MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Later in the broadcast, guitarist Stephane Wrembel joins us in studio to celebrate Bastille Day in style. But first, what's $14.3 trillion among friends? No small change. Members of Congress remain deadlocked in a dispute over whether to raise the nation's borrowing limit. Economists of all stripes are predicting dire consequences if an agreement isn't made soon. Republicans maintain that a deal including tax increases will cause severe injury to the economy.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIDemocrats won't sign off on a deal that's made up of cuts alone, with Fed chairman Ben Bernanke warning that a default would create a huge financial calamity, which would affect everybody and set job creation back significantly. You have to wonder, which is the lesser of all evils? Joining us to explore what the situation looks like from his party's perspective is Congressman Andy Harris. He's a Republican, a freshman lawmaker representing the 1st Congressional District of Maryland. The 1st district includes the Eastern Shore and portions of Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Harford counties. Congressman Harris, thank you so much for joining us.

REP. ANDY HARRISHi, good afternoon, Kojo.

NNAMDIThe front page of today's Washington Post highlighted a split among GOP leaders on what to do about the debt ceiling. Senator Mitch McConnell saying yesterday that he thinks a failure to reach an agreement could, quoting here, "destroy the Republican brand." What do you think is causing this divide among members of your party?

HARRISWell, I think that what the problem is is that we're still waiting and we've been waiting for a month for the president to actually put some details, put some meat on the bones of, you know, what his vision is for how to get through this. The Republicans have offered several versions. You know, I think the Republicans want to solve this problem, but we can't do it just by increasing taxes and, you know, make believe spending cuts.

HARRISAnd if you go through the list of some of the proposed spending cuts, they're make believe. They occur 10 years from now. Next year's budget, out of the over $1 trillion proposed spending cuts, it's 2 billion from next year. And we're projected to have, you know, $1.3 or $1.4 trillion budget deficit next year, and the best we can do is 2 billion. So a lot of us are waiting to see what's the real plan to decrease spending so that we don't have to keep on doing this from now and forever.

HARRISAnd in the end, I think that's going to include a discussion on a balanced budget amendment. And the president has not even mentioned it as a long-term solution to this, but there's a growing number of us in our party who say that it's about time that the country consider a balanced budget amendment.

NNAMDIWould the package that you would feel good about supporting have to include a balanced budget amendment?

HARRISIf it includes, as the president has asked for, $2.5 trillion increase to the spending limit, to the borrowing limit. That's historically high. If the president wants historically high increase, then it's going to have to be coupled to a historic balanced budget amendment. And the president right now has ruled out anything less than that. He has said, simply, he will not sign something smaller. I think that kind of a dug-in position is what's causing this stalemate to continue up until the August 2nd deadline.

NNAMDIOne of the main sticking points for Republicans seems to be an aversion to tax increases, the argument being that higher taxes on anyone will harm job growth. Would a failure to reach an agreement, in your view, have an even greater effect on jobs or not?

HARRISI will tell you that, again, there is a growing consensus, not 100 percent of the people in our caucus, that if the President would come to the table and say, look, he's willing to look at a long-term solution, he's looking to real cuts now, we don't need tax increases to do this. You know, history is on our side on this. Every time a tax increase has been part of one of these deals, the spending cuts never developed. They never -- you know, spending cuts are promises, tax increases are here permanently.

NNAMDI800-433-8850 is the number to call if you'd like to join this conversation. Our guest is Congressman Andy Harris. He's a Republican representing the 1st Congressional District of Maryland. How worried are you about the debt ceiling? Call us at 800-433-8850. If you happened to vote Republican in the last election cycle, we are particularly interested in hearing from you. What would you like your elected officials to do about the debt ceiling? 800-433-8850.

NNAMDIYou can send us a tweet @kojoshow, e-mail to kojo@wamu.org or go to our website, kojoshow.org, join the conversation there. Congressman Harris, there's no real precedent for what happens if there's a failure to increase the debt limit, which has lead to a lot of speculation, much of it calling for catastrophe of what will happen if a deal is not made. What is your understanding of what will happen on August 3rd if no agreement is reached?

HARRISIf the president -- again, if the president continues not to want to compromise with us on perhaps a short-term increase and we let the August 2nd deadline go by, on August 3rd, first of all, the monthly Social Security checks would have to be sent out, and the income we have will cover -- we have plenty of tax income, revenue coming in to cover Social Security, Medicare, seniors, veterans and our fighting men and women, as well as paying our debt services.

HARRISThe trouble is that if all the rest of the government's bills -- we only have about 25 percent of that amount of money. So the decision making will have to go on. You know, and I hope the president wasn't serious when he suggested he wouldn't send out Social Security checks. I hope that he looks to the other parts of the government to say, okay, for a few days, while we're working things out, you know, what bills get laid off to the side? Look, this is what families do all the time.

HARRISI mean, they -- when push comes to shove, they defer a few bills for a few days. And the federal government could do it, but they shouldn't be doing it and the president really shouldn't be talking about doing it to Social Security recipients because there's no need to. We have the revenue. We have the taxes coming in to pay for those costs.

NNAMDIThere are those who argue that the president is making more cuts than previous presidents have made in a similar situation, including Republicans and that his argument that there should be at least an end to the Bush tax cuts is an argument that some Republicans are willing to go for while others absolutely refuse to compromise on that. Why not?

HARRISWell, again, our problem in this country has not been the taxes have been too low. Our problem is that spending has been too high and has a huge increase in the past two or three years in what we call the spending base line of the federal budget. These budget deficits that President Obama has brought now the third year, these are unprecedented. We've never had deficits in excess of a trillion dollars. Now we have three in a row and the next few years, as far as we can see, they are projected.

HARRISIt is a spending issue. And if anybody believes that the -- the only thing that will happen if you send more tax dollars to Washington is they'll spend more of those tax dollars. Unless you have a balanced budget amendment. And that's why a balanced budget amendment is so important to the future. And I think that's what will restore the trust of the American people in the ability of Washington to control its spending. Only if -- in the Constitution, it says, you have to balance your spending against what taxes you take in.

NNAMDISeniors and other groups that may be directly affected by a default are starting to go on the offensive. What have you been hearing from your constituents?

HARRISWell, we've heard -- again, unfortunately, the president chooses the demagogue, the issue of Social Security and that -- you know, Social Security checks, I mean, he doesn't know whether they're going to go out August 3rd. Well, I'd suggest he calls over to the Treasury and asks them just how much money they'll have on August 3rd, because they definitely have enough money to cut all those Social Security checks.

HARRISBut when the president says that, what he's hoping for is the seniors flood our office with calls saying, gee, you know, why do you want to cut my Social Security? We should just forward those calls to the White House because it is the president who makes the decision what gets paid and what doesn't get paid on August 3rd. If the president decides not pay seniors for a political message, then shame on him.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Here is Chris in Silver Spring, Md. Chris, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CHRISKojo, thank you for having me. I wanted to ask the congressman, why are the Republicans so opposed to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to be phased out? And does he know how much money the country would gather or gain by having those tax cuts phased out and having the super wealthy pay more of a share towards the country?

NNAMDICongressman Harris?

HARRISSure, absolutely. Look, it's a great question. And, again, I wish the president would tell the whole story on this. If you eliminate the Bush tax cuts or you allow them to expire at the end of next year, which is really what -- we've extended them through the end of next year. So it would be after the end of next year. You would gain $60 billion a year, assuming that the rich would not do things to bring their tax bill down. Of course, that's what the rich can do. They can afford to do things that bring their tax bill down.

HARRISBut assuming that they don't, it would bring in $60 billion a year. My question to you, Chris, is where do the other $1,440 billion come from? Because we have a $1,500 billion deficit. If you did what you propose and get that 60, you just tell me where the 1,440 are going to come from. That's what I asked. Mr. President, where do you get the other 1,440 billion? You tell me where you get those, I'll talk to you about those 60 billion. But until then, let's not pretend that we can solve a $1.5 trillion deficit with a $60 billion solution.

NNAMDIChris, thank you very much for your call. Congressman Harris, the dire predictions we're hearing have a familiar ring on the heels of the threat of a government shutdown earlier this year. That was avoided at the 11th hour. Do you think that this debate will go down to the wire as well? Is any of this at all in your view political theater? Will Congress really allow a full default?

HARRISI don't think so. And it's not a full default. You see -- and that's the difference because this is not going to be a shutdown. This would be a scaling back to where we only can spend 60 percent of what we do. When we were talking about the continuing resolution, literally, government has to shut down the next day. There is no authorization to spend money. This time, there is authorization to spend money and tax moneys do come in. First of all, we will not default on our debt because -- I hate to say only -- but it's only 225 billion a year.

HARRISAnd we collect over $2 trillion in revenue so we collect 10 times as much revenue as it takes to pay off our debt service. We have enough money to pay for Medicare, to pay for Social Security, to pay for our veterans, to pay for our soldiers, to pay for all those things, so you wouldn't have a shutdown. It's a different situation. That being said, I don't think we need to go there. But I think the president needs to be willing to compromise on considering a short-term deal.

NNAMDII started the conversation by referring to divisions within your own party on this issue. Do you see that division being closed? Do you see the party coming together or is it likely to go on until the last minute?

HARRISI'm not sure those are mutually exclusive. I think, in general, Congress begins to come together the closer we come to August 2nd. And I think that we -- I honestly think that at this point the most likely outcome is a short-term solution that couples some of the spending cuts that have already been agreed to. Again, over $1.5 trillion have already been agreed to by all sides. So let's take a group of those spending cuts, let's couple it with short-term debt ceiling increase and let's allow the president another two to three months to explain to the American people how he is going to -- because we have already explained our plan.

HARRISI mean, you know, we have our plans out for how we bring down the deficit and the debt over the long term. We're waiting for the president to do that. And if the president needs two or three more months, then we ought to give him two or three more months to do that.

NNAMDICongressman Harris, thank you for joining us.

HARRISMy pleasure, thank you.

NNAMDIAndy Harris is the congressman representing the 1st Congressional District of Maryland. He's a Republican. The 1st District includes the Eastern Shore, portions of Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Harford counties. Chris, thank you very much for your call. Joining us now by telephone is Tom Davis. He's a former congressman who represented Virginia's 11th District. Tom Davis is currently the president of the Republican Main Street Partnership and director of federal government services for Deloitte Consulting. Congressman Davis, thank you for joining us.

MR. TOM DAVISWell, thanks, Kojo.

NNAMDITom Davis, if you do the math, there isn't a way that a deal can get through the House without Democrat Party votes. Congressman Van Hollen, who joined us on Monday, went so far as to say that the Republican strategy in the House is essentially extortion. Where do you think your party is prepared to meet Democrats?

DAVISWell, look, I think the House is all over the lot on this, both Republicans and Democrats. This is going to be like a TARP vote, the Troubled Asset Release Program votes where you have people in both parties voting for it and against it, you know, at the end of the day.

NNAMDIInteresting.

DAVISOr a variety of different interests. The focus has been on divisions within the republican coalition, but, look, the democrats control the senate. They haven't even -- they didn't -- and under senate rules, to get a budget, you only need a majority. You only need 50 plus one. You don't need to have 60 votes to get -- they didn't put a budget up this year. So they have their own divisions on this because there are no easy choices in this. There is nothing good or popular about voting for this.

DAVISThere's a lot of reasons to vote against it. And yet, if you don't do it, you're going to send this country into an economic downspin that you don't even want to fathom.

NNAMDIFrom where you sit, what are the main one or two obstacles standing in the way of a deal?

DAVISI just think there's a lot of denial about how much we're spending and how bad the situation is. Even if you get a deal on this and get through the debt, you raise the debt ceiling, we're still borrowing 41 cents on the dollar. That's just -- this is a third straight year we've done that. And that is absolutely unsustainable. You need some major changes in the way we are doing business. I think, at the end of the day, it's going to be revenue and cuts, but you just start with the fact that most of this spending is on autopilot without Congress doing anything.

DAVISMedicare, Medicaid are increasing, the fastest growing programs in government. And you've got 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day, going into these entitlement programs. You've got to do something to stop that, the increases on there. If you don't do that, nothing else is going to make a difference.

NNAMDIA lot of democrats have been kind of targeting Congressman Eric Cantor. How much of this, do you think, is driven by personality conflicts?

DAVISI don't know the answer to that. I'm not in the room. I mean, if you know Eric, he's kind of mild mannered guy. Eric also recognizes he has to answer to a republican conference with 87 new members who, by the way, didn't vote for any of this debt and don't have to feel they have to go home to raise the debt ceiling and ask them to vote for a tax increase on top of that. I think, anybody, you know, who understands politics know that that's a nonstarter. So I think Eric is being responsive to the caucus that elects him as their leader.

DAVISBut he also recognizes and has brought up in caucus meetings the fact that if you don't raise this, interest rates are going to jump up and any savings you get from cuts are going to be eaten up by increases we have in debt service.

NNAMDIWell, I'm glad...

DAVISWhich right now are at an all time low.

NNAMDI...glad you mentioned the politics of this. Because you used to run the NRCC. What kind of a position do you think republican members, especially those who are not freshman of the house, will be in come election time, that the party cannot avoid tax increases or make a considerable dent in spending?

DAVISWell, I think the issue -- a year from now, it's going to be a presidential year. So I think it's going to revolve, basically, around the state of the economy. The problem with this, if you don't raise the debt ceiling, is the economy goes into a tailspin because interest rates start moving up dramatically and the governmental budgetary issues become even worse. You know, it's -- raises interest rates, it raises the costs of capital. Just a lot of bad things happen you don't even want to have to fathom.

DAVISAnd I don't think republicans will get totally blamed, but I think the system does. And I think it creates a lot of pressures on a political system that if you look back 10 years, who's really delivered very little for the American people. We've had two failed wars, we've had an economic collapse, we've had Katrina. The public isn't enamored with either party right now. They're both kind of on probation and I just think that it's a pox on everybody. And I don't know that it's to one party's advantage or the others, but it's certainly not the incumbents' advantage.

NNAMDIWe'll see how it plays out. Congressman Davis, thank you for joining us.

DAVISThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDITom Davis is a former representative who represented Virginia's 11th District. He's currently the president of the Republican Main street Partnership and director of federal government services for Deloitte Consulting. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, guitarist Stephane Wrembel joins us in studio. We'll be celebrating Bastille Day in style. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.