>> thank you, everybody. >> thank you very much. the governor of washington state, jay inslee, is scheduled to deliver the state of the state address today at 3:00. actually, a little after 3:00. and we'll have it for you live here on c-span3 when it gets under way. live coverage. until then, some of this morning's "washington journal." >> the remainder of the washington journal today. we're going to be talking with senators and congressmen on the

house and senate budget committees about their budget priorities, as we hear from viewers about your budget priorities. and we begin this morning with sheldon whitehouse, senator from rhode island, democrat. and senator, as we're asking about these priorities, what are your priorities, and how are they shaping your role here, and your thoughts as this looming budget deadline is coming in about ten days? >> well, i think the overarching thing that we are looking for is some degree of parity, more or less, between nondefense and defense spending increases. with that, that enables the proprieto proprietors to go back and fix accounts. very keen to see the promised second chunk of opioid spending come through. around washington, promises sometimes aren't quite as strong as they are elsewhere in the world. and then there are the big issues that i think we want in a bipartisan fashion to resolve, but could fall apart.

we need to do the children's health insurance program. we need to fund the community health centers. we need to reauthorize and fund the national flood insurance program. we need to get disaster relief to the disaster-struck states, including the fire-struck states out west. and we need to solve the daca d.r.e.a.m.ers issue. so a lot at stake in these negotiations. but i think there are republicans who want that to happen. so i think it's trying to avoid errors. >> can you do all of that in one deal, or do you think specific issues will have to be broken out separately, and daca being one of them, that there is some discussion about, whether it might come a little bit later past this spending deal? >> i think it's important that the agreement be reached. while the leverage is in place. if you leave something out as a stray, then that enables the republicans never to bring it up again. we saw that with basically an accounting error that the republicans made on renewable energy tax extenders. they admitted they had made a

mistake in the language. they promised they would fix it, and here it is well over a year later, and they haven't even bothered to try. so our experience, if you leave orphans out, is that they get ignored. so it would have to -- you know, you could stage it, but you would have to have an overall agreement for the whole staging of all of these issues. >> and how do you do that? what is the -- what is the mechanism for doing that? >> well, agreement between the leaders in the senate and the speaker and the leader in the house. and a strong, clear signal from the president that he'll accept what congress works out. >> and i know one of the issues that you speak often about on the senate floor is this issue of climate change. and how do you ensure the funding for the epa and efforts to fight climate change amid all the other issues that are coming up in this debate, what are you

doing and what are you looking for from the spending agreement on that front? >> well, if we achieve rough parity between defense and nondefense spending, then the appropriators get together. we have seen strong bipartisan support for the epa budget, particularly in the senate. and the republicans -- some republicans may complain about that, but they don't have the votes to undo it. so i think if we get the right parity number, a lot of the rest of that falls into place. >> one tweet from the president on this issue of climate change that i know you reacted to is at the end of last year. i wanted to get your thoughts on it again. in the east, it's the coldest new year's eve on record. perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old global warming that our country but not other countries is going to pay trillions of dollars to protect against. bundle up, the president said on december the 28th. have you brought that tweet up with any of your colleagues?

>> i think, you know, he's obviously having fun with that. and the whole fossil fuel apparatus that pays to deny climate change, i'm sure, had fun with that. but the fact of the matter is that essentially every single one of our 50-state universities, all of our national labs, our military, every american major scientific society, all agrees this is happening and that it's real. and for people like me who represent coastal states, what this portends for our coastal states is really, really deadly serious. so for the president to mock this issue is consistent with the general mockery of all things scientific by the trump administration. and it's consistent with their more or less ritualized obedience to the fossil fuel industry. but i think it makes us look pretty stupid in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of the people who actually understand this issue. >> what happens on this issue in the rest of the 115th congress as the second session gets under way?

what are you hoping to happen in the next couple months? >> well, we'll have to see what the republicans tell us that they are interested in is trying to solve this problem, not through regulation, but through the market. & through fixing the pricing so fossil fuel is paying its fair share, paying its true costs of all of the harm that it's causing. so we had a hearing in the environment public works committee recently in which the republicans brought in witnesses who supported a gas tax to pay for infrastructure, and that would have a beneficial environmental effect. and virtually every republican who has thought the problem of climate change through to its solution comes to a price on carbon in the marketplace. so we're kind of -- you know, okay, republicans. if that's the way you want to go, let's start talking. we're happy to go whatever way it takes. but that seems to be the republican way. is to fix a price on carbon. >> senator, we would be happy to talk about it more in another longer interview, but we

appreciate your time this morning. >> good to be with you. >> appreciate it. have a good day. >> thank you. and we'll continue to talk to members of the house and senate budget committee throughout this last two hours of the washington journal today. and as we do that, we want to hear from you, our viewers, about your budget priorities. phone lines, democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. having this conversation as the headline in "usa today" notes, time is running out for a spending bill. the government shutdown looms again on january 19th. the reason that shutdown is looming is because the latest continuing resolution from the end of december pushed the funding for the government deadline to january 19th. if there is not a bill to continue the funding of the government past that day, the lights would go off, the

government would be should down. we want to hear from you ahead of that deadline about your budget priorities. jim is up first. leesburg, virginia, independent. jim, good morning. >> caller: yes. thank you for c-span, and to all my democratic comrades out there that want the government to take care of them from their cradle to grave, my budget priority would be to shrink the federal government, and i want fully funding up to 87g and e verify, and these democraticaca kids, we care of them until they get a citizenship. and the parents have to go. the american government has definitely gotten the ball on this immigration thing. i don't want my government to be mother teresa for noncitizens of this country. thank you for your time. >> those are jim's priorities. jim mentions salvadorians in this country. the trump administration will end temporary legal immigration

status for 200,000 salvadorans living in the united states for nearly two decades. the department of homeland security announced yesterday. salvadorans who currently have protected status must return to their homeland by september of 2019 or become undocumented immigrants if they remain without legal protections. the administration has now terminated tps, temporary protected status, for four countries, el salvador, haiti, nicaragua and sudan. salvadorans were first granted tps in 2001 after a pair of devastating earthquakes that killed 1,000 people and destroyed more than 100,000 homes in the country. john is in cincinnati, ohio, an independent. john, what are your budget priorities? >> caller: yes, good morning. thanks for taking my call. and i want to talk about the budget. and one of the things is, i live in ohio's first congressional district. and the way the congressman --

once you get voted out or retire, they still receive their pay for, like ever. and i believe our district is right now paying for five congressmen. now, i don't want to get into term limits, but i would say that once they leave or are voted out of office, they should only maybe get a pension for, like, three years and go back and get a regular job like anybody else. and then the other thing is that you elect a congressman, and then they go and they make rules about how much money i should get. they have cut my social security by 60%, because i stopped working in social security and got a state-sponsored pension. and they vote on how much money to take away from me. but i can't vote on how much money to take away from them. now, that's like taxation without representation. and i would like to hear your comments. thank you.

>> we'd like to hear viewer comments on that, if you want to spend to what john had to say or if you have other thoughts on your own budget priorities. democrats 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-478-8002. doug, for democracy. yes, sir. >> caller: yes, sir. it looks like what they have done is taken a half a billion dollars out of the social security function. the actual system. that's the money that pays for the social security people to run the system. and i believe that's the way republicans are going at the back door to destroy social security. i'm wondering if the democrats have ever brought that up. i don't hear about anybody talking about it, but a few independent people that have gone through that. >> democrats certainly bringing up their concerns about the

future of social security and other programs during the tax debate. were you a supporter of the tax reform legislation that's now law? we lost doug. kathleen is now in los angeles, california. a republican. kathleen, go ahead. >> caller: hello. my name is kathleen. i'm from california. and a lot of people that call in and talk pro-immigration, illegal immigration, we never say it's illegal aliens. they never say -- they don't live in border states. i'm in los angeles. i'm in los angeles. more than 75% more than 75% of the jobs in construction are held by illegal aliens. black -- let's see. homelessness in california in los angeles has increased by 25%. all these people that call in and talk about -- the budget priority is the wall. people that don't live in border states have no idea of the

ripple effects and repercussions of illegal aliens. in los angeles, we have over 1 million illegal aliens. hit and run accidents have increased. tremendously. just last week, a woman was hit -- killed up the street from my house. and a mother was killed in front of her 14-year-old son, because of a hit and run accident. the other thing, d.r.e.a.m.ers -- >> was an illegal immigrant involved in that accident, kathleen? >> caller: i'll put it this way. hit and run accidents have increased because of immigration. >> okay. kathleen in california. steve, on the line for democrats. steve, good morning. >> caller: yeah, hi. how are you? >> doing well. >> caller: okay. on this taxation, what is happening is that the -- last year, we had multiple weather

conditions, you know, hurricanes and floods and fires and so on and so forth. the insurance companies, they got my bill this morning, and my house insurance went up by 10%. now, because the insurance companies are trying to spread -- trying to spread the expenditures they had. but the tax bill included that as part of -- as part of the tax bill. so, you know, they're reducing taxes on the one hand. but on the other hand, they're going to be increasing. my bill went up by 10% on the insurance end of it. so why aren't the democrats doing something about that? >> and clint, mckinnie, texas, line for republicans. clint, go ahead. >> caller: yeah, you know, i just wanted to make a point that

you can't look at immigration and the budget as uniquely independent. they're interrelated. and, you know, with the aging population that we have within the united states, social security spending is a huge expenditure. and we need to look at bringing in -- you can be concerned about illegal immigration, but we need to bring immigrants into this country so they can start to pay taxes more into the social security, so we can actually pay for our aging population. and you also can't distinguish the impact that illegal immigration has on health care, because i work in health care, i have for 20 years. there's a direct impact on, you know, state constitutions require they pay -- that they coverin digitnant health care, so if you go to the hospital, they can't turn you away and a lot of immigrants are going to the er, where they can't be turned away. and someone has to pay for that and it gets passed on to

consumers and passed on to taxes. so you can't look at these things independently. you have to look at them holistically, and you have to address it -- both issues. >> clint in texas. we want to keep hearing from you about your budget priorities as we talk this morning with members of both the house and senate budget committees about their priorities. and we're joined now from statuary hall by congressman bill johnson, republican of ohio. and congressman, as we have been asking viewers about their priorities, what are yours, and how are they shaping how you're coming to this discussion about a spending bill and this looming government shutdown? >> well, obviously, john, we're not -- >> we'll leave this washington journal discussion to go live now to the state capitol in olympia, washington, where governor jay inslee is about to give his state of the state address. this comes to us courtesy of tvw, washington state's public affairs network.