa Army reopened the government was so they could pay off restore SNAP benefits, pay the federal workers and stuff. | ||
| And they know that it's going to shut down again to January 30th because your town is so Republican way. | ||
| They know nothing. | ||
| And the FC files are going to post them. | ||
| I promise you that. | ||
| Have a good day, ma'am. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| John there, Democratic caller. | ||
| Ronald is in New York, an independent. | ||
| Ronald, as an independent, which party do you hold responsible for the government shutdown and why? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Democrats generally, because they didn't agree to reopen the government first and then have their discussion about what they need to do. | |
| That was just wrong. | ||
| They knew it was hurting people. | ||
| And for the Democrats to do that, knowing that they were hurting people, was a horrible thing to do. | ||
| I also want to mention that what this country needs is a government health plan like they have in France and Italy, where medical care is generally far superior than what we have in our country. | ||
| When Obama passed this plan with a three-year limit before the prices went up, that was just caving into the insurance industry, and it was stupid. | ||
| And it's really the fault of him and the Democrats and the insurance companies being greedy that this has occurred. | ||
| If we had a government, a well-run government health plan for all citizens, that would really be the answer. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Ronald in Jericho, an independent, says he blames the Democrats for this government shutdown. | ||
| According to a poll conducted for the Associated Press, when asked the handling of the government shutdown by the president, 33% of all adults, down from 42% in March, agreed with the president's handling of the shutdown. | ||
| 68% agreed, down from 81% in March, and 5% of Democrats, 25% of Independents. | ||
| And that's down from 38% in March. | ||
| We'll go to Hattie in Houston, Texas, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hattie, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I'm so glad that I kind of got on this line. | ||
| Now, If people would just listen to all of the news, everything else there. | ||
| Every time the Republican get in, we'll be in red every time. | ||
| So we need this. | ||
| We need this so very badly here that we have insurance for the poor. | ||
| If everybody was rich, like Trump, and don't pay any tax, you know what I'm saying? | ||
| We wouldn't have people cooking and like at the airport and everything else with the food. | ||
| And there's poor people that work every day and with the prices of food and everything on, these poor peoples need this. | ||
| I know a lot of people, thanks to Lord, that I'm not, I don't have to be on food stamps and nothing like that. | ||
| And I have gave some people food and everything else from what I have here. | ||
| And now when they own food stamps and everything, like I say, 90% of the people need these things for these poor little kids that's going to school and being hungry and they work and everything. | ||
| Their daddy is probably in prison or they not even showing up. | ||
| Now, this is so wrong. | ||
| And when they say that, oh, this is the Democrat thing like that. | ||
| Every time they get in, when anybody will look at that, we'd be in the red. | ||
| Then when the Democrats get in, we'd be in the black and everything else there. | ||
| The Democrat is for everybody. | ||
| So that's the reason someone on and voted so that poor kids wouldn't have this. | ||
| So the people that work at the airports and they can have jobs and everything with that. | ||
| This is so wrong. | ||
| The way people, I don't know, understanding that like this man was saying. | ||
| Now, if he was really an education man, he would know that the poor people, they have to work. | ||
| Them people, some of the people worked at airports and couldn't even work. | ||
| It was closing down. | ||
| They were hurting their poor people. | ||
| This is the reason why some of the Democrats, and I'm so glad proud of them, stepped up and gone and turned back on. | ||
| Sometimes they had to fall back. | ||
| They know it was wrong the way they're doing it. | ||
| All right, Hattie, and on those Democrats who voted with Republican, let's go over them again. | ||
| We'll put them on your screen. | ||
| Nevada Democratic Senator Cortez-Mastows, Senator Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. | ||
| You also had Senator Kaine of Virginia, Senator King of Maine, Jackie Rosen of Nevada, and out of New Hampshire again, Gene Shaheen. | ||
| So those were the eight Democrats who voted to reopen the government in the Senate. | ||
| When the bill came over to the House, it passed 222 to 209. | ||
| Here are the Democrats who voted with Republicans. | ||
| Henry Quear of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Adam Gray of California, Jared Golden in Maine, Tom Swazi, who represents New York, and Marie Klusenkamp Perez, who represents a district in the Washington state. | ||
| All are from swing districts, and Jared Golden is retiring. | ||
| Two House Republicans voted against their party in reopening the government, Thomas Massey of Connecticut, of Kentucky, excuse me, and Greg Stobe of Florida. | ||
| There were House members who didn't vote. | ||
| They missed the vote. | ||
| Michael McCall of Texas, Bonnie Watson-Coleman, Watson-Coleman had a medical problem, and McCall's office didn't comment. | ||
| That's according to reporting from Punch Bowl News. | ||
| We're asking this morning your message to your party post-shutdown. | ||
| Wayne in Florida, a Republican. | ||
| Wayne, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you. | |
| The government should not be involved, but if it is going to be involved, both Trump and the first caller were correct to point out that removal of the middleman would actually allow it to be funded by saving taxpayers billions, perhaps trillions of dollars. | ||
| And the second, the caller that came on afterwards claiming that Trump and the first caller were liberal was incorrect because saving trillions of dollars is conservative, even if it results in something that's free or reduced price. | ||
| As a perfect example, I used to live over in Paul County, and it is indeed a real red place. | ||
| And that place has free health care, but it costs the taxpayers less because there's no middleman. | ||
| And if you reduce the middleman out of the student loan matter, then the college will look like it will be liberal, but it would actually cost less because the old guy that called earlier, he probably got pre-college. | ||
| And it actually cost the taxpayers less because there was no student loan middleman. | ||
| Returning bankruptcy to student loans would be like John Lott's more guns, less crime. | ||
| It would force the lending down and it would make the lobbyists back off and allow the direct funding. | ||
| The students are important, but saving taxpayers trillions of dollars would be the only thing that would result from eliminating all the grader has a student loan middleman. | ||
| All right, Wayne, we're talking this morning about the shutdown, your message to the party after it has come to an end. | ||
| That happened this week when the House voted on Wednesday after the Senate had voted to reopen the government. | ||
| The bill then sent to the president's desk and he signed it right away. | ||
| The longest shutdown in U.S. history is over. | ||
| This morning, you were getting your thoughts and your message to your party and how they handled the shutdown showdown. | ||
| Tony in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Tony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| I just want to say that I'm terribly bothered with the Democratic Party, and I just can't tolerate the Republican Party. | ||
| The Republican Party was against the creation of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. | ||
| So what makes us think that they care now about the people suffering in this country? | ||
| Donald Trump is going around using ICE as ISIS. | ||
| Tony, do you think as an independent, do you think independents like you are going to remember this budget impasse that lasted 43 days when the election comes around in 350 some days next year? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll answer you this, ma'am. | |
| That's agnostic to me. | ||
| What's also baffling to me is the way C-SPAN hosts can sit there as if they don't live in this country. | ||
| That's more baffling to me. | ||
| How do you guys do that? | ||
| How do you live with yourself? | ||
| What are you referencing, Tony? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm talking about any subject that comes up. | |
| You have to act as though you live in another country. | ||
| You live here, ma'am. | ||
| By being neutral? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just don't. | |
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, by not being you, because you can't. | |
| If you live here, you can't be neutral. | ||
| This is amazing to me that you guys can carry on like this. | ||
| All right, Tony. | ||
| The whole point of the host remaining neutral is to facilitate a conversation. | ||
| It's part of our mission at C-SPAN is to present the information in a neutral way to let all of you decide your opinion yourself, listening to what lawmakers, what influencers, what an analysts say from both sides of an issue. | ||
| We want you to hear from both sides and then you can make up your mind. | ||
| Whoever sits in this chair, it's their responsibility to stay neutral to help facilitate that conversation with all of you. | ||
| Bruce in Massachusetts, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Bruce. | ||
| We're talking about the government shutdown, your message to your party and how they handled it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I'd like to say that I think C-SPAN is very neutral, and that's the way it should be. | |
| That's why Fox and the other networks aren't as good as C-SPAN. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And Bruce, your thoughts on the shutdown and how the Democrats handled it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the Democrats caved in, and I think it's going to come back to bite them in November. | |
| Why do you say that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because I think the Democrats should have held out longer. | |
| So who do you think then gets penalized? | ||
| Which Democrats? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The 14 members of Congress, the 14 members of Congress that are Democrats that sided with the Republicans. | |
| And would you contribute money to a Democrat who would challenge these other Democrats in a primary? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Bruce, Massachusetts Democratic Color. | ||
| Betty, excuse me, Betty in Michigan, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Betty. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I think Trump's doing the best job he can do. | |
| This shutdown, people at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama and the traffic controllers, they get over $100,000 a year. | ||
| And then they're doing DoorDash to make up their supplement of their income. | ||
| What are they doing if they can't have a savings to last over 30 days? | ||
| I think Trump is doing a good job. | ||
| I think the Democrats, they want everything for nothing. | ||
| They can't handle the money, so they want everything given to them. | ||
| And I'm on a fixed income, and I can go for six months or whatever. | ||
| I might be blessed, but I can go for six months. | ||
| Biden has brought all this to Democrats, having all these illegals come in from every country. | ||
| I'm from a different country. | ||
| I came over here in 1955 the right way. | ||
| We had to sign the paper. | ||
| We wouldn't have any assistance from the government for a year. | ||
| We didn't do that. | ||
| We never had no assistance. | ||
| We have never had it in the 60 years I've been here. | ||
| And yet, all these illegals, they get a phone, they get to go in the high-rise apartments that they've made for them now. | ||
| Oh, right. | ||
| Betty, a Republican in Michigan. | ||
| John in Florida, independent. | ||
| John is an independent. | ||
| Who do you blame for the government shutdown? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would probably blame the Democrats. | |
| I mean, they're the ones who put the subsidies in in 21 under COVID. | ||
| And they also put the expiration date in. | ||
| So they could have changed it anytime they would have liked. | ||
| So, I mean, this is a catastrophe of their own doing, but remember, it's always problem, reaction, solution with the government. | ||
| I've got a couple things I'd like to tell the Republican and the Democrat Party. | ||
| The first one for the Democrats, DSA is infiltrating your party. | ||
| You better be aware of it, DSA being the Democrat Socialists of America. | ||
| You can look up some documentaries related to the shutdown. | ||
| What is your message to your party? | ||
|
unidentified
|
To the shutdown? | |
| Well, I don't have a party, so I'm kind of in the middle. | ||
| Yeah, I'll give the advice to the Republicans as well as far as after the shutdown is over, they better get their act on getting the affordability crisis situated, or they're definitely going to lose the midterms. | ||
| And I'd also like to say, Gretchen, one thing for you is when the Democrat callers always call in, you always call them Democratic callers. | ||
| So I'd like for you to maybe be aware of that and please call them Democrat callers. | ||
| But I appreciate that. | ||
| You guys have a great day today. | ||
| John in Florida and Independent, yesterday in the Washington Journal, we asked Tom Bevin of Real Clear Politics whether or not the longest shutdown in U.S. history will matter to Americans during next year's midterm elections. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| Do you think a shutdown in October and November of 2025 matters to voters a year from now, 355 days from now, to be exact? | ||
| I do not. | ||
| I think what voters are going to care about heading in, and look, this is what it was in 2024, and unless events intervene, and by that I mean, you know, a terrorist attack or, you know, a virus like COVID, which went from literally non-existent to the number one issue in 2020, unless something like that happens, it's very clear that voters are concerned about the economy, inflation, by an order of magnitude. | ||
| It's two or three times. | ||
| When you combine those two issues together, it's way more than the next most important concern. | ||
| It's the entire ballgame right now. | ||
| And as I said, Donald Trump came into office. | ||
| He had an advantage over Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on those issues. | ||
| He ran on those issues. | ||
| We're 10 months into his presidency now, and he's underwater by 11 points on the issue of his handling of the economy. | ||
| And by that, I mean his disapproval is 11 points higher than his approval rating. | ||
| And when you dig down and look specifically at inflation, he's at negative 25.5. | ||
| His approval rating on inflation is about 35%, and his disapproval rating is over 60%. | ||
| It's 61.2%. | ||
| So clearly, voters, and not just Democrats, Independents and Republicans, have looked at Donald Trump's stewardship of the economy thus far and said, look, he promised he was going to get inflation under control. | ||
| We're still feeling it. | ||
| And that's something that he and Republicans have to grapple with between now and next November. | ||
| Tom Bevan of Real Clare Politics on the Washington Journal yesterday at the White House, the president's economic advisor, Kevin Haset, came to the microphones where reporters stand outside in the driveway, and he had this to say about the president's efforts to lower inflation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The first thing that we've done is we've stopped the runaway inflation. | |
| And the second thing we've done is we pushed policies that have caused incomes to grow a lot. | ||
| But we understand that people understand as they look at their pocketbooks and go to the grocery store that there's still work to do. | ||
| The way I summarize all the stats we look at is that real purchasing power for a typical worker dropped $3,400 under President Biden and has gone up $1,200 so far today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But Americans rightly are frustrated that they're still $2,000 short. | |
| And that's something that we're going to fix, and we're going to fix it right away. | ||
| The president's economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, in the driveway at the White House yesterday. | ||
| We're asking you this morning to deliver your message to your party on the government shutdown. | ||
| It has now ended the longest in U.S. history. | ||
| What do you want to say to Republican and Democratic leaders? | ||
| Lynn in Green Lane, Pennsylvania, honor line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| John Fetterman is one of my senators, and I back him all the way because the Republicans said that they'll bring up this ACA tax credits again. | ||
| And then you have Speaker Mike Johnson saying he's not even going to bother bringing it up. | ||
| He's going to refuse. | ||
| So this government shutdown, what they signed, you know, to carry it on, is only good till the end of July. | ||
| So the Republican parties are playing a strategy to show the American people just how much BS they're spreading. | ||
| This bill that was signed to reopen the government is good until the end of January. | ||
| 77 days, they need to come up with another agreement, another deal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| But, you know, and if they don't, it's just going to happen all over again, and it's going to be the Republicans' fault because they're not standing by their word. | ||
| And it's going to show the American people who's on their side and who isn't. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Lynn's there in Pennsylvania, Democratic colleagues. | ||
| She said she agrees with John Fetterman, her senator from Pennsylvania. | ||
| He was one of eight who opened up, joined Republicans to reopen the government earlier this week. | ||
| Listen to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and her reaction to how the leadership in the Senate, Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, Democratic leader in the Senate, and those eight Democrats handled the situation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congresswoman? | |
| I think what is so important for folks to understand is that this problem is bigger than one person. | ||
| And it actually is bigger than the minority leader in the Senate. | ||
| You had eight Senate Democrats who coordinated this, their own votes on this, as well as you have two retiring members. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Many of them are also up in several cycles from now with the hope that people are going to forget this moment. | |
| And I think what's important is that we understand that this is actually, this is not just, a leader is reflected, is a reflection of the party. | ||
| And Senate Democrats have selected their leadership to represent them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so the question needs to be bigger than just one person. | |
| We have several Senate primaries this cycle. | ||
| I know I'm being asked about New York. | ||
| That is years from now. | ||
| After my own constituents, because they think that this election is this year, we actually do have Senate elections this year. | ||
| And my hope is that people across this country actually participate in their primary elections in selecting their leadership. | ||
| They're not going to be able to do that. | ||
| Congresswoman Alexandria Elcasio-Cortez on that vote in the Senate, what she thinks should happen within the party. | ||
| In an interview on Newsmax, Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruders gave his assessment of the Democratic Party after the end of the shutdown. | ||
| This is what he had to say on Thursday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Who's the leader of the Democrat Party right now? | |
| We know who leads the Republican Party. | ||
| It's one person, Donald J. Trump. | ||
| But is it Bernie Sanders? | ||
| Is it Mom Donnie? | ||
| Is it Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have no idea. | |
| And right now, I think the socialists are winning. | ||
| Listen, I think the President Trump leads their party because the only thing that the Democrats like to say is they're against the president. | ||
| And that's what the shutdown was all about. | ||
| It's their effort to stop the president and all the good things that he's doing. | ||
| And that's why we have to win the midterms. | ||
| That's why it's all hands on deck. | ||
| We have to do everything we can to make sure we maintain the majorities in the House of the Senate. | ||
| Because if we don't, what's going to happen is exactly what you saw all these 43 days in the shutdown. | ||
| The Democrats are going to obstruct. | ||
| They're going to impeach. | ||
| They're going to investigate. | ||
| They're going to do everything they can to stop the momentum and stop the president from delivering real results to Americans out there. | ||
| On Newsmax, yesterday, the Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruder is giving his assessment of the 2026 midterm elections. | ||
| Now, on CNN, Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett, who is considering a run for the Senate, spoke about her confidence in the Democratic leadership, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. | ||
| This is what she had to say yesterday on CNN. | ||
| I will tell you that I completely understand those that are disappointed. | ||
| I will tell you that on November 4th, we won in places that we weren't supposed to win in, whether we're looking at Georgia or whether we're looking at Mississippi or whether we're looking at different parts of Virginia, where now we're going to end up having a supermajority in the House or in the Commonwealth in the House. | ||
| I will tell you this. | ||
| I will tell you that ultimately the decision about who is best to lead the Senate comes from the Senate. | ||
| It's only the senators that get to make that decision. | ||
| They are the ones with information that we don't have. | ||
| I don't know if there's someone that can fundraise stronger than Chuck Schumer. | ||
| Maybe, maybe not. | ||
| I don't know what all Chuck does when it comes to making sure that we have the best chances with the Senate map that we're given in any given election cycle. | ||
| And I trust our senators in the Senate to decide on who is best to lead them. | ||
| With that, we'll continue with your message to your party after the shutdown showdown has ended here in Washington. | ||
| Jamie, Garden City, Missouri, a Republican. | ||
| Hi, Jamie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, I don't think the Republicans should have done a Biden-Harris CR. | |
| They were on vacation for five weeks, came back in for maybe 15, 12 days, not even the 15, Blue. | ||
| I understand it. | ||
| And yeah, so there's that. | ||
| Both of them are at fault there. | ||
| And then Chuck Schumer does the continued resolution, page 51, section 2141, stating free health care for illegals, adding $1.5 trillion to our $37, $38 trillion debt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That was just stupid. | |
| That's why the government shut down because the Republicans said, no way we're going to do that. | ||
| As for Obamacare, everybody knew it. | ||
| Biden knew it. | ||
| Everybody knew that the subsidies were going to run out. | ||
| They made the shutdown about Obamacare, which it wasn't. | ||
| It was about the continued resolution that Chuck Schumer did. | ||
| So, and then the subsidies that Schumer wanted to include in, those would go to the insurance companies, whereas we, the people, don't get paid. | ||
| The whole thing is ridiculous and unfair. | ||
| And nobody should get paid. | ||
| These people that got paid, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kat Kemet were the only two congresswomen that said, I will not take pay. | ||
| There were more that said that, Jamie. | ||
| We talked to members of Congress during the shutdown here on the Washington Journal, and there were more who said, you know, I'm not taking my pay right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator did, and I was frustrated about that. | |
| I even called and said, how can you do that? | ||
| Who did? | ||
| Sorry, Jamie, we missed that. | ||
| Who did? | ||
| Who took the pay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congressman Alford did. | |
| Okay. | ||
| My representative. | ||
| And I was unokay with that. | ||
| It's like, you guys are not doing a job for us. | ||
| You shouldn't get paid. | ||
| We're in debt. | ||
| We don't have the money. | ||
| So, this ridiculousness of changing money for not doing your job as a military mother, there was a time where I didn't think the military was going to get pay. | ||
| I was livid. | ||
| It's like these men are supposed to be ready to die for our country, and they're going without a paycheck. | ||
| That is sick, really sick. | ||
| So, I don't know. | ||
| I'm frustrated with my party, and I'm frustrated for everybody. | ||
| I don't think it's a Republican or Democrat situation, but the resolution, with Chuck Schumer, that blew my brain. | ||
| It's like, why would you do that? | ||
| And then make it about Obamacare. | ||
| It wasn't about that. | ||
| Okay, well, Jamie, I'll pick up there because Punch Bowl News notes this: Congress is a dynamic institution. | ||
| We've just gotten over a major crisis, the 43-day government shutdown, and are on the brink of two more legislative flashpoints. | ||
| In just 47 days, enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits expire, and in 77 days, the government will run out of money again, unless there's a bipartisan funding deal. | ||
| Let's go to Texas. | ||
| Marcelo, an independent, joining us there. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Well, look, it was Franklin that said when they asked him what kind of government we had, he said, We have a republic if you can keep it. | ||
| And the reason why, when we used to study our republic, when we used to teach civics, they used to say that the people could always change the government because in a republic they're the inheritors or the heirs of the, because it was man that set up the institution to promote equality amongst men. | ||
| But now, what I have to say about this government shutdown is that it is not the same government that's coming up, and people are not being notified. | ||
| They're being deceived about what's it's a new, it's if you ask in writing and you commit people, do we have a republic? | ||
| The answer is probably going to be no, because in the past, like for example, if a president saw that he needed to protect like an industry here in the United States, there were several like mechanisms that he would go through, and he would address one nation because like he couldn't address them all because we have good relations with some of them, we don't want to start wars with them. | ||
| Even when the Supreme Court was hearing this case, they were talking about how this was a precedent that it went up all the nations increased the tariffs to bring him to the table to do a new deal, which is a new covenant, which means that he did this without the people's representation, even though Congress passes laws by unanimous consent and the people don't know exactly what they change. | ||
| They do it in five minutes instead of waiving the House rules, which is to notify the owners of the House, which is the people. | ||
| Okay, all right, and we're talking about, we're going to talk about trade and tariffs coming up here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| We're also going to be talking about affordability, focusing on the housing sector in this economy, in the U.S. economy. | ||
| All of that coming up on the Washington Journal. | ||
| And other news to share with you, front page of the Washington Times, it's in other newspapers as well. | ||
| The Justice Department has joined a lawsuit to stop California's new anti-GOP congressional map. | ||
| That's the Washington Times headline on this story. | ||
| What they're referring to is Proposition 50, which, as you know, passed last week during the November 4th election. | ||
| Here is what the current map looks like. | ||
| There are 43 Democrats and nine Republicans that represent the state in the U.S. House of Representatives. | ||
| Under this proposed map that California voters approved, according to Cook Political Reports analysis, it's likely that in the midterm elections in 2026, you're going to end up with 46 Democrats and four Republicans. | ||
| And then they say two of these districts that were Republicans become toss-ups. | ||
| So we'll look at the California map with that headline this morning that the Justice Department, the Trump, Trump administration's Justice Department is suing over this California district map. | ||
| So more news to come as the redistricting battle continues across the country. | ||
| Christine in Virginia, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Christine. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I'm glad you were able to get me in. | ||
| Well, I already spoke with, or I've already given my view to my senator, which is Senator Tim Cain, and that is that I'm very proud of him being stepping up and taking the position he did. | ||
| Spent the last couple days explaining it to multiple people, you know, that know that want to, you know, primary everybody and everything. | ||
| But I think this, you know, this whole situation largely started with the Big Bad Betrayal Bill where, you know, there was no Democratic involvement. | ||
| And, you know, Trump and his whole GOP went along with cutting all kinds of health care and other funding. | ||
| And Christine, when it comes to that Big Beautiful debate, Democrats are, some Democrats, upset in the party that Democratic voters, that their leadership and their lawmakers, their party representatives did not stand up to Republicans, that they didn't put up more of a fight when it came to the Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| Do you share that sentiment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think that they had a chance to, you know, I think it would have been a wasted effort, I mean, beyond what they tried to do. | |
| I mean, when you have President Trump and the entire GOP party, our Lemons, you know, following his every move, you know, it's very difficult. | ||
| And in fact, this shutdown really was the only place where they could get the attention of all the American people. | ||
| You know, and I'm talking about people that don't follow the news. | ||
| When the food is running out, they know what's going on. | ||
| And when their health care is going to be intolerably, you know, when they're going to lose their health care, many of them, they tune in. | ||
| And so I thought the shutdown was something that we had to do. | ||
| And. | ||
| All right, Christine there in Virginia. | ||
| I want to share with viewers who may have missed it earlier. | ||
| KFF did a poll recently about the health care debate and whether or not it was worth the government shutdown. | ||
| 74% of U.S. adults supported extending the tax credits. | ||
| That includes 94% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 50% of Republicans. | ||
| KFF also went on to find that 81% of Democrats supported congressional Democrats holding out for a deal to extend tax credits, even if it prolonged the government shutdown. | ||
| And 44% of MAGA supporters wanted the credits extended as well. | ||
| Vince in Michigan, a Republican. | ||
| Vince, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well, Vince. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| I'm sorry, Greta. | ||
| Yep, doing well, and we want your message to your party. | ||
| All right, what people really got to understand, and this is for everybody listening right now, okay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right now, the Democratic Party is dead broke. | |
| Dead, dead broke. | ||
| They have no income streams on the back end. | ||
| This is why the Democrat Party, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries decided to die on this hill. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| If you take a look at the subsidies, right? | ||
| 50% of that goes to the health insurance companies, which in turn pays a residual income to all the health insurance agents, okay? | ||
| If this were to work, 80% of all the money paid in for it, okay? | ||
| 50%, like for instance, if it's an $800 bill, the $400 of the subsidies ended up going in the pocket of the insurance companies, which is wrong. | ||
| That doesn't help the individual that's sick, that needs care. | ||
| And a lot of that money that was going into the insurance companies was getting kicked back to the Democrat Party. | ||
| There was billions and billions of dollars getting kicked back to the Democrat Party through the health insurance. | ||
| Vince, how do you know Republicans don't get donations, campaign donations from insurance companies? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not saying that they don't, but this is the reason why the Democrats went down this road. | |
| If you take a look at what's happened in the last year with Trump, he's cut off all their slush fund back end funding. | ||
| Department of Education, all of it. | ||
| And healthcare was just another one of them. | ||
| All right, Vince, we'll leave it there at that point. | ||
| We'll return to this conversation later on in the Washington Journal. | ||
| Also later on coming up, Consumer Federation of Americans Sharon Cornelison joins us to discuss President Trump's proposal for a 50-year mortgage and the state of housing in the current economy. | ||
| After the break, we'll talk with Tax Foundation's Erica York about President Trump's proposal to issue tariff rebate checks. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Today, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, former Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones and former Ohio Republican Congressman Steve Stivers come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the shutdown and top issues facing the country. | |
| They join host Dasha Burns. | ||
| Bridging the divide in American politics. | ||
| Watch Ceasefire today at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on C-SPAN. | ||
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| Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series. | ||
| Sunday, best-selling biographer Walter Isaacson, who chronicles history's most remarkable lives. | ||
| His books include Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, and Einstein. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| What attracted you to these people? | ||
| Was it because they were geniuses or you just happened to like them? | ||
| Smart people are a dime a dozen. | ||
| In order to be a genius, you have to be creative. | ||
| You have to think out of the box. | ||
| And one of the things that struck me when I wrote about Benjamin Franklin early on was what a great scientist and technologist he was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with Walter Isaacson, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | |
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| We want to welcome back to the program Erica York. | ||
| She is the federal tax policy vice president at the Tax Foundation here to talk about the president's tariff policies and his proposal for a tariff rebate check. | ||
| Erica York, thank you for being here. | ||
| I want to begin with President Trump's Truth Social post on this where he said, people that are against tariffs are fools. | ||
| We are now the richest, most respected country in the world with almost no inflation and a record stock market price. | ||
| 401ks are highest ever. | ||
| We are taking in trillions of dollars and will soon begin paying down our enormous debt, 37 trillion. | ||
| Record investment in the United States, plants and factories going up all over the place. | ||
| A dividend of at least $2,000 a person, not including high-income people, will be paid to everyone. | ||
| And his Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, had this to say about the President's rebate check proposal. | ||
| Do you have a proposal, a formal proposal to give a $2,000 dividend to every American? | ||
| I haven't spoken to the president about this yet, but the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms and lots of ways, George. | ||
| It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president's agenda. | ||
| No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans. | ||
| So those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill. | ||
| Erica York, before we get to this idea of a rebate, let's just begin with the president's tariff policies. | ||
| Broadly describe what the president did when he took office for the second time and where we are at with the tariff policies. | ||
| The president has imposed several rounds of new tariffs using various statutes. | ||
| A couple of the new rounds of tariffs involve an emergency law that has never been used to impose tariffs before. | ||
| A lot of people will call that IEPA or the IEPA tariffs. | ||
| These are related to border crossings and fentanyl, and they include tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. | ||
| There are the so-called reciprocal tariffs. | ||
| If you remember back to April and the Liberation Day announcement from the president that involved a 10% baseline tariff on almost all imports into the United States, plus higher tariffs on certain trading partners. | ||
| And then separate from the emergency tariffs, we have some industry-specific tariffs. | ||
| These are usually referred to as Section 232 tariffs, and they affect things like steel, aluminum, automobiles, copper, furniture. | ||
| And there are more investigations ongoing to expand the scope of those tariffs. | ||
| In all, at Tax Foundation, we estimate that together over the next decade, all of the new tariffs will amount to a $2.4 trillion tax increase. | ||
| So, they are quite substantial in terms of the revenue that they will raise. | ||
| Revenue raised for the Treasury. | ||
| So, the President has talked about so far how much has the United States accrued because of his tariffs. | ||
| So, if we look at Treasury Department data, every month the Treasury Department reports how much tax revenue it has brought in and how much spending the federal government has undertaken. | ||
| The latest data that we have on that is through September, and it shows that in total for January through, well, for the full fiscal year, 2025 fiscal year, the federal government brought in $195 billion, that's billion with a B, in customs duty revenues or in tariffs. | ||
| That $195 billion includes pre-existing tariffs, so tariffs that were in place before Trump took office, as well as the new tariffs. | ||
| So, if you break it down even further, the new tariffs have to date raised about $120 billion of tax revenue for the federal government. | ||
| So, you'll notice that's far short of what we often hear the president say when he speaks of trillions of dollars coming in. | ||
| So, there's a really big gap between the actual revenues being paid by U.S. importers versus what the president is saying the tariffs bring in. | ||
| Is the U.S. government chipping away at our nation's debt with this tariff revenue? | ||
| So far, no. | ||
| So, if you recall, back in the summer, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. | ||
| That was a very large tax cut. | ||
| It did include some spending cuts as well. | ||
| But overall, the impact on the deficit of that bill itself over the next decade will be to increase the deficit somewhere between $3 trillion and $4 trillion. | ||
| So, even though we are bringing in some tariff revenues, the president has also done things that increase the deficit elsewhere. | ||
| So, the net effect of all of these policies is that the deficit is growing, which means we are still adding to the national debt. | ||
| We are not chipping away at the national debt. | ||
| Erica York, what has been the impact of these new tariffs under the Trump administration on the consumer, the American consumer? | ||
| Consumers have started to see some retail price increases because of the tariffs. | ||
| Some of the most commonly experienced and talked about price increases, of course, have been for things that you buy at the grocery store, things like coffee and bananas, where you've really seen a direct increase in prices because of the tariffs. | ||
| But overall, we have seen retail prices climb. | ||
| And that's retail prices for things that are imported because the tariff adds to the cost and that gets passed on to the consumer. | ||
| It's also retail prices for things that are made in the United States, because when people substitute away from foreign goods toward domestic goods, that increases demand for domestic goods. | ||
| And so, prices for those domestic goods can rise too. | ||
| All in all, academic economists peg it at about 20% pass through. | ||
| So, about 20% of the tariff burden has passed through to retail prices so far. | ||
| That's in part because there's just been so much uncertainty. | ||
| We've seen announcement and then walking back announcement and then exemptions and then delays and pauses. | ||
| So, a lot of changes in tariff policy have made businesses overall take a sort of wait-and-see approach, waiting to see what will actually be in place before they change their pricing strategy too much. | ||
| New York Times headline: Trump administration prepares tariff exemptions in bid to lower food prices. | ||
| If the proposal goes into effect, it would be the latest rollback of one of President Trump's economic policies over concerns about affordability. | ||
| Tell us how this would work. | ||
| What is the Trump administration talking about here? | ||
| It seems like they are thinking about exempting goods that can't commercially be produced in the United States at scale. | ||
| So, some of those things I mentioned earlier, like coffee and bananas, that we just don't have the climate or enough land with the appropriate climate to grow in the United States. | ||
| So, they're looking at a selection of mostly agricultural products that would potentially be exempted from those tariffs. | ||
| That would provide some relief to consumers of those products. | ||
| But it's a most likely, we don't have all of the details yet, but it's most likely going to be a rather cosmetic change. | ||
| The bulk of the tariffs will remain in place. | ||
| They will continue to create pricing pressures in the economy, but there will be a little bit of relief for these highly visible, for these highly visible products. | ||
| And then, USA today, with the headline, Trump's $2,000 rebate checks would cost $600 billion, double the new revenue from tariffs. | ||
| If the president were to go forward with this 2000 tariff rebate, how would that work? | ||
| And what do you make of USA Today's analysis that it would cost $600 billion, double the new revenue from tariffs? | ||
| It would probably work similar to the COVID relief payments that we got in 2020 and 2021. | ||
| Those were administered through the tax code. | ||
| You either received them in advance or you reconciled it when you filed your taxes. | ||
| But that takes an act of Congress. | ||
| That's not something that the president can just decide on his own to do. | ||
| So, if this is going to be realized, if people are actually going to get $2,000 checks, Congress would have to enact a law in order to do that. | ||
| They have not done that so far, so there is no pending check right now. | ||
| But there is a big math problem with the checks. | ||
| So, like I mentioned earlier, the new tariffs have brought in about $120 billion to date. | ||
| Of course, through the end of the year, that will grow, but it's substantially lower than any sort of estimate of these checks checks out to be. | ||
| I've done some math too, just looking at Americans who file tax returns who report earning $100,000 or less on their tax returns, because Secretary Bessant has alluded to that $100,000 of income being the cutoff point for receiving a check. | ||
| If you assume it just goes to taxpayers and spouses, no children at all receive the checks, then it would cost at least $300 billion. | ||
| So, the range of estimates for the price tag of these tariff rebate checks is somewhere between $300 billion to $600 billion. | ||
| And all of that is far more than what the tariffs have generated for the government. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We want to invite our viewers to join us in this conversation this morning. | ||
| Get your thoughts on the President Trump's tariff policies. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| And remember, you can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| Tammy in Florida and Independent Europe. | ||
| First, Tammy. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I just wanted to thank C-SPAN for staying neutral. | |
| I heard the comment earlier today. | ||
| I think it's critical to the U.S. that we have neutral commentary given the status of the news systems like Fox, where they've been proven liars and excluded from use in other countries. | ||
| I was a Republican, but I think the Republicans are being irresponsible. | ||
| Although I do think a $2,000 stimulant to people under $100,000 would be appropriate because of, you know, given the tax breaks they're giving to the rich, assisting people at low income is very important to this country. | ||
| However, the choice of how they will fund that will likely be to go even further in debt because they've blown so much money, which is the same cause really for the shutdown as they just keep spending and spending. | ||
| They gave Trump $800 million per year budget in the last budget round to provide travel, which he's traveled over 110 days to and from his residences in Mar-Lago and other golf courses over the course of his short tenure in this term. | ||
| All right, Tammy, I'm going to jump in. | ||
| Erica York, let's talk about the first part of it. | ||
| She said, giving a stimulant to the folks that make under less than $100,000 economic stimulus is a good idea. | ||
| Is that what it does, though, for folks? | ||
| Did that work when the Biden administration did it during COVID? | ||
| So if you look at the impact of the COVID era stimulus checks, most estimates say that those stimulus payments, as well as the other fiscal stimulus, all of the COVID money that the federal government spent contributed anywhere between one to three percentage points to headline inflation. | ||
| Now, the scope of what we would be looking at, the deficit financed amount of these checks would be substantially smaller than what was deficit financed during COVID, but it would create more inflationary pressures in the economy. | ||
| And so in that sense, it's a bit misguided at this point to do stimulus checks. | ||
| A better way to target relief to low and middle income Americans would be to lift the tariffs in the first place. | ||
| Tariffs are creating a drag on the economy. | ||
| They're adding to costs. | ||
| They're reducing incomes. | ||
| That's particularly true for low and middle income households. | ||
| And so getting rid of the tariffs would be better than a sort of band-aid policy of sending them $2,000 checks. | ||
| Can you put some numbers behind reducing income? | ||
| Yeah, we've estimated that on average, the tariffs in 2025 amount to a tax burden of about $1,300. | ||
| In 2026, when they're in effect for the full calendar year, that will grow to $1,600. | ||
| It can differ across households depending on how much imported goods they consume, what industries they work in. | ||
| So you could see an individual household or an individual taxpayer's burden be larger or smaller than that average amount, but that gives you an idea of just the substantial tax increase, which results in a decrease in your after-tax income or your ability to consume because the government is pulling this money out of the economy through the tariff payments. | ||
| And that is why it's a drag, as you said, drag on the economy? | ||
| Define that. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So most estimates, including ours at Tax Foundation, find that the tariffs will decrease economic growth. | ||
| They'll reduce productivity. | ||
| They'll reduce output. | ||
| They'll increase costs and prices. | ||
| And so that is why you see the drag on economic growth. | ||
| If you think about what a tariff requires a business to do, suppose that they're importing inputs and they turn those inputs into a final product. | ||
| When you place a tariff on those inputs, it increases the cost of doing business in the United States. | ||
| And so that business facing higher costs may try to pass those price increases on to consumers, which means we have less money left over after we buy our basket of goods and services. | ||
| It may mean that that business is forced to reduce hiring, to reduce wages, to reduce investment. | ||
| And as those choices at each individual business play out across the economy, what happens is a lower level of income, lower level of investment, lower productivity, and ultimately the economy is a little bit smaller than it would have been if we didn't have that tariff distorting those decisions. | ||
| We'll go to Nashville, Tennessee. | ||
| Marshall is a Republican. | ||
| Welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Grega. | |
| Good morning, Erica. | ||
| I have several questions for you. | ||
| First, I'm coming from a perspective that America is bankrupt. | ||
| America owns over $37 trillion in debt. | ||
| What President Trump is doing is trying to bring money into the country. | ||
| I've seen him sign documents where hundreds of billions of dollars have been brought into the country through manufacturing, working with Eli Lilly and Pfizer to lower the price of medications. | ||
| And much of the tariffs are evening out the playing field where we're being taxed 400, 1,000% on items, and we get nothing in return. | ||
| The biggest thing that I see is the opposition, because for Democrats, they have to win. | ||
| And if they can oppose anything good that the president is trying to do and make it bad so that they can win the next election, they will do it. | ||
| Okay, so Marcel, let's set up the politics aside. | ||
| Erica, York, respond to his argument about tariffs, evening the playing field. | ||
| Yeah, so the first part of his comment, the federal debt, absolutely. | ||
| The federal government, the debt held by the public has surpassed $29 trillion. | ||
| That's smaller than that $37, $38 trillion figure we hear. | ||
| And it reflects the actual debt held by external people or agencies outside of the federal government. | ||
| And so there is a big problem between spending and revenues for the federal government. | ||
| That's a very separate question from foreign investment into the United States. | ||
| And so what we've seen in these framework deals that the president has signed, which we should note are very separate from a normal trade deal that would take years to develop that is authorized by Congress and has to go through Congress and be approved. | ||
| These are less legally stringent than those. | ||
| But foreign countries have promised to make investments into the United States. | ||
| Those would not be payments to the federal government. | ||
| There wouldn't be any funds going into the treasury from those private sector investments that would pay down the debt. | ||
| And so it's important to not conflate the idea of private sector investment versus tariff revenues that are paid by U.S. importers into the Treasury. | ||
| But this idea of leveling the playing field is a little bit misguided. | ||
| We can find examples of other countries, either through tariffs or regulatory barriers or other policies acting in a discriminatory fashion against the United States. | ||
| Typically, what we've seen historically is the best way to get rid of those barriers is to lower barriers of our own in coordination with those countries. | ||
| Reciprocity being that we lower barriers together. | ||
| What we're seeing from the Trump administration is significantly increasing barriers to the United States economy, which will have and impose a cost on American taxpayers, on American businesses, because it is the U.S. importers who pay things like tariffs. | ||
| And these framework deals really are announcing rather cosmetic changes. | ||
| The investment pledges are, they sound good on paper, but there's nothing to enforce those to actually take place. | ||
| So there's a high likelihood that they will fall through. | ||
| I would say one of the better things that the Trump administration has done to encourage investment into the United States is through the tax bill that it passed. | ||
| It includes three provisions that improve the tax treatment of domestic investment in research and development, in manufacturing structures, and in machinery, equipment, software, any type of short-lived asset, allowing companies to immediately deduct those costs. | ||
| That lowers the cost of investing in the United States. | ||
| And so that's a really positive thing that we've seen that should help boost investment as opposed to tariffs, which increase the cost of doing business in the United States. | ||
| We'll go to John, who's in Portland, Connecticut, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Yeah, you know, I hope these checks work out for everyone. | ||
| I think our administration is trying to levy something that would help all of us. | ||
| But for your guest, for such a young person, why, with all this knowledge she's professing, why doesn't she go to DC and share with the administration down in DC and advise them? | ||
| If she knows more than all the best people we have in DC, I see a problem with her statements. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, Erica York, explain what you do at the Tax Foundation. | ||
| What is the foundation and your background? | ||
| Yeah, so Tax Foundation is based in Washington, D.C. | ||
| We are the nation's oldest tax policy nonprofit. | ||
| We were established in 1937. | ||
| And since then, we have been working in D.C. and now in the States and around the globe as well with Tax Foundation Europe to promote better tax policy. | ||
| We are a nonpartisan nonprofit. | ||
| And so our primary purpose is to educate the public, educate lawmakers, educate the media on sound tax policy. | ||
| We think that the tax code should be simple, neutral, transparent, and stable. | ||
| One of the things that we do on my team at Tax Foundation is model the economic and revenue and distributional impacts of tax policy changes. | ||
| So when the president proposes a change to tariffs or when Congress proposes a change to tax law, we're able to use our model to illustrate what would that mean for jobs, what would that mean for wages, what would that mean for economic growth and for tax revenues. | ||
| And so we are trying to do exactly as the caller said. | ||
| My role at Tax Foundation is vice president of the federal policy team. | ||
| I've been with the foundation about eight years. | ||
| I have a master's degree in economic analysis. | ||
| And so I really enjoy looking at how these policy ideas would impact people, what they actually mean for people's well-being, for the opportunities that they have, whether they would promote growth or whether they would shrink the economy in the United States, because a growing economy helps provide opportunity for workers and for families. | ||
| So that's a lot of what we do at the Tax Foundation. | ||
| You can go to our website, taxfoundation.org, and read all of our reports and read more about us if you'd like. | ||
| Do members of Congress and the White House use your analysis and research? | ||
| Yes, we frequently visit with members, with their staff. | ||
| We host every year a program called Tax Foundation University, which is kind of like a crash course in the economics of tax and how to think about tax policy from an economist's perspective. | ||
| So thinking about the trade-offs, thinking about how tax policy changes affect the incentives that people face for their choices about working and saving and investing. | ||
| And so we do make those materials available on our website as well. | ||
| But yeah, we see lawmakers frequently rely on our model estimates and on our analysis of whether a tax policy change would align with those principles of sound tax policy or not. | ||
| And if our viewers go to our website, cspan.org, you can see Erica York has testified before members of Congress as well about her work at the Tax Foundation. | ||
| Cyril in Miami, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Good morning, Erica. | ||
| Nice to be on the show. | ||
| Just a quick observation. | ||
| Although we're increasing tariffs and bringing in tariff revenues, and Trump is professing not to pass on these additional costs to consumers, companies will absorb this particular hit and their revenues will be lower. | ||
| Wouldn't that in turn lower their tax burden? | ||
| Where the U.S. is not going to be pulling in additional revenues from that additional cost passed on to companies? | ||
| Doesn't that lower their tax burden and the U.S. in turn takes in less money from that? | ||
| All right, well, take your point. | ||
| Erica York. | ||
| That's an excellent observation. | ||
| And yes, that mechanism that you mentioned does happen. | ||
| So if you look at any estimates of tariff revenues, whether it's the Congressional Budget Office or whether it's us at Tax Foundation or other outside estimating groups, we take that effect that you mentioned into account. | ||
| The technical term for it is called the income and payroll tax offset. | ||
| And it's essentially this idea that if the government pulls a dollar out of the economy through tariff payments, that's a dollar less of revenue that that company has or that the economy has to compensate workers, to compensate shareholders of businesses, to compensate owners of businesses. | ||
| And so it directly shrinks the income and payroll tax base. | ||
| Now, that doesn't mean that tariffs overall lose revenue. | ||
| It just means that ultimately they generate less for the federal government than what we see come in in tariff collections. | ||
| Most estimates put that offset somewhere between 23% and 25%. | ||
| So you can think of it like for every dollar of tariff revenue the government takes in, it loses about 25 cents of income and payroll tax revenues. | ||
| So the net revenue generated is about 75 cents for each dollar of tariff payment. | ||
| In Connecticut, Larry is watching there on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm one of those people that received a Social Security lump sum check this year under the Social Security Fairness Act. | ||
| And that's why this matters to me. | ||
| I continually hear the President and members of his Congress on TV saying that there is no tax on Social Security. | ||
| And then I hear other people that that's not true, that you have to make under a certain amount of money, and it's only no tax on a certain amount of money and so forth. | ||
| I was wondering if you can tell us the truth on if there's no tax on Social Security. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Social Security benefits do remain taxable. | ||
| So one of the ideas that the President campaigned on was completely eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits. | ||
| However, that idea did not get fully enacted into law. | ||
| Instead, what the One Big Beautiful Bill Act did was increase the extra standard deduction for seniors, and it made that available to seniors regardless of whether they itemize or take the standard deduction. | ||
| So for some seniors, that increase in the deduction will eliminate that extra tax liability. | ||
| For others, depending on their income, it will result in a tax cut, but not full elimination of taxes on Social Security benefits. | ||
| We walk through this in an article on our website. | ||
| If you want to search for it, my colleague Alex has done a deep dive into it, done some modeling to illustrate what would it have looked like if the government fully eliminated taxes versus what did the government do. | ||
| And the provision that was ultimately passed in OB3 was a lot smaller and narrower than what the president campaigned on. | ||
| How much is taxed on Social Security benefits? | ||
| It depends. | ||
| So it depends on your level of Social Security benefits as well as if you have any other income, like if you work a part-time job. | ||
| And depending on your income level, either 50% or 85% of your Social Security benefits are taxable. | ||
| But what this extra deduction does, it's an extra $6,000 deduction. | ||
| It reduces how much of your income is ultimately subject to tax. | ||
| So depending where you sit on those Social Security brackets and how much other income you have, it could fully eliminate that tax burden or reduce it. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Guy in Stigler, Oklahoma, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Erica. | |
| And good morning, Greta. | ||
| Hey, Erica, you made a couple of statements earlier about the big beautiful bill stating that it's going to be inflationary, that the tariffs, the big, beautiful bill was going to create $3.5 trillion more of debt over the next five years or whatever the term is. | ||
| And you talked about the economy not doing that good. | ||
| The economy actually, the GDP just went from 2% in the last five years to 3.8% recently. | ||
| Our economic output has almost doubled in the last nine months under Trump. | ||
| Month over month inflation for the last five months has been about one-third of 1%. | ||
| This last month, it did take up to 1%. | ||
| So inflation, the trend is way down. | ||
| And I don't see any inflationary trend that you're talking about from these tariffs. | ||
| And the tariffs also, other countries and corporations so far have decided to bear the brunt of the tariffs. | ||
| From what I understand, about 20% of the actual tariff is being passed on to the public. | ||
| So you have all this doom and gloom about the tariffs and the big beautiful bill. | ||
| But, you know, the facts point otherwise. | ||
| All right, Guy, let's listen to Erica York's response. | ||
| And Erica York, you and the Tax Foundation, have you taken into consideration the points that he's brought up, where GDP is, inflation, and what he said about companies bearing the brunt of this? | ||
| Yeah, so I do want to clarify the inflationary point that I mentioned would be sending $2,000 stimulus payments out to Americans. | ||
| That would push up inflation. | ||
| Otherwise, the impact that tariffs have on inflation is unclear. | ||
| It depends on what the Federal Reserve does. | ||
| But to take the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, yeah, a tax foundation, we estimate that that will increase long-run GDP by 1.2%. | ||
| So it is positive for GDP growth. | ||
| And those three key provisions I mentioned earlier, allowing businesses to fully deduct the costs of their investments in the economy, whether that's research and development or structures or machinery and equipment, those are some of the most pro-growth tax policies that have ever been signed into legislation. | ||
| So the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has some really key pro-growth elements. | ||
| It also has a bunch of tax cuts. | ||
| Some of those are temporary tax cuts. | ||
| Some of those are retroactive tax cuts and things like that we shouldn't expect to contribute to long-run growth because they're not around in the long run. | ||
| And so those will primarily serve to increase the budget deficit. | ||
| As far as the impact of tariffs, it's really important to be clear. | ||
| Even if the tariff doesn't get passed to consumer prices, if it remains at the business level, that doesn't make it free for the economy. | ||
| That doesn't make it free for American taxpayers. | ||
| If the cost of doing business in the United States goes up, that means businesses have a harder time affording hiring, having a harder time raising wages. | ||
| And so whether it's passed through to retail prices or it remains at the producer price level, a tariff is a tax increase that does harm growth and that does harm wages and jobs in the United States. | ||
| And so on the one hand, we have this tax law that has some really important provisions for boosting investment. | ||
| On the other hand, we have tariffs and a trade war that offset some of that by increasing the cost of doing business in the United States. | ||
| Overall, the tariffs we don't think will completely wipe out the benefit of the new tax law, but they will create a bit of a headwind for what would otherwise be really important incentives to invest in the economy. | ||
| Guy, back to you. | ||
| Your reaction to what you heard? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And Erica, if that's true, then how do you explain the GDP almost doubling in the last nine months? | |
| And one other thing I'd like to ask you is about the CBO. | ||
| Traditionally, they've been wrong. | ||
| You know, you're saying they're stating $3.5 trillion will be added to the debt. | ||
| If you go to Trump's first term, they said the same thing and the opposite took place. | ||
| And they've been traditionally wrong. | ||
| So I guess time will tell. | ||
| Guy, we'll have Erica York respond to your points. | ||
| Yeah, so on GDP growth now, of course, the bill wasn't signed into law until this summer. | ||
| Many of its provisions don't take effect until 2026. | ||
| So we wouldn't expect to see an impact, especially from those investment incentives, for a while now. | ||
| Even when they go into effect, we shouldn't expect investment to immediately increase in response because it takes time for businesses to plan, to permit, to actually get things moving for those investments to get placed into service. | ||
| And so it's not an overnight flip a switch type of thing when you substantially change tax law. | ||
| We have seen GDP growth kind of all over the place. | ||
| Part of what has been happening in those quarterly figures is front-running imports. | ||
| So trying to load up inventories before tariffs took place. | ||
| And that has led to some interesting fluctuations in the data that we've seen. | ||
| And then on CBO, overall, what I would say is that forecasting is an inherently tricky job. | ||
| It is really tough to forecast what's going to happen over the next decade. | ||
| So in 2017, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would reduce revenue by about $1.5 trillion. | ||
| What we've seen in the decade, roughly decade since then, is that revenues have come in higher. | ||
| But it's important to read CBO and ask why revenues have come in higher because it's mostly almost all explained by higher than expected inflation, which was a pandemic era phenomenon that you could not have predicted. | ||
| No one could have predicted in 2017 that there would be a pandemic and that inflation would be higher. | ||
| And so that explains a lot of it. | ||
| Also, no one could have predicted, or maybe they could have, but it wasn't part of the tax law, that tariffs would be higher. | ||
| Recall in Trump's first administration, he also imposed a series of tariffs that led to higher tariff revenues. | ||
| And so between inflation, between economic growth coming out of the pandemic, and between tariff revenues, that explains the bulk of their forecasts missed. | ||
| The tax cuts did cut tax revenues and tax revenues came in lower than expected. | ||
| Just these other things that were impossible to predict in the economy happened and caused tax revenues to be higher for those reasons, not because the original projections of the effect of the law itself were wrong. | ||
| All right, we'll go to Billy, who's in Crockett Texas Democratic Caller. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| First of all, I would like to say that God bless the world. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| And we're going to make it through the conflict that we're going on. | ||
| We've got more great people than we have, people that's kind of throwed off, but they don't control America because America history goes. | ||
| All right, Billy, let's get to your question or comment about tariffs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think it's going to work out. | |
| My comments are that the government is the people. | ||
| And if we allow the people to speak and not just people that's in power, we're going to make it. | ||
| And I'd decide that. | ||
| I'll go on to Damien, who's in Laurel, Maryland, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| So I just have two points. | ||
| You brought up drag and speedy treaty deals. | ||
| So let's say the economy is a Ford exclusion. | ||
| SUD, one of the most powerful SUVs, six adults in it. | ||
| So I add an adult. | ||
| Is that a drag? | ||
| Or if I add a U-Haul pickup, is that a drag? | ||
| And then speedy trade deals. | ||
| Isn't that Trump's thing? | ||
| I mean, he's a businessman, right? | ||
| But one more thing. | ||
| All right, let's take your point about speedy trade deals. | ||
| Erica York? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| So if we look at the first Trump administration, I think this is a really useful example. | ||
| The president imposed steep tariffs on about half of imports from China. | ||
| China retaliated, quit buying U.S. ag exports altogether, quit buying soybeans, quit buying sorghum, quit buying pork. | ||
| The trade war lasted about a year and a half through 2019. | ||
| And then the Trump administration reached what was called phase one trade deal. | ||
| That trade deal included lifting of some of the retaliatory tariffs and included purchase commitments from China. | ||
| So China agreed to resume purchases of those agricultural exports from the United States that it had quit buying. | ||
| And then at some point, they were going to do phase two to deal with the actual issues at hand, which were intellectual property theft practices that China engages in. | ||
| Phase two of that trade deal never happened. | ||
| The phase one purchase commitments largely went unfulfilled. | ||
| And now we are where we are today. | ||
| Several of these framework agreements or so-called trade deals that the president is signing right now harken back to that phase one trade deal. | ||
| There are promises made, there are pledges, but they're really just words written on paper. | ||
| They are not enforcement mechanisms. | ||
| They are not a fully fledged trade deal where negotiators work out these details that have been challenges for many years in some cases. | ||
| And in some cases, too, things that really do need to be addressed, real discriminatory practices. | ||
| Instead, what we're seeing is that the U.S. does very extreme tariffs. | ||
| We very quickly write some things down on paper. | ||
| And then the U.S. is largely maintaining higher tariffs. | ||
| So I don't think we are coming out of these deals better off than we entered into them. | ||
| Steve in Ormond Beach, Florida, Independent. | ||
| Morning, Steve. | ||
| Question or comment here for Erica York. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have both. | |
| Okay, we're listening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Question and comment. | |
| First, I was going to say, you are a nonprofit. | ||
| You're not with the federal government. | ||
| I just looked you up. | ||
| I'd like to say that Trump's policies are securing manufacturing investments. | ||
| He's also safeguarding the national and economic security. | ||
| And he's also raising billions in revenue for the federal government. | ||
| And he's doing this just by getting illegal aliens out. | ||
| A lot of it, you know, him getting rid of illegal aliens has removed a lot of our expenses. | ||
| And what do you say about this resetting global commerce? | ||
| Trump is, I think he's doing something very good. | ||
| I think, like that one guy said, time will tell. | ||
| Okay, we'll take your point, Steve. | ||
| Erica York. | ||
| Most estimates on immigration suggest that immigrants contribute more in tax revenues than they take in federal spending. | ||
| So we'll have to see what the impact on the federal budget is given immigration policies. | ||
| But looking at tariffs, yes, they raise tax revenue for the federal government. | ||
| That is a tax increase on U.S. businesses and workers, though. | ||
| It is not being paid by foreigners, foreign businesses, foreign governments. | ||
| That is a tax increase paid, again, by the U.S. importer. | ||
| If we look at this idea of resetting global commerce, I would question largely the need to reset global commerce. | ||
| Most of the story of manufacturing in the United States is a story of productivity and of technological improvement. | ||
| So if we look at employment numbers, yes, far fewer Americans are employed in the manufacturing industry, but if we look at manufacturing output, it has continued to grow. | ||
| If you compare the value added of a manufacturing worker in the United States to the value added of a manufacturing worker in China, you'll see that U.S. manufacturing workers are brilliantly productive. | ||
| The value that we produce here is far and above the value per worker produced in our competitor nations, and that is because of technological development. | ||
| So rather than it being a story of other countries took our jobs, it's really a story of the American manufacturing worker has become very productive and we can continue growing what we produce here with fewer workers. | ||
| And this is also something that we've seen play out across most developed countries. | ||
| When you first transition away from agriculture to manufacturing, it takes a lot of people. | ||
| But as those people learn processes and as those processes improve, it takes fewer people to manufacture things. | ||
| One paper recently even wrote this line that said, if we want to go back to having really large numbers of people employed in manufacturing, you would essentially have to smash the machines. | ||
| And I don't think that's something that anyone wants to do because productivity growth is how we get wage growth. | ||
| So it does create a question of what do you do to help these displaced workers. | ||
| But I don't think the answer should be that we go back in time and reduce how much technology we use, reduce productivity. | ||
| It needs to be a bridge to something better rather than building up walls, to borrow a metaphor from a really great trade policy book. | ||
| Kurt's in Florida, a Republican. | ||
| Morning, Kurt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I have two questions and a comment. | ||
| The first question is she could help explain to me before 2016, did tariffs exist in the U.S.? | ||
| Were they called something different? | ||
| And what were they? | ||
| The second question is the VAT, value-added tax that Europeans have on imports. | ||
| Is that the same thing as a tariff? | ||
| And were those numbers that the president had on his chart showing import, you want to call tariff taxes from foreign countries? | ||
| Was that equivalent to the VAT? | ||
| And the comment, I've traveled to Europe more than a couple of times, and there are, in one respect, cars and motorcycles is what I'm into. | ||
| I talk to people, and there are no American cars, no American motorcycles over there. | ||
| And if they are, the people that own them, I ask them, well, what do they cost here? | ||
| Well, typically a Harley is somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000 here. | ||
| It's exactly double that there. | ||
| Same with trucks. | ||
| There's no Chevys over there. | ||
| So that's my comment. | ||
| And prior to 2016, average tariffs in the United States were about 1% to 1.5% overall. | ||
| Now, given the tariffs the Trump administration has imposed, that has risen almost tenfold. | ||
| It's above 11% now. | ||
| So you can see the substantial increase in trade barriers. | ||
| If you look at the average trade barriers applied by other countries to U.S. exports, you can find examples where they're higher for certain categories of products, like automobiles. | ||
| That is certainly one area that's easy to point to as an example of discrimination. | ||
| But on average, trade barriers are not much higher, maybe 2 to 2.5%. | ||
| So there's not a substantial gap between where the U.S. was pre-Trump versus what other countries were applying to us. | ||
| So I think that, yes, you can point to those examples, but that doesn't mean that the U.S. needs to substantially increase its own trade barriers. | ||
| Rather, what we've seen work best in history is working on those specific issues. | ||
| So take the auto issue, work directly with the EU on that rather than imposing blanket tariffs. | ||
| And then the question of what was shown on the president's Liberation Day chart, were those actual trade barriers imposed by other countries? | ||
| No. | ||
| After the fact, the United States Trade Representative published a blog post or a piece on their website explaining where that came from. | ||
| And essentially, they determined the rates by taking the difference between the bilateral trade deficit. | ||
| So how much the U.S. exports to a country versus how much we import from that country. | ||
| And that was what the tariff rate that they determined was a function of. | ||
| It was by no means trying to account for other trade barriers that countries impose. | ||
| And then on the other question of the value-added tax, and is the VAT a tariff? | ||
| Simply no, it is not a tariff. | ||
| We would not say that a state sales tax is a tariff. | ||
| From the consumer's perspective, that sales tax in a state applies whether you buy something from your neighboring state or whether you buy something that was produced in your own state. | ||
| From a consumer's perspective in Europe, the value-added tax works much the same way. | ||
| They are going to pay VAT whether they purchase something that's made in America or whether they purchase something that's made in Germany. | ||
| It applies to all consumption. | ||
| It does not just apply to imported consumption. | ||
| Erica York is the federal tax policy vice president for the Tax Foundation. | ||
| You can go to taxfoundation.org to find more information or follow on X with the handle at Tax Foundation. | ||
| Erica York, thank you for the conversation as always. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We're going to take a break. | ||
| When we come back, we'll talk with Consumer Federation of America's Sharon Cornelison about President Trump's proposal for a 50-year mortgage and the state of the housing industry. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| William Arthur Galston has been a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution since 2006 and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal for the past 12 years. | ||
| In the first paragraph of his latest 161-page book, he tells us what the book is about. | ||
| Quote, this book advances this proposition that what I call the dark passions, anger, hatred, humiliation, resentment, fear, and the drive for domination fuels today's attacks on liberal democracy. | ||
| Galston also says, persuasive public speech is the main way demagogues mobilize these passions to pursue power. | ||
| The actual name of the book is Anger, Fear, Domination. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author William Galston with his book, Anger, Fear, Domination, Dark Passions and the Power of Political Speech. | |
| On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | ||
| Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get. | ||
| You are so fair. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise. | |
| You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country. | ||
| I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds. | ||
| I absolutely love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love to hear both sides. | ||
| I've watch C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased and you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. | ||
| This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country. | ||
| You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions. | ||
| Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to the Washington Journal. | ||
| At our table this morning is Sharon Cornelison. | ||
| She is the housing director for the Consumer Federation of America here to talk about housing affordability in the United States. | ||
| Let's begin with the overall industry, the sector. | ||
| How is it performing right now? | ||
| I mean, we're coming down from a very hot market during the pandemic. | ||
| I mean, during the pandemic, we saw historically low interest rates. | ||
| It was like 2.5%, 3%. | ||
| And since then, interest rates have really gone up a lot. | ||
| I think today we're like around 6.2%. | ||
| So it's not as high as it was, you know, maybe half a year ago, but still much higher than the pandemic. | ||
| So we're definitely seeing, I would say, a relative cooling of the market. | ||
| I read an article the other day in which someone was quoted and they said it's a nobody's market now. | ||
| It's not a seller's market. | ||
| It's not a buyer's market, but something in between right now. | ||
| What's the difference between a cooling and a correction? | ||
| Is there one? | ||
| I mean, I think a lot of people that bought their house during the pandemic, they said that, you know, that was a great market for them. | ||
| I think, you know, in most markets right now, we're just seeing a moderating of home price growth. | ||
| So home prices are still going up, but slowly, right? | ||
| Not as steep as we saw during the pandemic. | ||
| But there's definitely a correction in some markets. | ||
| I always say, you know, the national housing market is not one thing. | ||
| Like, it really depends where you live. | ||
| So, you know, there's a few places, especially in the south, where we're starting to see home prices go down. | ||
| So that, you know, in Texas, for example, Austin, there's been a lot, a lot of housing built in Austin. | ||
| So we're seeing the effect of that, which is good, right? | ||
| Like home prices are coming down. | ||
| Supply and demand. | ||
| Supply and demand works. | ||
| So that's great. | ||
| And then, you know, some markets in Florida as well, for example, Tampa. | ||
| Cape Coral is another one where we're starting to see prices go. | ||
| Again, where they did a lot of building in Florida. | ||
| Where they did a lot of building. | ||
| So we're definitely seeing this connection between building more housing in local markets and prices going down or moderating. | ||
| What happened during the pandemic with appreciation? | ||
| And now, what is the percentage of appreciation now that we're seeing? | ||
| So the pandemic was like very unique kind of situations kind of coming together. | ||
| So one, I already mentioned, like historically low interest rates, which the government, you know, the federal government lowered interest rates in order to prevent a recession. | ||
| And then, you know, a whole generation of millennial homebuyers coming of age, right? | ||
| Like this group of people between 25 and 40, which is kind of the traditional home buying age, like really grew a lot right in that moment. | ||
| So a lot of people were entering the market. | ||
| And a lot of people were able to save more. | ||
| They were not traveling, they weren't eating out. | ||
| So a lot of people kind of all of a sudden had a little bit of savings for the down payment. | ||
| So that's why we were seeing so much demand and seeing so much home appreciation. | ||
| Like I can really put a number, like it really depends, like whether you're in DC or Colorado or Texas, like it depends, but we're just seeing a moderating. | ||
| So it may be even a little lower than inflation overall in many markets. | ||
| But it doesn't mean that home price growth has stopped altogether. | ||
| Why is it a nobody's market if we are seeing home prices coming down? | ||
| Why is it not a buyer's market? | ||
| Yeah, because there's not that many houses for sale. | ||
| A lot of homeowners may be sitting on interest rates of 2.5% or 3%, right? | ||
| So they're looking at other homes and they're saying, well, if I sell my home and buy another home, it's going to be a lot more expensive for me because all of a sudden I have to pay 6.2% in interest, right? | ||
| So even if I downsize to a smaller house, I may still end up paying more. | ||
| In a mortgage payment every month. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| So why would I do that? | ||
| I'll just sit in my house and wait. | ||
| I think a lot of sellers also remember that maybe their neighbors sold during the pandemic. | ||
| So they have sort of the stories, like the war stories of bidders, home buyers lining up around the block over the weekends and bidding wars and suing and homes being sold very much over asking. | ||
| So a lot of sellers still have that expectation for their house and they're kind of maybe putting it pretty high in the market, right? | ||
| Not realistic then. | ||
| Not realistic, right? | ||
| And then a lot of buyers, like there's not that many homes for sale. | ||
| Homes may be listed kind of pretty high, right? | ||
| So that's why it's a nobody's market. | ||
| Like no one's really winning in this market. | ||
| We want to get our viewers involved in the conversation this morning talking about the affordability of the housing market here in the United States. | ||
| If you're a homeowner, dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you are renting in the United States, 202-748-8001 is your number. | ||
| And home buyers, if you're in the process, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And remember, if you don't want to call, anyone can text at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Just include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| Let's go to the president's proposal. | ||
| He floated a 50-year mortgage. | ||
| Kevin has it, one of his economic advisors at the White House, talking to reporters in the driveway on Monday. | ||
| This is what he had to say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Again, the issue is that under President Biden, mortgage rates went up by about four percentage points, and that about doubled the typical monthly mortgage payment. | |
| And because of that, we've seen like a real sharp reduction in first-time homebuyers, especially, and also a reduction in people's willingness to move. | ||
| And it's something that we take very seriously as a policy challenge. | ||
| And extending the length of mortgages can reduce monthly payments by hundreds of dollars, and it's something we're taking very seriously. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wouldn't that be the theme of essentially renting, and how would homeowners build equity? | |
| No, it wouldn't. | ||
| Because you would basically build equity, first of all, a little slower, because it's 50 years instead of 30 years or 15 years. | ||
|
unidentified
|
15-year fixed is often a great way to build early equity. | |
| But don't forget that you get the equity if the price goes up and on average prices have tended to increase it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I don't think that the absence of equity is a serious concern about would you share his thoughts? | |
| Would you agree with him there or do you disagree? | ||
| I mean, first of all, I've never heard anyone endorse the idea of the 50-year mortgage before. | ||
| The standard right now in the United States is a 30-year mortgage. | ||
| Like 95% of people have a 30-year mortgage. | ||
| So I don't know where this policy idea is coming from. | ||
| And I think a lot of people in the housing industry were very surprised by this proposal. | ||
| I don't think it's going to solve the problem. | ||
| And I don't think it will actually bring the affordability that they're looking for. | ||
| Why not? | ||
| Well, so if you have a, you know, if you have a 30-year mortgage, it sort of balances your affordability with being able to build home equity over time. | ||
| So right now, there are 15-year mortgages, and 30-year mortgages. | ||
| If you look at the 15-year mortgage. | ||
| 15, 1.5. | ||
| 1.5, yeah. | ||
| If you look at the 15-year mortgage, your interest rate may be around 5.5. | ||
| If you look at the 30-year mortgage, your interest rate right now is around 6.2. | ||
| So lenders will demand an even higher interest rate for the 50-year mortgage, right? | ||
| So that's one thing. | ||
| So the interest rate will be even higher. | ||
| But also, you're spreading out your debt over 50 years, right? | ||
| So that means that for the first 10, 15 years, you're just going to be paying interest to the bank. | ||
| It's almost like you're renting the house, you know, and the bank owns the house, right? | ||
| You have to maintain the house and you're just paying interest. | ||
| So you're not building home equity. | ||
| Right now, under a 30-year mortgage, how many years are you paying interest only? | ||
| Just the first three, four years. | ||
| So compare that. | ||
| First three, four years under a mortgage, you're paying interest only compared to a 50-year mortgage where you'd be paying it first 10, 15 years. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So the sort of dream of homeownership in the United States is based on this idea that you can build wealth over time. | ||
| So you may save, right? | ||
| Your mortgage may have been $2,300 under a 30-year mortgage. | ||
| Under a 50-year mortgage, you may save a few hundred dollars per month on it, but you end up paying hundreds of thousands more dollars in interest over that 50-year period. | ||
| So that's one thing. | ||
| The second thing is that the National Association of Realtors does this study every year to kind of see what the average age is of homebuyers. | ||
| And last year, the average age of the first-time homebuyer was 38. | ||
| This year, it was 40 years old. | ||
| So the average first-time homebuyer is 40 years old this year. | ||
| So imagine that first-time homebuyer at 40, they would still be paying their mortgage when they're 90 years old. | ||
| So another reason that this is a bad idea is that this really disrupts people's ability to retire. | ||
| Like most people, when they retire, they've paid off their mortgage if they're homeowners. | ||
| And that allows them some stability because they're back on a fixed income. | ||
| Right now, you'd still be paying your mortgage maybe after you die. | ||
| So it doesn't really fit. | ||
| This could really impact people's ability to retire even. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Do the banks like this idea? | ||
| I mean, I've seen them be kind of quiet on it so far. | ||
| This may not be a negative for them because they can get even more interest. | ||
| You know, they can make more mortgages. | ||
| Like, they're like, great, like, we're happy to do more business. | ||
| That's their business model. | ||
| But that's also why we have consumer protections. | ||
| We want to make sure that people are not trapped in some sort of debt cycle for 50 years and are stuck in a mortgage that's not good for them. | ||
| That's why actually legally right now, for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they're not allowed to buy mortgages longer than 30 years as a consumer protection. | ||
| So if the administration wants to change this, they can't just decide to add it would have to go through Congress. | ||
| In real estate, they say it's all about location, location, location. | ||
| So let's hear from our viewers across the country. | ||
| We want to know what it's like where you live and your thoughts on affordability and housing. | ||
| Susan in Kentucky, a homeowner, welcome to the conversation. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you. | |
| I'd like to state that I don't really understand the negativity approach to the 50-year mortgage. | ||
| First of all, everybody's salary is going to improve greatly over 50 years. | ||
| So the ability to pay off sooner than later and bringing that 50-year down to 30-year is a plus. | ||
| It also gets new homeowners in sooner before prices go up even more. | ||
| So the negativity is astounding. | ||
| Okay, well, let's take your two points. | ||
| Yeah, no, thank you for these points. | ||
| I mean, the question whether the monthly payment is that much lower is still a question. | ||
| As I said, the interest rates will be higher on the 50-year mortgage. | ||
| So it's even unclear how much of a difference that would make for the mortgage. | ||
| The second thing about being able to refinance and your incomes going up over time, that's not, you know, I don't think we want to kind of lose. | ||
| You know, we're sacrificing a lot here just for that idea that perhaps people can refinance. | ||
| It's not a guarantee that homes will continue to appreciate as much as they've done. | ||
| As I said before, the pandemic was a very unusual time. | ||
| So this is a risk that we cannot take. | ||
| Jerome is in California. | ||
| Jerome, you're a home buyer. | ||
| Are you in the process of purchasing a home? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm always looking for a home or income property. | |
| I own a home. | ||
| I also own income property. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I enjoy speaking on this subject or your channel because it's an open forum. | |
| The inflationary manner in which our society has changed for, say, the last 30 or 40 years with the prices of homes and especially the prices of gold, the stock market, everything is cyclical. | ||
| And everybody should realize there will be an up and a down all the time. | ||
| As you remember, at the end of the second Bush's presidency, we had a mortgage debacle where many people were given homes that never should have been even considered for mortgages. | ||
| And at the end of that administration, with that problem that existed, that a lot of large corporations came in and grabbed up thousands and thousands of homeowners' properties and now control them. | ||
| This is a capital society, and the people look to protect their investment as best they can. | ||
| A 50-year mortgage, interesting subject. | ||
| It's probably be variable. | ||
| The thing we have to do is open up housing for people who can't get it. | ||
| I mean, the population is growing and the housing market, especially for example, I live in the central coast of California. | ||
| I don't think there's anything higher than a four-story building in this prop in this location. | ||
| And the prices are ridiculous. | ||
| I don't know how a young person can even consider buying a home where the price may be a million dollars just to get a basic home. | ||
| So Jerome, are you then thinking that there needs to be different zoning laws that allows more buildings so you have higher stories? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, no question about it. | |
| Possibly getting people who want families especially that want to get into ownership, maybe in a co-op manner, not necessarily a condominium or rental. | ||
| The state should be doing much, much more. | ||
| All right, Jerome, I want to take your points. | ||
| No, I mean, great, great points. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| I mean, there's a lot of exciting stuff happening at the local and the state level right now, where we're seeing a lot of cities and states passing new laws to kind of, you know, end single-family zoning, for example, to create more density. | ||
| I mean, the only way out of our housing crisis is to build more housing and to make sure that we have more homes that people can buy. | ||
| So, you know, we can't just extend the mortgage and then we'll deal with the problem later, right, by kind of having a lot of people take on a lot of more debt. | ||
| I think the exciting things that are happening right now, a lot of it is at the local level. | ||
| Explain what he said when he said he thought the 50-year mortgage would be a variable one. | ||
| Explain. | ||
| Would be a variable one. | ||
| That it would go up, that it wouldn't just stay, your rate wouldn't just stay. | ||
| Well, I hope not. | ||
| I hope that's not part of the plan. | ||
| I mean, like Jerome was saying, too, like, you know, leading up to the Great Recession, there were a lot of sort of experimental mortgage products that were exploitative and predatory. | ||
| Some of these mortgages did not even check people's income levels, right? | ||
| They didn't check, you know, your pay stop or whatever. | ||
| Some of these mortgages had variable interest rates, or they had sort of a balloon payment at the end. | ||
| So we don't want to do that again, right? | ||
| We were in that problem. | ||
| We were in that crisis before, and we've learned from that. | ||
| So we want to make sure that the mortgages that we have are safe and have consumer protections and people can repay them and they can build wealth through homeownership. | ||
| So I think that would be a terrible idea. | ||
| We don't want to go back to that. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Steve is next, and he's a former mortgage banker in Georgia. | ||
| Steve, go ahead and share your thoughts with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I was a mortgage banker for nine years in New Jersey. | ||
| This is the worst thing that a first-time homebuyer could possibly do. | ||
| They're going to be stuck with having a mortgage and not paying principal into the mortgage. | ||
| It's going to be all interest. | ||
| The mortgage is probably going to have if it does a prepayment penalty for you to get out of the mortgage. | ||
| If for some reason the house is foreclosed on, they're going to have a hard time. | ||
| I mean, it depends on the percentage that the people put down. | ||
| But you're totally lost. | ||
| This is a terrible, and for a first-time homebuyer with the price of houses nowadays, they're just not going to be able to afford it. | ||
| And what it's going to do is create a market for these foreclosure specialists that are going to take over the housing market completely. | ||
| I mean, they're building properties here in Georgia, and they're squeezing them into properties that they, the house that I live in used to have a requirement that had to be at least a half an acre. | ||
| Stephen George, I want to take a couple of your points. | ||
| He said there would likely be a prepayment penalty. | ||
| Let's talk about that first on a 50-year mortgage. | ||
| Yeah, so if you want to get out of your mortgage, you know, oftentimes there is a prepayment penalty, right? | ||
| So it's not, you know, it's not, oh, just refinance and, you know, you're fine. | ||
| Like, you know, even for a refinance, you have to pay closing costs again. | ||
| So it's not, it's not, it has a cost to it, too. | ||
| I think it was interesting what Steve was saying, too, about if people are not paying towards the principal and are just paying interest, if home prices are going down, like they are in parts of Texas and Florida, they may end up underwater on their mortgage, right? | ||
| Especially if they have had a small down payment. | ||
| So that's another risk that we don't want to take in our market. | ||
| And we don't want another wave of foreclosures happening. | ||
| And we don't even want to go there. | ||
| We don't even want that risk for people. | ||
| When people are underwater, why does that automatically or lead to foreclosure? | ||
| Because it means that they have more debt on their home than their home is worth. | ||
| So then a lot of people may say, well, why am I paying this mortgage if my home is not even worth that? | ||
| So people, it's called strategic default too. | ||
| I mean, a lot of foreclosures happen because people lose their job or they have a health emergency. | ||
| Really, like a crisis is what prompts most foreclosures. | ||
| But there's also this thing of strategic default where you're saying, well, I don't want to pay debt on an asset that's worth less than my debt. | ||
| So yes. | ||
| Here's a headline from CNBC. | ||
| It was in the news this morning. | ||
| New foreclosures jumped 20% in October, a sign of more distress in the housing market. | ||
| Talk about this number. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, we're seeing stress, signs of stress across the entire economy, really, right? | ||
| Like auto debt is up too. | ||
| A lot of people, you know, are struggling with the cost of living in general. | ||
| And, you know, over the last few years, because affordability has been so strained, we're seeing that a lot more people, for example, have to take on higher debt to income ratios on their mortgage. | ||
| So they kind of, you know, they're struggling to even get a mortgage. | ||
| So with that, you know, yes, we're starting to kind of be in a period where there's more stress in the economy. | ||
| People are losing jobs left and right. | ||
| So that shapes foreclosures. | ||
| Losing jobs and the cost of other bills going up. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Is that all leading then to people saying, all right, I just can't afford this home? | ||
| I mean, oftentimes it's not a choice. | ||
| I want to be very clear about that. | ||
| You know, oftentimes people forego, they may, you know, not pay their, you know, heating bill or electric bill first or their, you know, skipping meals, right? | ||
| Medicine. | ||
| Medicine, right? | ||
| A lot of times what a lot of homeowners do is like the house is not just a financial asset, it's also a home, right? | ||
| So a lot of homeowners go a long way before they fall behind on their mortgage. | ||
| So it's a sign of deeper stress that we're starting to see an uptick in foreclosures as well. | ||
| The number is still very low, right? | ||
| Because foreclosures have been historically low. | ||
| We've come up with better kind of servicing requirements. | ||
| And there are options out there for homeowners too. | ||
| So if you are starting to face this stress, mortgage distress, and you're worried about falling behind on your mortgage, reach out to your servicer as soon as possible or reach out to a housing counseling agency in your community because there are a lot of options for people out there. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Joe's in Maineville, New Jersey, and renting there. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
| Welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Yeah, I'm just talking. | ||
| I'm going to state that the woman earlier stated that the average homebuyer was 40 years old, but I heard on two different stations, other stations, that the average homeowner is 59 years old. | ||
| Homebuyer and homeowner, two different things. | ||
| Explain. | ||
| No, first time, sorry, the average first-time homebuyer is 40 years old. | ||
| The average homebuyer in general is 59 years old. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| And I heard a different on two other stations. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We'll go to Stan, who's in New York, who's a homeowner. | ||
| Stan, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, yeah. | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| We can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, so, hell, America. | |
| America is great because this is the only place where you have these opportunities. | ||
| When I hear your show that in the top you're talking about right now, I hear opportunity. | ||
| I just think, you know, as an American, you have the opportunity to make these choices. | ||
| And by the way, a minute ago, you said we're talking about people not having choices. | ||
| I think there are choices. | ||
| Okay, Stan in New York. | ||
| Let's go to the Washington Times headline this morning about how states, one state, one municipality is responding to this affordability issue. | ||
| Affordable housing advocates divided over $45 million housing bond on the ballot. | ||
| New Orleans voters will decide Saturday whether to approve three bond propositions, which together could provide an infusion of $500 million to support capital projects across the city. | ||
| One $450 million bond would support a raft of infrastructure improvements to streets, roads, public facilities. | ||
| Another 50 million bond would fund stormwater and drainage projects across the city. | ||
| But it's the third 45 million bond for affordable housing that has become the most contentious going into the election. | ||
| Is this a way to address affordability in this country? | ||
| I mean, we need all the capital that we can get to build more housing. | ||
| I've seen other states, for example, I was in Kentucky, and they have sort of affordable housing funds at the state level as well. | ||
| So I think, yeah, to the extent that states can bring in funding to help construct affordable housing in particular. | ||
| And with that, I mean housing that's affordable to lower-income families, working families. | ||
| I mean, affordable is a pretty broad concept right now because it's so unaffordable for most people. | ||
| So I think it's, as I said before, it's super exciting to see what's happening at the local and the state level. | ||
| And we can't just rely on the federal government for this. | ||
| I think we need any solutions from any place to kind of work together to solve this problem. | ||
| Tom is in California, homebuyer there. | ||
| Hi, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, sure. | |
| And thank you for this show. | ||
| Anyway, I have a unique situation. | ||
| I have some property right across the street from a public transit station. | ||
| I have 34 acres here, and there's five homes on it now that they might want to incorporate it into the city, nearby city, and then build maybe 800 units here on my property. | ||
| And I've got to deal with a couple thousand acres and three ranches. | ||
| It's a little, like I say, I'm in a very unique situation from a dairy family. | ||
| And so I'm curious about this low-cost housing issue. | ||
| It seems like low-cost housing would take market rate off the market, and that would raise the price of market rate and also increase the necessity for subsidies through taxes of low-cost housing to maintain it. | ||
| And somebody's got to subsidize low-cost housing, either the developer, the taxpayer, or the property owner. | ||
| And I don't think it's rightfully necessary for the landowner to have to subsidize it after they've owned property. | ||
| We've owned this property since 1942 and paid taxes all the way along and that sort of thing. | ||
| Anyway, I'm curious about your opinion of low-cost housing with respect to those considerations. | ||
| And, Tom, Tom, in your situation, is the government forcing your hand here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they're not forcing my hand necessarily. | |
| I've been working on this property for a long time. | ||
| I'm in California, and they've created some laws. | ||
| 40 years ago, there's a train station right along the half a mile along our property line, and they put a walking path and bike path all along that railroad track also. | ||
| And it goes right to the train station, which, like I say, they just built last year, and it's right across the street. | ||
| So it's a very unique situation. | ||
| And they created something called a community urban growth bound or community separator, and that was a county thing. | ||
| And I got our property taken out of it so we could develop eventually because there used to be a dairy here, 300 cows. | ||
| I used to mount cows when I was younger. | ||
| So this is an opportunity potentially for you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| It's an opportunity to go into the city with this property. | ||
| So, yeah. | ||
| No, I mean, Tom, that sounds exciting. | ||
| Like, that sounds like an exciting opportunity. | ||
| I think, especially close to public transit stations like that, there is a lot of demands for housing because it allows people to commute to their jobs. | ||
| So, you know, I mean, oftentimes there's no requirement to build a specific type of housing on the lot, but there's a lot of tax incentives for developers to have a mix of housing, right? | ||
| So to kind of make sure that at least 30% of properties, for example, or 30% of units built are affordable to the sort of more low-income families. | ||
| So that's how a lot of these kind of deals are structured: it's a mix of kind of lower-income housing and market-rate housing, because we need housing across the entire spectrum. | ||
| And if, you know, a lot of these, especially for newly built homes, they're often more expensive to build. | ||
| So it's hard to kind of achieve that affordability. | ||
| And that's why those tax breaks are in place. | ||
| So then what did he mean when he said who's going to subsidize this? | ||
| The subsidy would come from the federal government in the end if it's a LITAC deal, for example, like which is a low-income housing tax credit kind of deal, which is pretty common for kind of multi-family development like that. | ||
| So, but it's a public good too. | ||
| Like, we want to make sure that people are housed. | ||
| We don't, you know, homelessness is directly related to the lack of affordable housing. | ||
| You know, this has been shown again and again. | ||
| So, you know, that's why we subsidize housing. | ||
| I mean, we're not just subsidizing, we're subsidizing more, you know, home buyers, homeowners. | ||
| There are subsidies all across the housing spectrum, not just for lower income units or because we think it's a public good and it's something that we really value in this country. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We'll go to James's in West Virginia. | ||
| Rents there. | ||
| Hi, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I was calling about the there's a lot of people that's buying homes in the villages in Florida, down in Ocala area. | ||
| It's like 200 acres of homes, but the maintenance fees keep going up more and more every year. | ||
| And when you get the house inherited to you from your parents, it's not worth moving into it. | ||
| And the properties won't sell now because of the maintenance fees. | ||
| What would you do in that case? | ||
| James, maintenance fee, is it also an insurance issue in the state of Florida? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Okay. | ||
| No, James, like this is such a good issue to bring up because the high cost of housing is not just because of mortgages or because of home prices, but also everything else that kind of comes with homeownership. | ||
| And home insurance is a big problem. | ||
| Like at the Consumer Federation of America, we've done research on this issue. | ||
| And we found, for example, that between 2021 and 2024, the typical homeowner in the United States paid $650 more per year in homeowners' insurance. | ||
| So it's well over $3,000 a year on average for homeowners across the country. | ||
| However, in Florida, the typical homeowner pays well over $10,000 a year in homeowners' insurance. | ||
| So this is a big problem for affordability, both for homebuyers and for existing homeowners. | ||
| So, you know, we talked about the 50-year mortgage plan before, but I think if the administration wants to address affordability, home insurance is also where it's at and where they should really, you know, focus. | ||
| And how do you address that issue of home insurance? | ||
| Well, one is to reduce risk for communities and for homeowners, right? | ||
| So really invest in resiliency for communities so that they can be better protected against hurricane risk, wind events, flooding, wildfires. | ||
| There's all different types of natural disasters across the country. | ||
| So really investing there, providing low interest or zero interest percent loans to homeowners who want to fortify their roof, for example, or put in storm windows to really help them reduce risk and then require insurance companies to acknowledge that lowered risk too, right? | ||
| In lowered rates. | ||
| I think the National Flood Insurance Program was in the news a lot during the shutdown because people could not get flood insurance as long as the government shutdown was happening. | ||
| But that program is also in a lot of trouble and there's a lot more claims every year than that the program actually has in money. | ||
| So that's why they need appropriations from Congress every year or so to kind of keep it running. | ||
| It's another issue that needs a lot of attention and to kind of reform the National Flood Insurance Program. | ||
| So we can lower costs there. | ||
| And we're not keeping, we're not continuing to pay for rebuilding homes in the worst flood zones, for example. | ||
| Paul is in Indiana. | ||
| Hi, Paul. | ||
| Welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I just wanted to point out a couple of times you said that at a mortgage you can have a situation where it's 100% interest payment. | ||
| That's not true. | ||
| That's never true. | ||
| You're always paying, it may be a very small amount you're paying on principal, but you are paying little. | ||
| Otherwise you would never pay off the mortgage. | ||
| Paul, I'll come back to you. | ||
| Let's have Sharon respond to you. | ||
| No, I mean, thank you. | ||
| Maybe I was simplifying. | ||
| I mean, yeah, you may be paying a few dollars and then $10, $20. | ||
| But the overall experience is that you're not really building equity. | ||
| But thank you for that correction. | ||
| I appreciate that. | ||
| Paul, your second point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, what I wanted to point out was that you can take advantage of that. | |
| If you're in the first year of a mortgage, and let's say you pay $1,000, a dollar of which goes to principal, then you can overpay your mortgage by $11. | ||
| You just paid off. | ||
| You just avoided a year's worth of mortgage interest because you've got rid of 10 payments. | ||
| Do you understand what I'm saying? | ||
| No, like this idea that if you can overpay on your mortgage in order to kind of pay it off quicker. | ||
| But that's, I mean, the context of the conversation that we're talking about is that people cannot afford a mortgage, right? | ||
| This is why we're trying to reduce the payments somehow. | ||
| So for a lot of people, that's not going to be an option. | ||
| But yes, for some people, that is an option. | ||
| And then that's great if you are able to do that. | ||
| And whatever additional payment you make has to go towards the principal, correct? | ||
| The bank cannot say. | ||
| No, it just means that you're reducing the overall duration of your mortgage. | ||
| And that's how you're sort of paying off quicker, basically. | ||
| Right. | ||
| We'll go to New Jersey. | ||
| Catherine, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ladies. | |
| This is Catherine again from Burlington. | ||
| Greta, number one, I think a 50-year mortgage is a very outlandish idea. | ||
| Here's the scenario. | ||
| Say you're 30. | ||
| You get a 50-year mortgage. | ||
| That means you're 80 when the mortgage is paid if you go all the way. | ||
| You might as well call it a lifetime mortgage, Greta. | ||
| And that's my idea about that 50-year mortgage. | ||
| Thank you, ladies. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| No, I mean, I completely agree. | ||
| Robert in Virginia. | ||
| Hi, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing? | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| My comment is: ever since this came out about the 50-year mortgage, I mean, a 50-year mortgage, just like a 30-year mortgage, nobody's talking about the insurance, upkeep, and taxes that go along with home ownership. | ||
| So, really, when you say you're going to save a couple of hundred dollars a month, you're not saving anything. | ||
| You're kind of not telling people the truth. | ||
| Well, let's address that as appreciation goes up, your property taxes go up. | ||
| Yes, address this. | ||
| No, I mean, I just spoke towards the home insurance issue, but the other one is property taxes. | ||
| Like, property taxes have been going up a lot because home values have been going up, right? | ||
| So, people are paying more in many places. | ||
| The cost of maintaining your home that you brought up too has been going up a lot, right? | ||
| I mean, there's a shortage of contractors across the country, and it's really expensive for people to renovate and to maintain their home. | ||
| The average age of the American home is also over 40 years old right now. | ||
| So, you know, a lot of essential systems are starting to reach end of life. | ||
| So, roofs have to be replaced, HVAC, you know, you may need new windows at this point. | ||
| And it's also, you know, it's also very expensive. | ||
| I mean, tariffs haven't helped with this. | ||
| You know, tariffs, you know, have, you know, for example, been applied to appliances like refrigerators or, you know, washing machines. | ||
| So for a lot of builders and for homeowners, like, all of a sudden, these, you know, they've seen inflationary pressure on these items as well. | ||
| So that altogether, the cost of homeownership has been rising. | ||
| And I think the mortgage is just one part of that. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Stephen in Arizona. | ||
| Hi, Stephen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Yeah, I was in finance for 30 years of the automobile business. | ||
| And when I started out, a high car loan would be five years. | ||
| A normal loan would be three or four years. | ||
| When I left, when you had $50,000, $60,000 trucks, you had eight-year loans on them. | ||
| And I think the house is kind of progressing in that way. | ||
| But how I paid off my house, I had to pay a high interest rate because my credit wasn't too good. | ||
| I refinanced it. | ||
| It got it down to 18 years. | ||
| But car loans and house loans are simple interest loans. | ||
| So what I started to do on the house, if my any house payment, if your payment is $3,000 or $2,000, let's say it's $2,000, if you pay $1,000 on the 15th and the other $1,000 at the end of the month, they can't charge you the full interest. | ||
| So in eight, I took seven, eight years off that loan by making the same exact payment. | ||
| And I used to close when I was in finance the car loans that if it's a $1,000 payment, if you pay $500 on the 15th or halfway through the month and the $500 on the other, you will cut off and the calculator would show how many years you would take off the loan. | ||
| Did the bank penalize you? | ||
| Can they penalize you if the full amount that's due is $2,000 and you're paying $1,000 on the first of the month and another $1,000 later? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's whatever your home loan is due, no matter when it's due, if you pay half, they cannot charge you, because there's simple interest loans, the full interest for the month. | |
| And I cut seven or eight years off that 18-year loan by just paying the same amount of payments. | ||
| So if somebody's trying to buy a house today, you can say you can pay it off in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years. | ||
| And if it's a simple interest loan, by making the same payment, not paying more, you can cut that off. | ||
| And people paid off cars that way. | ||
| All right, understood. | ||
| Understood. | ||
| So, Sharon. | ||
| I'm not aware of this hack, this loan hack. | ||
| I'd be very careful. | ||
| Make sure that you talk to your servicer. | ||
| And so you don't want to be in a situation where they penalize you or they say, well, you've not been paying the way that you should be paying, right? | ||
| So be very careful with that. | ||
| I think usually the only way to pay off your loan faster is to pay more, like earlier, right? | ||
| Like it's not lenders, you know, they're not crazy either. | ||
| So be really careful if you want to change anything like that. | ||
| Rose in Illinois. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I just wanted to say that it took me half my life living in apartments to buy my first house with my husband. | ||
| And we had to sacrifice and save. | ||
| And these people who want houses without sacrificing and saving, a lot of them don't take care of their homes. | ||
| And they leave it look shabby and ruin it for the rest of us. | ||
| And the other thing is, you said the federal government is supposed to subsidize part of these homes. | ||
| Well, the federal government, the Constitution doesn't give them permission to give a subsidization. | ||
| It's not part of their jobs if you read the Constitution. | ||
| Rose, what part of the Constitution are you referencing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The whole thing. | |
| There's a section where it tells what the federal government can do and what the state should do. | ||
| And it doesn't say the federal government should implement any socialized programs at all legally. | ||
| Rose's argument there in Illinois. | ||
| Sharon Kern Ellison, your final thoughts here. | ||
| What you're watching for in the housing market in the coming weeks and months. | ||
| Well, I'm hoping for some bipartisan legislation, to be honest. | ||
| I'm hoping that I've seen a lot of Democrats and Republicans say a lot of words that sound good. | ||
| Like they say that they care about affordability, but I'd like to see some actions now and not gimmicks like the 50-year mortgage, but actual actions that will make a difference. | ||
| There is legislation by Senator Tim Scott and Senator Elizabeth Warren, the two of them coming together on housing affordability. | ||
| Just real quickly, what are the highlights of that? | ||
| This is the Road to Housing Act that passed in the Senate. | ||
| And right now it's under consideration in the House. | ||
| It improves a lot of kind of programs that we have already. | ||
| It's not an appropriations bill, so there's no additional money going to housing. | ||
| It's just improving programs that we have. | ||
| So for example, they want to improve kind of small dollar mortgages. | ||
| Right now it's really hard to get a mortgage for $100,000 or $150,000, which, you know, being based in DC, you would think, well, you know, what houses are there for $150,000? | ||
| Okay, but there's still a lot of places across the country where home values are depressed, but it's difficult to get a mortgage like that. | ||
| So a proposal like that could really help people in those communities to actually get a mortgage. | ||
| And there's like other improvements like that, better control over housing counseling and what they do. | ||
| Improving a Title I program, which is kind of like a home loan program that HUD has. | ||
| So I'm excited to see momentum behind that. | ||
| There's also the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, which got over 100 bipartisan co-sponsors during the last Congress. | ||
| And there's definitely momentum there. | ||
| This bill would make it easier to kind of fix up homes to make sure that we're also investing in home repair because we can't just build a home our way out of this crisis, but we also have to preserve our existing housing stock. | ||
| So these are some exciting things that are happening. | ||
| Sharon Cornelison is the housing director with the Consumer Federation of America. | ||
| You can learn more if you go to consumerfed.org. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We're going to take a break when we come back. | ||
| Return to our conversation earlier this morning. | ||
| The shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, is over. | ||
| So what's your message to your party on how they handled the shutdown showdown? | ||
| Back to that conversation right after this break. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Today on C-SPAN Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, former Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones and former Ohio Republican Congressman Steve Stivers come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the shutdown and top issues facing the country. | |
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| His books include Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, and Einstein. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
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| And one of the things that struck me when I wrote about Benjamin Franklin early on was what a great scientist and technologist he was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with Walter Isaacson, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | |
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to the Washington Journal. | ||
| We're going to end today's program where we began with your message to your party post-shutdown. | ||
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| Just include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| Also, join the conversation on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X with a handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Before we get to your thoughts, though, I want to let you know what's happening on the C-SPAN networks today. | ||
| Later this morning, the Brookings Institution presents findings from its annual American Families Survey revealing national opinions on marriage, child rearing, and immigration. | ||
| We're going to have coverage of that, and you can watch live at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on C-SPAN right here, C-SPAN Now, our free video mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| At 4 p.m. Eastern Time, a discussion about Israeli public opinion toward democracy, conflict, and the country's political trajectory a month after the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. | ||
| This is hosted by the Georgetown University Center for Jewish Civilization, and you can watch live again right here on C-SPAN, C-SPANNOW or C-SPAN.org. | ||
| And then tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, don't miss it, on Ceasefire. | ||
| Former Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones and former Ohio Republican Congressman Steve Stivers come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the shutdown and top issues facing the country. | ||
| They join the C-SPAN host Dasha Burns today at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN ceasefire, watch tonight, 7 p.m., 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. | ||
| On our question to all of you and your message to your party post-shutdown, let's listen to Senator Chris Murphy. | ||
| He was in New Hampshire on Wednesday talking to Democratic activists, and this is what he had to say about the Senate, his Senate colleagues, reopening the government earlier this week. | ||
| The difficulty here was that there was going to be harm, and there is harm either way. | ||
| The shutdown was terrible. | ||
| It hurt people. | ||
| But ending the shutdown without a protection for people whose premiums are going to go up, well, that's pain as well. | ||
| It's both life and death pain, but arguably more life and death pain if 22 million people in this country have their premiums go up. | ||
| I went down to South Florida with Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith, senator from Minnesota about a week ago because there's more people on the ACA down there than any part of the country and nobody's telling their story in Washington because they have representation in the Senate and mostly in the House who are just employees of Donald Trump. | ||
| And the stories we heard there were just like heartbreaking. | ||
| I mean one woman who's got multiple malignant melanoma. | ||
| Her husband has a really complicated form of diabetes that involves a lot of seizures. | ||
| They have coverage right now through the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| Their premium isn't going up by 10%, 20%, 50%. | ||
| It's going up by 100%. | ||
| Their premium is doubling. | ||
| They cannot afford it for both of them. | ||
| They can afford it for one of them. | ||
| They have four kids. | ||
| So what's the conversation they're having at home? | ||
| Who's going to survive? | ||
| Who isn't? | ||
| Right? | ||
| I mean, that's just no, it's a conversation in the richest, most prosperous country in the world. | ||
| We should never be having, but certainly not having as a consequence of a piece of legislation that took their health care in order to pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations. | ||
| That's fundamentally immoral. | ||
| So the challenge here is that no matter what decision we made, hold out to get the tax credits taken care of or continue the shutdown, there was pain either way. | ||
| But I do believe, I do believe to the heart of the question, that well, not everyone in this country was willing to let this shutdown continue to go on. | ||
| There were a lot of folks who understood what I was telling you, that if you allow a despot to weaponize our compassion against us, it never ends. | ||
| It gets worse. | ||
| Senator Chris Murphy in New Hampshire on Wednesday talking about that Senate vote to open up the government. | ||
| There were eight Democrats who joined with Republicans in the Senate to reopen the government. | ||
| They included Senators Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Meg E. Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Angus King, who's an independent from Maine, but caucuses with the Democrats, and Jackie Rosen and Gene Shaheen. | ||
| Those eight joining with Republicans to reopen the government. | ||
| Now, John Fetterman was on MSNBC and he talked about his decision to reopen the government. | ||
| Here's what he had to say on Thursday. | ||
| The subsidies that, now that was wrote by us, the Democrats, the Democrats wrote that. | ||
| And they were designed to expire at the end of the year. | ||
| I mean, when we were in the majority, we wrote that to expire. | ||
| And now here we are back now to have this conversation. | ||
| Now, compare that in Pennsylvania, 2 million Pennsylvanians rely on SNAP to feed themselves and their family. | ||
| And around 400,000, they receive these kinds of tax credits. | ||
| And now we can fight for both. | ||
| And that's for me as a Democrat, that's what I'm doing. | ||
| For me, the core kinds of disagreement perhaps is that shut our government down and hold all those people hostage. | ||
| And I refuse to do those things. | ||
| It's been a very easy vote. | ||
| And I know many Democrats think that's smart to plunge us into that kind of chaos, but I refuse to do those kinds of things. | ||
| And that's really at the core. | ||
| And now we have a lot of time to make that argument. | ||
| And if this is going to touch a lot of Republicans and their constituents, and I think it will, and now they will agree some version of that, say, hey, let's now create more kinds of tax credits to make health care more affordable. | ||
| And I do. | ||
| I think that is possible. | ||
| Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, why he joined the other seven Democrats to reopen the government. | ||
| There were Democrats in the House that also voted with Republicans, and the measure was sent to the president's desk this week. | ||
| After 43 days of a government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, it's over. | ||
| So what is your message to your party? | ||
| KFF did a poll recently, and this is what they found about the shutdown and Democrats demand that it deal, any government reopening, deal with the Affordable Care Act enhanced tax credits. | ||
| They found 74% of U.S. adults supported extending the credits. | ||
| That includes 94% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 50% of Republicans. | ||
| KFF also found 81% of Democrats supported congressional Democrats holding out for a deal to extend credits, even if it prolonged the government shutdown. | ||
| And 44% of MAGA supporters wanted the credits extended. | ||
| With those numbers on the table, what is your message to your party post-shutdown? | ||
| Randa in Tucson, Arizona is a Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Randa. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm really mad at the Democrats. | ||
| I think they shut the government down for 45 days for nothing, and that anytime the situation gets tough, they cave in. | ||
| I'm about ready to lead the party. | ||
| I think had, you know, I look at something like the civil rights movement and the Montgomery bus strike. | ||
| Yes, it did hurt people. | ||
| People were affected by it, but in the end, the greater good. | ||
| And I don't think the Democrats have a fortitude to stand for the greater good. | ||
| They did this for nothing. | ||
| So, Randa, which Democrats are you upset with? | ||
| The eight that voted to reopen the government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going to say the whole Democratic Party. | |
| Yes, I'm upset with the eight, but I think there were, I'm just going to say it, I think there were some backroom deals. | ||
| Hey, you guys go out there and do this. | ||
| I think they could have been pressured, not those eight, not to vote to open the government had the Democratic Party and had the leadership been strong enough. | ||
| Okay, so then it sounds like you blame the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I do somewhat. | |
| Yes, I do blame Schumer. | ||
| I think it's time for him to go. | ||
| I think he's 2-0. | ||
| I don't think that a lot of, I don't think they have what it takes to really stand up. | ||
| They're playing politics and they're used to playing the backroom games rather than truly standing for the American people. | ||
| And it's time to get some new blood in there. | ||
| Term limits. | ||
| Let's get these people out. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That was Randall's thoughts there in Tucson, Arizona, a Democrat. | ||
| We talked about the eight Senate Democrats. | ||
| There were also six Democrats in the House that voted to reopen the government. | ||
| They joined the Republicans in that vote, and it was approved by the House, 222 to 209. | ||
| Here are the Democrats. | ||
| Congressman Henry Queyar of Texas from North Carolina, Don Davis. | ||
| Adam Gray represents a district in California. | ||
| Jared Golden, who said he's going to retire, represents a district in Maine, Tom Suazi in New York. | ||
| And Marie Gluzenkamp-Perez, who represents a district in Washington State. | ||
| All of them represent swing districts. | ||
| And as we said, Jared Golden of Maine said that he's going to retire after this term in Congress. | ||
| Jennifer in Belmar, New Jersey, a Republican. | ||
| Jennifer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Greta. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| How are you today? | ||
| Morning. | ||
| Your message to the Republican Party on the shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think the shutdown, as far as they go, they tried really hard, and I think they did a good job working across the aisle with, you know, what they needed to do to try to get everybody on board to get these people back to work. | |
| We all know the government's a little bloated, so a little bit of a shutdown can't hurt at times. | ||
| However, the left always loves for everything to be the longest and the worst under Trump. | ||
| So that was really a lot of political theater, if you ask me. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Jennifer, do you agree with holding a vote on affordable care tax credits? | ||
| And if so, on those enhanced tax credits? | ||
| If so, what do you want your party to do, vote to make them permanent or extend them for just a certain amount of time? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I'm on board with John Fetterman's thinking, honestly. | |
| So I'm a Republican that kind of, I swing both ways, really. | ||
| I'll, you know, it's whatever's best for the people at the time. | ||
| So I agree with him that they had full charge, you know, four years to do what they needed to do to have anything extended should they have lost the, you know, 2024 elections. | ||
| That way they wouldn't have been in the boat that they were in and they could have had everything extended. | ||
| So you snooze, you lose, if you ask me. | ||
| I don't think it should be on the back of the Republicans to fix their mess. | ||
| So I think they're pretty much handling it properly as far as me wanting them extended. | ||
| No, I'm done. | ||
| I need to have some of my tax money back into my check. | ||
| I'm done trying to take care of everybody. | ||
| I live in New Jersey and it's blue. | ||
| It always has been blue. | ||
| There was no massive win last Tuesday, a couple Tuesdays ago on whenever the election day was, November 4th. | ||
| We never had a shot at Jack Chitterelli being a third time, you know, trying to win. | ||
| He was a third-time loser and everybody knew it. | ||
| So, you know, it is what it is. | ||
| Well, Jennifer, not so much that New Jersey was red, but the president did make inroads there compared to how he performed in 2020, where he lost by 16 points and then in 2024 lost by six. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, I think, again, that was a lot of pushback from the Democratic Party and what happened during COVID. | |
| I think they just pushed way too hard. | ||
| And even the middle people and who were moderates just had had enough. | ||
| It was like enough. | ||
| You know, COVID was over. | ||
| Stop dragging it out. | ||
| Let us get back to our lives. | ||
| Let us open our businesses and let us do what we were doing. | ||
| So I think that when you take away so much of people's freedoms and rights, they kind of tend to go so far. | ||
| So I think that's why Trump won the mandate that he did. | ||
| But honestly, with everybody saying these massive wins, you know, on the other side past Tuesday, we were blue. | ||
| We were always blue. | ||
| We will always be blue. | ||
| We're never going to change. | ||
| All right, Jennifer, you just see the pendulum swinging as it typically does. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pretty much, yeah, but like I said, I don't want the tax. | |
| I don't think they should extend anything. | ||
| I think if you need subsidies for something, it's showing a failed program, like another gentleman said. | ||
| So try to fix it. | ||
| Make the laws, go to work every day, and stop getting on TV and talking about political nonsense. | ||
| All right, Jennifer. | ||
| Now, the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, Republican in South Dakota, has promised Democrats that there would be a vote on these enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| Not an outcome, but a vote. | ||
| Listen to Speaker Mike Johnson on this idea of a promised vote. | ||
| Am I going to guarantee a vote on ACA unreformed COVID-era subsidies that is just a boondoggle to insurance companies and robs the taxpayer? | ||
| We got a lot of work to do on that. | ||
| The Republicans would demand a lot of reforms before anything like that was ever possible. | ||
| And we have to go through that deliberative process. | ||
| We have 435, well, currently 433 members of the House of Representatives. | ||
| There's a lot of opinions in this building and on our side, certainly a lot of opinions on how to fix health care and make it more affordable. | ||
| I have to allow that process to play out. | ||
| I'll leave you with this. | ||
| The biggest objection that I had to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, who are playing political games with people's lives when they shut the government down, was Chuck Schumer came out and said the quiet part out loud. | ||
| I don't even think he realized he has no self-awareness. | ||
| But he came and cried to all of you that I would not agree to go into a back room and make a four corners agreement on these issues. | ||
| That just he and I and Hakeem Jeffries and Leader Thune would go in a room and make this decision for the entire population of America and block out all of our colleagues as if they had no voice in it. | ||
| That is why Washington is broken. | ||
| That's why Congress hasn't worked well for people. | ||
| That's why they don't have a lot of faith in what goes on here. | ||
| And I'm committed to trying to restore that faith. | ||
| And one way we do that is we get back to regular order. | ||
| We allow all the duly elected members of this body to have their voices heard. | ||
| I'm not playing games and Chuck Schumer. | ||
| I'm not going in a back room with you and making a four corners deal on anything. | ||
| And I hope you understand that. | ||
| Thank y'all. | ||
| We got the government open. | ||
| Let's celebrate tonight. | ||
| Speaker Mike Johnson, after the House voted on Wednesday to reopen the government, ending the government shutdown, after the president signed that into law shortly after the House vote. | ||
| Your message to your party on the shutdown showdown. | ||
| The Speaker there not promising a vote on Affordable Care Act tax credits. | ||
| He is, though, having a vote next week on the Epstein files. | ||
| This is from the New York Times. | ||
| And it says that on Wednesday morning, on Wednesday evening, Mr. Johnson said that he would speed up the timeline and schedule the Epstein vote next week rather than running down the procedural check on the discharge, on the procedural clock on the discharge petition. | ||
| If every representative who signed the petition also votes for the Epstein measure, it would pass the House. | ||
| In fact, it is expected to draw even more votes than that. | ||
| Republican leaders expect that some of their members who did not sign the discharge petition, which many lawmakers frown upon as an act of party disloyalty that undercuts their leaders, are likely to vote for the resolution itself. | ||
| Goes on to say that if the bill were to pass the House, it would be sent to the Senate where it would face tough odds. | ||
| It would take 60 votes to bring up the bill in that chamber. | ||
| To just bring it up, Democrats hold 47 seats, so even if all of them back the measure, they would need 13 Republicans to buck Mr. Trump and join them. | ||
| So the Epstein vote happening next week. | ||
| Tune into C-SPAN's gavel-to-gavel coverage for that debate and vote. | ||
| Phil in Westbury, New York, and Independent. | ||
| Hi, Phil. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| You know, C-SPAN did a really good job covering everything. | ||
| I busy-yard all the Senate hearings, the Rules Committee, and then I would just fast-forward, you know, what are you waiting for? | ||
| Senators to speak. | ||
| You know, there's a couple of misconceptions here, you know, and it stoked fear in people that it shouldn't have stoked fear-mongering because the subsidies up to 400% of the poverty level were never in question. | ||
| They were given to be extended. | ||
| It was the enhanced subsidies that were in question. | ||
| And Johnson just said there, there has to be reforms to that because people making $600,000 a year and owning multiple houses and vacation homes don't need a subsidy on the working people's back. | ||
| You know, with that, there was another thing that I found very, there's two things that I find very disgusting. | ||
| January 30th is two and a half months away, and they said they were going to work hard to get these other nine appropriation bills in. | ||
| And they ran out the door Wednesday night and they adjourned. | ||
| Do you, anybody actually, does anybody actually think in two and a half months they're going to get the other nine appropriation bills done when they're not even there? | ||
| And they're going to say, oh, we work on the site. | ||
| That's BS. | ||
| They should be there working right now. | ||
| So January 30th, we don't have the same problem putting people fearing these people. | ||
| And the last thing is, Phil, I just want to ask. | ||
| Phil, I want to jump in because you're obviously paying attention very closely to what's happened here in Washington, D.C. | ||
| So there's 47 days until these enhanced tax credits for the ACA expire. | ||
| And as you pointed out, 77 days for funding when funding expires again, unless they come up with a deal. | ||
| So this continuing resolution that was passed funds the government until January 30th, as you were just talking about. | ||
| And it included three appropriations bills to fund three parts of the government. | ||
| But there's still nine remaining, Phil, to your point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| You know, and that's a problem. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're not there working. | |
| They're setting both sides. | ||
| They're setting up another shutdown. | ||
| I just want to just give you one last thing. | ||
| I watched the Rules Committee. | ||
| Yeah, Phil, we're listening to you. | ||
| You watch the Rules Committee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I watched the Rules Committee, right, very closely, and I watched the Senate hearings, right, going back and forth before they got to the 60 votes. | |
| They never once mentioned about the Senators getting that deal for $500,000 per infraction for having their phones tapped and everything else. | ||
| And Cruz talked about it and Blackburn, they all talked about it on the floor and that they were going to go after everybody and sue everybody. | ||
| Anybody involved? | ||
| How did Chuck Schumer agree to a deal like that, that they would get paid? | ||
| There's something to that. | ||
| Who else was involved with those wiretaps? | ||
| Who else knew about that? | ||
| And nobody talked about it when they filled it. | ||
| Just to be clear, Chuck Schumer voted against reopening up the government. | ||
| He voted against the continuing resolution. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're making this. | |
| They slid that provision in. | ||
| So, nobody could say that neither side knew about it because when it got to the Rules Committee, when that bill got passed, Johnson and Jeffries both spoke about the bill, what they liked and didn't like. | ||
| But not one of them mentioned that provision. | ||
| Well, no, you heard Mike Johnson say he didn't like it. | ||
| So, here is a USA Today with what Phil was talking about. | ||
| The push to reopen the government hit a major snag when House Republicans began criticizing members of their own party in the Senate over a provision in the shutdown ending package. | ||
| The measure, which Democrats said created a slush fund, allows GOP senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to sue the federal government if their electronic records are secretly obtained. | ||
| The Biden administration subpoenaed his phone records and others as part of an investigation into the January 6, 2021 insurrection. | ||
| But Republicans in the House, including Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the powerful chair of the Appropriations Committee, said in recent days they were unaware of the provision before it was attached to the legislation to reopen the government. | ||
| Speaking to reporters after the House voted to pass the bill, Johnson said he called Senate Majority Leader John Thune on the morning of November 12th to express how very angry he was about the provision. | ||
| Johnson added that Republicans will introduce legislation next week to repeal the controversial provision. | ||
| Levino in California, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you doing? | |
| Thank you for letting me be on the line, being able to speak. | ||
| I'm a Navy vet. | ||
| I'm in the younger, I'm a younger generation, and I honestly wanted to speak to empathy and understanding. | ||
| I'm just extremely disappointed in general as a whole, just the political system in its entirety. | ||
| I'm disappointed at everybody's perspectives, ideas, how we bicker, the divisiveness, how we can't just really just come together and try to speak from the place of empathy and understanding. | ||
| Like, social work is a really big thing. | ||
| Levino, tie this to your party and how they handled the shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| I mean, I feel there's a lot of like back and forth on whether or not like, you know, holding the government shutdown is necessary or not necessary. | ||
| Like, I think, yeah, sorry. | ||
| Okay, we'll move on. | ||
| Odu in Massachusetts, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you, C-SPAN, Washington Journal, for taking my call. | ||
| I would like to start off by thanking the veterans who fought for this country. | ||
| I also want to give my condolences to the Charlie Kirk family. | ||
| It's the same that the bloody SpongeBob shoes Democrats continue to hate and violence in their speech. | ||
| As a proud law-abiding African American. | ||
| All right, and caller, what about the shutdown and your message to the party? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What about the shutdowns, the Democrats' shutdown? | |
| And my message to the party is thank Donald Trump for what he did and what he's doing for this country. | ||
| The stock market is hitting all-time highs. | ||
| I'm okay with him tearing down the East Wing and upgrading it to a ballroom. | ||
| All right, Moses in Newark, New Jersey, Independent. | ||
| Moses, we're talking about the shutdown. | ||
| It's not over. | ||
| What is your message to your party and how they handled it? | ||
| Moses in Newark, New Jersey, Independent. | ||
| All right, we will move on. | ||
| Before we do that, front page of the New York Times onto the jump page in the paper, a lengthy piece this morning. | ||
| Bessant used a tax loophole. | ||
| Now he's in charge of the IRS. | ||
| And this is what they found out. | ||
| This is how much Scott Besson earned and owed from 2021 to 2023 tax years, according to Senate Democrats. | ||
| His regular pay was $1.6 million, an additional business income of $24 million. | ||
| His total was $25.6 million. | ||
| This is the amount paid based on regular pay, $99,000. | ||
| And this is what he potentially owed to the IRS: $910,000 in taxes. | ||
| So it's a lengthy piece in the New York Times if you're interested in that this morning. | ||
| David in Bemidji, Minnesota, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I don't think the Democrats conducted themselves in the manner that they could have. | ||
| They aren't frank enough with what's occurring. | ||
| The cutbacks to Medicaid, according to several university studies, are going to cause up to 51,000 deaths a year. | ||
| They should have been calling out the Republicans for being callous, for being cruel, and for actually, in the end result, being, if you will, I hate to use this language, but we need to use this kind of language as Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Republicans are killing people for money. | |
| They're killing people for tax breaks for billionaires. | ||
| They're monsters, disguising themselves as pious Christians. |