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get contact information for government officials all in one place. this compact spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every house and senate member of the 119 congress. contact information on congressional committees and state governors. the congressional directory cost 3295 plus shipping and handling. scan the code on the right or go to c-span shop.org to order youe copy today. >> we welcome now douglas holt begin back to her desk. the former head of the congressional office. for folks who may not know what is the american action forum, what is your mission. >> it is a think tank in washington, d.c. we evaluate and try to understand the range of domestic and economic policies.

we do not do any social issues, economic fairs. >> economic policies very much a part of this budget bill that was passed out last night. the expectation at least from the speakers offices that will get a vote in the office this week he had 30,000 foot view of this bill, do you like it, what are your concerns? >> it will do one thing and that is it will avoid a large tax increase in 2026 would almost certainly lead to a downturn. that is a great virtue. past that, it is not outstanding tax policy. it is not a real step forward which we obviously know are really pressing giving a downgrade on friday. in terms of what is at stake here, extension 2017 law. more the same, not much for the economy, there are some provisions to improve business investment and research and development. they are positives modest. then a whole collection of promises that the president made

on the campaign trail which, in my view will have very little to do with economic growth and actually go the wrong direction from a tax policy point of view. the rule is brought in the base, treat everything the same. you know pulling out special favors for overtime or tips for seniors. it is not another step in tax reform, it is very different thanan 2017. >> there was a collar on our first segment very concerned about the debt in this country. we are about $37 trillion. approaching that. what does this bill do for the trajectory of debt in this country. >> it makes it modestlyn' worse. that is o real disappointment. i thought that the gold standard would be do something which is budget neutral tax reform. and, if you do that, you would make some progress on the fiscal situation. that was the gold standard. the other spectrum, make it no worse. this does not even do that.

you cannot be too excited about this from a budgetary point of view. >> you talked about the moody's downgrade. can you explain what that is. three very important rating agencies where they look at a borrower and say you are creditworthy orel you will pay back for sure or there is some risk associated with you. the first was a senator in 2011. they said no longer aaa guaranteed to repay. we have some concerns. those concerns were about the politics. 2023 fixed ratings. doing essentially the same thing s on meet the press yesterday. i want to play his response. >> i think moody's is a lagging indicator. that's what everyone thinks of credit industries. larry summers and i don't agree on everything. they downgraded the u.s. in 2011. it is a lagging indicator. just like sean duffy said with

air traffic control, we didn't get here in the past 100 days. it is the biden administration that we have seen over the past four years, we inherited 6.7% deficit to gdp. we are determined to bring the spending down and grow the economy. >> fair enough but under president trump's first administration he had $8 trillion to the nation's debt in his first term, plenty of blame to go around. >> let's review, we were in the rescue portion of covid. the biden administration was in the recovery portion. if not for senators manchin and senator sinema, who are no longer in the democratic caucus, it would've been four or five trillion more. host: your thoughts on his view on moody's downgrade?

guest: it's a little disappointing. don't pay attention to it, it doesn't mean that much. it is not our fault. i would like someone to say this is a problem and we intend to do something about it. the notion that is a lagging indicator is a confusion to meet. it's something where the problem arrives. that means he's acknowledging we have a problem. why don't we do something about it? host: debt being a big part of that problem. how much is too much? is there a moment when we will accumulate a certain amount of debt that will be a breaking point and we will all know it is too much? guest: the answer is yes. at some point in our trajectory, even relative to the size of a growing economy, international creditors take a look at that and lose the confidence that you will repay either the interest or principal in a timely fashion.

i don't know what day that is. no one knows what day that is. host: is this happening all at once? guest: there have been lots of sovereign debt crisis, portugal, greece, argentina. it is usually something unrelated to the budget that triggers it and suddenly it is there. you go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once. that is true for countries as well. i think the right way to think about it is having a sovereign debt crisis is failing. not having one is a great. let's take this on and put our finances in order. we did that in the 20th century. we got better economic performance. now it doubles every 56 years. you get the sense that people know that.

why don't we take care of our finances, educate people building factories, software. that's the right way to go. host: there was a caller on friday that said why don't we have balance budgets anymore? guest: we don't have balance budgets for two reasons. we did have one at the end of the 20th century. i recall that. two things have gone on in this century. we don't clean up after crisis. world war ii had recessions, all of the things that we face. they went way up. that it came back down. this century, it goes up it stays up. we don't clean up after the emergency response. we have to pay $1 trillion in interest this year.

the second thing that has gone on is development. we have social security, medicare. they are driven by the democracy. there is a fundamental mismatch between revenue which goes here. that is continued throughout the 21st century. we have a structural deficit plus emergencies. host: douglas holtz-aiken is president of the american action form taking your phone calls with us for about the next dirty minutes or so. it is (202) 748-8000 for democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. as folks are calling in and this big bill made its way out of the budget committee, remind viewers what the role of the congressional budget office is and how that works? guest: a score is simply how

much will this bill change money flowing into the treasury and money flowing out of the treasury, what does it do to the deficit? that is the score. it shows it year by year and gives it its provision in the bill. it is a detailed account from the budgetary impact. the job is to score bills considered by congress. i know what they are doing to federal finance. they have to make some evaluations of how programs work. we take up the medicare provision and get health care insurance. they do all of that based on the consensus and research in a nonpartisan fashion. it is a phenomenal place. host: in a place where we get a lot of numbers, our ceo numbers the most trustworthy numbers

when they come out on a big will like this? guest: yes, that doesn't mean they are right. host: explain. guest: when i was director in 2003 we's -- past the health care modernization act. it's an insurance priority against the cost of outpatient and prescription drugs for seniors. the cbo had to imagine who would supply the insurance, who would supply the drugs and at what price. how would the federal subsidy affect the insurance. what would all of this mean to the taxpayer? we got it wrong by about 25%. cbo is most important one congress is doing something. it's not that they are right but they will try their best to be too high as too low. give you some motion of the

scale of the enterprise. they did a good job of it. host: we will get into this bill on the house floor. let me take some calls. this is katie in silver springs, maryland, good morning. caller: good morning. i was curious, we have our president and his personal life, multiple bankruptcies, maybe that was kind of strategically to manage his finance and capitalize. i was wondering if that perspective, how that translates or if it does translate into the administration's policies and representation of our debt, spending in the world, how we move policy forward? guest: it's a really good question. i get asked questions like this a lot. i'm qualified to guess that it is a state of mind.

his track record in his first time in office and now again as president is not one that indicates the fiscal situation. if you are serious about that you should be serious about taking reforms to preserve social security and medicare. you have to reduce the amount of spending on that. he took them off the table. host: is there enough fraud, waste, abuse? guest: you have to change the programs. they were designed for the 1930's and 1960's respectively. it will match our demography and things like that. that was 2003. in 2003 the major job was

keeping people alive on very expensive oncology drugs. it is a different world. the program has to reflect that. host: what is a fair way to modify and reduce benefits? who does that impact, if you were the one being asked to design this bill, what would you do? guest: i would let the american people decide and i'm serious about that. here is the situation. i have lived a life of disappointment, i do budgets. [laughter] social security trust fund will go bankrupt in eight years, they will not have the legal authority to pay full benefits. i don't think uri believe congress will let people take a 21% cut in retirement. that means if you are 55 and thinking about retiring, there will be social security for -- reform and you don't know what your benefits will be.

i think every year we get closer to that people will realize what is the deal? how will you extend the life of this program? congress owes them that answer. i want to reform social security and they end up working at the tasty rees, they will go to the town hall and say we need to reform social security. there will be a huge fight over the details of that. host: you don't think it becomes a hot potato that gets passed around? guest: you have to fix it. that is a good thing. our representative will be engaged in fixing it. there will be a vigorous debate. i don't think any analyst like i , we have had many commissions. they all do a collection of these that are very similar. they want to raise the calf on tax learning.

they change the award of initial benefits so very affluent people get less than they do now. might even consider not giving the most affluent any at all. social security is an insurance policy. i could name a handful of people i don't think will outlive the resources. then you have to figure out where to draw the line. these are already being tested some. you could do some flipping of the dials on how you influence things. you could get some progress on making the program for the 21st century. host: fort lauderdale, tom, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask about these medicare cuts. the republicans want to make sick people work to get tax cuts for people like charles koch and

the democrats can't make a point of this? what's wrong with these republicans. all of these doge press releases, are any of these legislations and cost cuts going to be legalized in this new bill? guest: two good questions. these are medicaid cuts that they are proposing. that is the low income health care program. i don't think anyone is proposing that people who are sick be forced to work. they would have work requirements for those who are able. that is the basic framework. that is not really a budgetary issue. it says you should be willing to work. we have had this debate several times and we will have it again. i don't think there's any real budgetary savings. that is a slightly different issue. the doge cuts, this is a very big deal.

there are two kinds of things doge has done, one has reduced federal employment. the listener should know that is not a serious budgetary activity. we spend maybe $400 billion on the conversation for civilian workers. we ran a deficit of $1.8 trillion last year. the second thing they've done is not spend money. that is called empowerment. congress has authorized the spending. in 1974, president nixon did this. they took him to court. that spawned the congressional budget office. the budget process. now it is against the law to simply impound money. the president could say i don't want to spend this money and congress has 45 days to agree, in which case the money comes back.

they could disagree or the money goes out. the money doge is sitting on will end up as part of a case that will test the legality. if the courts uphold its legality that money has to go out and all of those behind savings will have turned out to be federal. host: several viewers tweeting about this program and have a conversation. michael is one of them. he sends this question, how much will taxes increase if the 2017 tax reform isn't made permanent? will or could that help the budget deficit? guest: they would go up by about $425 billion next year. my concern is that abruptly, that is going to generate enough headway to knock the economy

sideways or in its weakened state into a recession. one thing that does not ever improve federal finance is a recession. we have stabilizers that spend more. typically they turn right around and do a big spending program. i don't think we have done a very good job on that front. i don't think we should root for a recession. host: we talked about this budget bill that made it out of committee last night. the house rules committee just announced their meeting to consider the bill. this is the rules vote, the package for the final floor vote. that will take place wednesday, i had to triple check, 1:00 a.m. ahead of the floor debate and vote. guest: only c-span has years at 1:00 a.m. host: those are often vigorous

debates. 1:00 a.m. on what they morning, that is eastern time for viewers around the country. this is jeannie in marysville, ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. i wanted to know is there a budget for -- i'm a welder, i have been experiencing union discrimination. i wanted to know if there's something in the budget for the working class people that are trying to work and get employed and there is a pushback on women in construction. i wanted to bring that up to see if there will be something in the budget for policies and procedures that will help individuals like myself that are

being blackballed from the industry. guest: thank you for the question. the short answer is no. the reason is the republicans are trying to pass this legislation using fast track procedures known as reconciliation. the important restriction is you only get to do that if you stick to things that are strictly budgetary nature. you can't go out and make a new policy. you hear a lot of talk about things in this bill with energy policies, border policies, regulation reforms. they will sit down and go through the bill and say is this primarily budgetary in nature or not? if not they will take it out. it has been something that both parties have used.

they tried to include an increase in the federal minimum wage. that came out as not primarily budgetary in nature. host: is it going line by line or did one side propose challenges and say this doesn't team budgetary, is that knocking off jurors in a juror pool? guest: this is a procedure which we go to the late senator robert byrd who did not like the idea of inflation. bypass the rules of the senate. host: he liked to protect the rules of the senate. guest: the way this works is they are here with the bill. they start going through. republicans say that is fine. democrats say i don't like that, they make their case and the parliamentarian decides. host: is that something that

happens behind closed doors? guest: yes. host: is that something you think would be behind cameras? guest: i have never thought about it but i probably would say not. caller: good morning. i am hoping that you could help me make the math the work. as far as the budget is concerned, this is including doge, the fact that we are practically at five months in 2025. the last i checked, we are already $319 million over budget. host: it would be doing well if it was that. guest: probably billions. caller: i thought it was

millions. maybe i didn't get the right number. i'm confused. if doge is doing such a great job, why are they asking for $4.5 trillion more for the next budget? why are they changing the debt ceiling, making it for trillion dollars higher as well? guest: the math is very confusing. i would say you have at least three things going on. in fiscal 2025, the year that we are in, the federal government will spend $7 trillion. they will spend $1 trillion on interest, $1.8 trillion on the annual decision of congress, defense spending, funding for the agencies to do basic

research and all of those things. they will spend $4.2 trillion on mandatory spending. social security, medicare, medicaid, things like that. that is a lot of money. the president has made requests for changes to that one point $8 trillion in discretionary spending for next year. if you have heard about wanting more or less it is in that context. they will have to pass law to decide how much they are going to spend. the house and senate are considering changes to the mandatory spending program to see where that goes. there's a lot with where we are headed on that front. the bulk of the changes are concentrated in the community that has medicare jurisdiction, medicaid gets all the attention.

they have limited ability to change that framework. those are all things going on as they fight about what it will look like raising $5.2 trillion in revenue. there is the debt limit. we have deficits. we borrow a lot. at some point we hit the limit congress has authorized the treasury to borrow. we hit debt limit on january 1. the treasury has been keeping us under the limit. which in reality are not particularly extraordinary. we take the treasuries out of them. if you take them back they are under the limit. this process. it is restored after the fact. it could only hold on so long. they have to raise the debt

limit. the bills are just coming due. i am concerned given the downgrade by moody's all of the eyes on the united states that we might have another episode where we go up to that last-second and scare financial markets to death. it would be wise to have a plan to take that off the table. it makes me nervous. host: you mentioned we spend about $1 trillion, could you ever renegotiate interest payments, could the federal government do that? or would that be a disaster? guest: that is them saying they can't pay and we want to get a payment plan. that would frighten international lenders to death. the disaster comes from the fact that treasuries, the dollar is the foundation. what that really means is if i'm

in argentina, ecuador, france, i could go get a hold of some treasuries and i know i could buy some. i could sell them when i need the cash. it is really just a buy and sell of liquidity treasuries. everyone believes you could always get your money. , you don't want to buy it. you have ground the international financial system. we should not mess with that. host: kathy in the tar heel state. caller: how are you? i'm 65 years old and i have paid in social security all my life. i'm tired of people viewing it as an entitlement program, it is not. we paid it. i have $150 for my social

security bill taken out. may i might add, health care websites, $79 per month. people have been getting free health care for how long? i also pay for a premium of $140 per month to protect myself from the 20% that the medicare doesn't cover. tell me we are not responsible. we have been far more responsible than everybody for the past 10 or 15 years. we have been robbed. we have had theft, fiscal irresponsibility of both political parties. i don't want to hear this anymore.

we lost our pensions, lost our homes, lost our job. we have been victims multiple times, you have no idea what our generation has been through. guest: lots of people feel that they paid for all of their social security and many have. social security redistributes. some people pay more on the lifetime basis than they ever get out of it. that is a case-by-case basis. medicare was never designed fully funded. the original program was just the hospital program. a payroll tax and trust fund. when they moved to doing outpatient care and did prescription drugs and on the medicare insurance program they made it premium funded.

when they looked at the premiums they said that is a lot of money. we will have them cover one quarter of the cost of the program. medicare was never designed to be financially self-sufficient. it is not. to get subsidized by the general taxpayer. that is the biggest source of reading. it is responsible for about one third of all debt. i think going forward it would be wise to rethink how wise all medicare is. make sure it does add up. host: what is your view on tariffs? guest: i think this has been a terrible misadventure. i do. tariffs are taxes. if you look at this from a tax policy point of view, if you want to raise a fair amount of revenue. he proposed a $400 billion tax

increase. he did that. that was extraordinary. you saw how people reacted. you wouldn't pick a national sales tax that only covered half of the goods. you have a broad base. it is a very regressive tax. tariffs are hard to administer. host: why is it regressive? guest: they are buying things out of need. it is not a good revenue. it is not a good idea to have a big tax increase. the economy is noticeably weaker. no question about that. we have different kinds of tariffs. we have steel, aluminum, semi

conductors, lumber, copper, films. all of these are done under the guise of national security. i think it is an open question. certainly we have done steel tariffs. 2001 we did it. again in 2018, here we are again. it doesn't work. host: is it bringing in enough revenue to make a difference on that spending gap that we keep watching into the future? guest: it is not substantial, it never will be. it's a question on its policy merit. the ones on canada and mexico, they are a unified economic entity. they are the most damaging thing you could post. he carved those out.

we have a 10% universal tariff. we have these reciprocal tariffs . secretary besson said he will start sending messages. that puts us at levels we haven't seen in 100 years. we are in uncharted territory with this experiment. i haven't seen any good come of it yet. host: ronald, myrtle beach, democrat, good morning. caller: i will be quick. has there been a budget analysis work requirement that is actually going to save? guest: not much. caller: there can't be. you want to volunteer for a city or state.

a lot of those businesses don't want people there that are unemployed. they don't want those people. what do you think about those? guest: i don't know about the latter. it is not something i ever studied or looked at. they have come up a number of times and as i said to your caller earlier, i don't think about the budget. there's not a lot of dollars saved. it's about your view of the philosophy that you should be willing to work in the exchange for the support of your fellow tax bears. host: this is carla in missouri. independent. caller: i wanted to ask your guest, what is the status of the snap program and what he thinks the prospects are to get it restored to the budget? i would like to know what he thinks about it.

guest: the snap program is still on the books. it is not going away. the reforms that have been proposed in-house are primarily shifting more of the burden to pay for it to the states. to have the amount that they shift depend on how effectively the program is administered. it is not really anything that says we want to change the beneficiary's life. they want to change how the program gets administered and who foots the bill. host: this headline from this weekend, donald trump tells walmart to eat the tariffs after the retailer warned it will raise prices. walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs as the reason for raising prices through the chain between walmart and china they

showed, eat the tariff and not charge customers anything. i will be watching and so will your customers. guest: i don't think we should have gravity. let things fall, they hurt. it is a cost. businesses have to cover cost. he could not like it. walmart has margins. you could kiss the margins goodbye. walmart is not going to be around long if he just wants to get the president happy. he put them in an untenable position. host: do remember another time a president told a specific company how to price their goods? guest: no. i'm sure it has happened. we have had job opening by presidents on issues like labor

issues. president biden walked on the picket line. people have done similar things. he gets pretty granular. that is unusual. host: this is wayne from pennsylvania, democrat. go ahead. caller: how are you doing? host: doing well. caller: everybody is worried about medicare, let's take the caps off. if they want to pay their share, that's all i have to say. god bless you all, goodbye. guest: there is no caps on medicare payroll taxes. it is a smaller tax. the cap is in social security. there have been a variety of proposals. host: where do you stand?

guest: i think we should raise the cap. we are now well south of 90% of wages. 80's, high 70's. i have big project problems. -- budget problems. exclusively on the cap side that won't work. we have to figure out where we are willing to do spending cuts and tax increases. that has been politically difficult. host: i wanted to ask about the american action forum, what projects are you working on that we haven't talked about yet? guest: i built the american action forum out of my experiences on the mccain campaign. what i did was policy research. policy advice.

i did it in real time on whatever was happening that day. my idea was to educate the people around me on the campaign. there would be value to that outside of the political setting. something where an oil rig blows up in the gulf and we say what are our options. we will cover what is going on in congress. we have talked about that today. we keep track of what is going on in the agencies as well. there's a lot of executive activity. host: easy enough to find. douglas holtz