This is just under an hour. Could afternoon, welcome to our virtual webinar. Im the director of Economic Policy studies here today and ill be hosting on the current economic crisis facing our rubio,with senator marco one of the congressional leaders who has an working the hardest to address the crisis. This virtual webinar will have a straightforward format and after my brief introduction the senator will offer remarks and i will have a few questions for the senator and he and i will have discussion about the economic problems facing the nation. We will take a couple of questions from you all at the end. Thank you for joining us. If you have a question for the senator, you can submit it i. E. Tag or by using the [indiscernible] on twitter. Those coordinates are listed on the event webpage. Be joined byo senator rubio. Senator, thank you so much for being here. My introduction will be very short. Senator marco rubio is the senator from florida, speaker of the Florida House before being elected to the u. S. Senate in 2010 and reelected in 2016. He serves on the Senate Committee of appropriations, a special committee on aging, and as an acting chair on the select committee of intelligence and is chairman to the committee for Small Business entrepreneurship and was the driving force behind the Paycheck Protection Program. It might be one of the most important components of the cares act, passed in march and refers to as the phase three economic recovery package. Lets offer some remarks and go into discussion. Thank you, im not sure i will even need the full 10 minutes, you kind of set the table. Thank you for the opportunity to do this. Thought, the events of the last two and a half months have, in many ways, sort andevealed whats important what matters. Things that we have taken for granted for a long time have suddenly become prominent and paramount. As an example, i was thinking today about the threats the potentially exist to the food supply. Not because the food doesnt exist, but because the ability to package it at a processing plant, to get it to market, has been impeded. I dont think we have even thought about it. We often take those things for granted. We think the food comes from the grocery store. Thats where we buy it from, but it comes from way before that. With the people who produce it. And so many other things that we take for granted in our lives, from the people we interact with to the need for a country as powerful as ours to be repaired for the worstcase scenario around issues of real consequence. I also think it has been revealing, when you think about the responses and the reactions we have gotten. History will view this time not just as one of great fear and uncertainty, but also as a time of tremendous private sector response. Look at what the private sector has done, mobilizing supply lines away from one product and towards first it was ventilators and personal protective equipment as well. Think about how our doctors, unfortunately with so many patients coming in, not because of a medical innovation, but because they applied medical expertise to do things as simple as [indiscernible] drugson or treatments and whose main purpose was another ailment but taken together have a new purpose. That is nothing regarding the death toll, but it is it goes in a long way towards showing the importance of National Strength and civic pride. Projecting forward there are things about this pandemic that will serve as a hinge point in history that will forever change our behavior. Number one, its revealing vulnerabilities in our supply chain in this country that people are going to want to examine. Not just because of Pandemic Impact on the country. You are going to enter an era where a growing number of countries will start to protect their supply chains. Eight or nine Major Economies in the world has designated medical equipment and pharmaceuticals as the national priority. They have on occasion place restrictions on the export of these products. Likewise i think a lot of people were shocked that we were so dependent on foreign sources of production for things like masks and gowns to protect our personnel on the front lines, the medical front lines of this pandemic. There will be a natural sort of reaction to that. Ive also very curious to see what happens in the european union. Depending on how things turn out, you can see the people of europe using this opportunity to become less nationalistic, less paneuropean more nationalistic, less paneuropean. And obviously the situation with china has gotten more difficult, both in our politics and in our geopolitical diplomatic realm. That theways said relationship between the u. S. And china will define the 21st century. Its a moment where i think a ,ot of things are changing though we cant fully anticipate what they will result in. Im pretty comfortable in saying country,world and our economic and political realms, are going to be substantially altered after this pandemic passes. No matter how it turns out. The challenge for those of us in Public Policies to make sure that our response is appropriate. That we address the problems revealed and confront any challenges it represents, but also that we dont overreact to it and in the process create damage to the country. It will be a unique time in Public Policy and one that i hope we get right for the sake of our children and the future of our country. I look forward to answering futr country. I guess i will close with this. There is a huge debate going on likeis country, and Everything Else going on today in our politics, it has almost become impossible to have a reasonable conversation about any topic. It comes down to us versus them. It comes down to masks, wearing masks, and whether you want to open or not open. We cannot ask americans to continue to live under the restrictions that theyre facing right now. It would also be highly irresponsible to tell everybody to go back to the way things were in the early part of march because, given the fact that there is no cure for this disease, that would be a dangerous situation. So the truth of the matter is we are now entering an era where were going to have to learn to deal with this virus, try to diminish and mitigate the risk that it poses especially to the most vulnerable even as we try to engage in some normalcy of putting kids back in school and americans back to work. Theres no roadmap for it, no ones ever done it before, no one can tell you they have a manual on how to do it in a country as large and diverse as this one, but it is one of those things were going to need to figure out and one of those things where i think federalism actually serves us quite well, because it allows those local communities the opportunity to not just influence decisions but to craft a way forward that makes sense for their state, for their county, for their city. In that sense federalism really is a benefit to us in this response. These are just some thoughts in general that hopefully set the table for where my mind is on a lot of things. I look forward to answering your questions in more detail. Thank you, senator. That sets us up for discussion. I want to talk about some of the specific issues you raise with resiliency and our relationship with china. But something you said really stood out to me, and i think it is a western on a lot of peoples minds a question on a lot of peoples minds and it would be interesting to hear what you are thinking about this as someone leading the response. Ou referred to history i know that is one view. Another view you hear from some in our own party is that this is a terrible situation for sure, lots of suffering right now, both on the health front and the economic front, but hopefully, we will have a vaccine coming relatively soon. We will have some medicine coming relatively soon. We will have a strong recovery from this in the summer and in the fall, and we will look back on this in a Rearview Mirror a year from now as a difficult situation but something largely in the past, and we will with where we were earlier this year. Why do you view this as an historical, watershed moment rather than a difficult situation but one that will not fundamentally change American Life . Senator rubio it will fundamentally have an impact on American Life and on the rest of the world. There are developing countries in africa and the western hemisphere who, as they face a huge surge in infections, it problems. create huge it threatens the stability of government. They could have a humanitarian catastrophe of ethnic proportions. There are issues of epic proportions. There are issues going on in european politics. At a time of need, everyone forgot about the eu and started closing their borders. Other countries have been reacting and do not have the the u. S. Does. Australia has been very forceful in confronting china at the World Health Organization and in the larger context. That is a development we had not seen in the past. There are a lot of things going on around the world that will ultimately impact us. You look at europe. Many of these countries are important to us in terms of what they produce. Dont createtries nationally protected industries and tamped down on or they tamped down on their ability to freely export, that will have an impact on the United States and the world. To have as are going much more difficult time recovering from this crisis, even in our own backyard, the caribbean is heavily dependent on tourism, specifically american tourism. That could have an impact on the economy as well as the rise of transnational crime. And we will be impacted by that nationally. Internationally, that will have an impact. Domestically, there are trends in terms of the consolidation of businesses. Many Small Businesses will struggle to get back online. We could see Many Industries further consolidate. Of americans,lot whether you are 18 and graduating from high school or, like my daughter, 21 and graduating from college, there is a lot of uncertainty about what the next two or three years look like for you. Especially if youre trying to enter a workforce that is retrenched. There is a lot to think about and i dont think anyone has a perfect prediction of how it will look. ,merica is not going to fail its not going to fall apart, but it will be impacted and it will be changed. Is very helpful. Let me ask you about current policy and then we can move on to future policy. I want to throw the floor open to you for a minute. More thancongress did you did to create the paycheck per tow graham Paycheck Protection Program and get that into law. How do you think it has been going . Senator rubio i think it has been an enormous suggest. It was put together in a handful of days in an emergency situation. The administration had about six days to implement it. On april 3 of this year, april 3 the first friday in april, it was the first time in america that any banker in america had ever taken an application, that any borrower had filled it out. Over 500 billion has been put in the hands of over 4 million Small Businesses in the country. When you judge it through the lens of that, you would say the program has been a success. It had glitches, of course. Of that magnitude does. Of that magnitude does. But the issue was to give businesses enough time to meet payroll, whether 12 weeks or 16 weeks because they were hiring at a different pace. The goal of the program was pretty straightforward, and that was to protect paychecks. We wanted to provide Small Businesses who did not have the liquidity to do this, to maintain as many people on payroll as possible in the midst of an economic shutdown, in many of their cases the doors were closed, in others they were only partially open. And the hope was to keep as many off the unemployment line as possible. And by some estimates, 30 to 40 million payrolls have been supported by this program. Obviously, the restrictions are different in different places. Some places are opening faster than others, some industries were able to utilize these funds better than others. But ultimately, i take comfort in the fact that our Unemployment Rate right now would be significantly higher were it not for the ppp being in place. And on that, i would say its been very successful and by the far the most successful part of the cares act. I agree that it has been extremely successful. Ppp are the challenges with one of the challenges with ppp has not been with the actual legislation, how the program was structured in congress, but how treasury has implemented the program. There have been some questions regulationsr or not have worked against congressional intent, for example, the regulation that 75 of any amount of loan converted into a grant be spent on payroll. Statute. Ot in the it is in the regulation. Another example, you have chaos around which businesses who took would be audited and what criteria would be used for those afterthefact audits, things of that nature. When you think about how the program has been implemented, is there any role for congress in renewing the program or reupping funding, to try to put some measures in the next round of legislation to give official related to treasury the challenges we have seen . 75 number is the not in the statute, but clearly, the purpose of the program was for it to be utilized for payroll. Thats why there was loan forgiveness, as a further incentive to use the money to pay workers. 75 , 70 , 65t was percent, some standard had to be set. It open because we wanted there to be flexibility depending on market conditions. There are two issues. Some people say 75 is two hi. Too high. The second is you had to spend it all within eight weeks. Some businesses said it will take us 12 weeks, 14 weeks. I think the second point has a strong incentive we want to add. Know why it came to eight weeks, we were appropriating 350 billion dollars. We were told that was how much money we had for ppp. We estimated the private sector know why it came to eightnongovernment payroll ia and divided it by the number, and it gave us about eight weeks of payroll. Sets where the notion was by and large. Obviously now, businesses are starting to reopen their doors, and if they had another four or five weeks, they could rehire everybody, but if they had to spend it all five weeks ago, they are going to have to return some of that money and have a loan on their hands. No one knew in late march if this was a 15 day problem, a 30 day problem. It was impossible to predict. On the actual percentage of payroll versus nonpayroll, we this was ato anyone payroll Protection Program onigned to keep people payroll. It was difficult to calculate how much money it would take to calculate those other needs. They are harder to calculate on a business by business perspective. But that is the gist of it. Right now, there are about 100 billion in funds that have not been tapped into. And there are two reasons. Some companies have been beat up in the press for taking this money. And there is a level of and certainty uncertainty about what will be forgiven or even if you were eligible. Hope that recent decisions from treasury have cleared up some parts about who qualifies. The beating part, thats tougher. Companies have seen the tremendous punishment inflicted upon them in the Public Square if they take money from one of these programs. We have seen Large Companies take the money return the 10,000nd then lay off people. I think ppp shaming has been a factor. Lets go with that. And the foghutdown of war conditions that all of this was worked out in, it cant be overstated that we didnt know how long it was going to of kind ofhe idea freezing the economy in place as it was on february 1, keeping workers attached to their employers, making sure they didnt push the unemployment , with the hope they would have a job to snap back into when the economy reopened, all of that makes perfect sense and was, with the hope they would have a job to snap the rim a policy perspective. We have now moved into a different phase. As of this morning, 49 states were attempting some stage of reopening. As they reopen, i think the policy needs for economic support are going to change. We may now be in a world where a restaurant or bookstore will have 60 or 80 of total revenue. They were having 20 . Thats a significant improvement. They may not be able to operate with that loss. We are going to see reallocation of workers across industries. If you worked for a concert doesnt a stadium, it make sense for you to continue working if no one is going to call you back to work for the next six months. Economy needs you to go a job as a Delivery Driver or Something Like that. So the goal of keeping employers and employees attached is still an horton goal an important goal, but not as important as it was when congress was putting in place the phase three cares act. How do you think about the next of Small Business and Midsize Business support . How do you deal with the problem . Senator rubio i think thats a good point. Is of the things i have said , one of the things we need to be conscious of and the next bill is not solving the problem immediately before us but trying to anticipate as best we can what the world and our country are going to look like by the time the law is being because this has developed and evolved so quickly that by the time this bill is go, the problems will have substantially changed. We are not going to be able to guess 100 right. We have to have some parameters. At the same time, we cannot be too specific because we have to have the flexibility to adjust to new dynamics. I also think it is industry specific. Tourism hospitality are going to be the first ones in and last ones out. Miami beach, for example, this is still not a moment when people are going to be flying down there because the things they come down therefore, other than the weather, will not be in place. Even if they were, you will not be able to afford to take that trip because you have been out of work or your business has been hardhit. You dont have disposable income at your fingertips. There are a lot of unknowns here. I am confident people are still going to buy groceries and put gas in their tanks. What i cannot predict is how much they will spend on consumer goods, leisure or travel over the next 68 months. A lot of that is driven by public fear but also economic realities. We have to be flexible about the needs of Small Businesses. We are going to have to be flexible enough to take into account the needs of different industries. You dont have to rehire the same number of workers. Restaurant chain in south florida that is using ppp to rehire all of their workforce at this point because they know their employees by first name and want to bring them back. They dont want to lose them to other sectors. , they anticipate that each and every week business will climb and they dont want the need to outstrip their ability. For other industries, it might be harder. You dont know what your bookings are going to be. Those workers are probably not going to go back to places that may not reopen like they normally do at this time of year. You mentioned public venues and things of this nature. Sure, those workers are being reallocated even as we speak. Even if they are allowed to operate, they may not be able to because of other restrictions in place. Its hard to tell the needs of smallbusinesses because businesses in america are extraordinarily diverse. Both in their Business Models and on an industry basis, and geographically. I think coming up with something that helps Small Businesses not just survive but be able to iftart under the new normal, this economy is reinventing itself, how can we provide the most amount of assistance . To those businesses that have the opportunity to reinvent themselves, which might involve a smaller operation with less employees and may be less overhead. To think about that that the next phase should be less about payroll and try to solve the problem of filling the 20 30 revenue whole that businesses will face . Rubio a little bit. I still think there is a payroll component to it. Some of these businesses may be behind the curve on rent. They are trying to make up for the few months when they were not able to pay rent. They still have that liability. , other industries are still going to have money because they make their location covid compliant. Whether its a sanitation requirement, plexiglas separation and so forth, they are in the process of bringing workers back to work and inviting customers in, and that is not has not been part of their budget before. They are spending money they didnt previously have to spend to comply with health regulations. I personally think that cost should be included in the payroll cost. You cannot hire people unless you are able to provide them equipment and conditions where they are going to be safe. There is a lot to unpack. Takingin the process of as much input from the Small Business community as possible so that all of these nticipated fact first factors we may not be thinking about, we are hearing about them. That is what we are using this time for, to hear what they think their business is going to look like for the next 46 months and come up with ideas in how we can be helpful in that beard on how we can helpful in that regard. Of congress and the administration is lets wait a few weeks and see how phase three is working out. We dont really know what is going to be needed next. We need more time to figure that out. Let me use that as an opportunity to ask you, just in general, what are your expectations for the u. S. Economy this summer, fall, winter, and maybe even for the rest of the year . The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting that the economy will shrink significantly at the relative to the end of 2019, that the Unemployment Rate will be over 10 in the Fourth Quarter of this year. Areourse, these forecasts difficult to make because they are dependent on assumptions about what happens with coronavirus, vaccines, technology, things of this nature. Its kind of fog of war policymaking. But i think it would be helpful your general know sense what does the u. S. Economy look like throughout the end of 2020 . Do you think there will be a need for sustained fiscal support of the economy for many more months . N. Rubio i think there is going to be a need for some level of support for several months. Even if tomorrow morning they announced we have a cure for covid19 so nobody has to worry about it, you still have industries that are going to take time. For example, i will just take my home state of florida, which is dependent on National Travel. It will be a wild before National Travel returns. It will be a while before interNational Travel returns. Number two, the Economic Impact is widespread. 70 who was making 100,000 a year and planned of a making 100,000s dollars a year and planned a vacation is going to say i need to recover from lost wages, so i am not going to take a vacation. Likewise, big events, conventions, large gatherings, difficult toery reschedule them in a constrained time. And obviously, we are not going to announce a cure tomorrow. I think what we can see is a steady improvement, but not a dramatic, overnight one. It will take time for some industries to come back. Hotel or aa small large hotel and you depend on x number of rooms during a time of year being taken up by cruise passengers, those cruises arent coming back for a few months. You are still going to have vacancies even if everything reopens tomorrow. Even if you open up restaurants, there are people that are not going to want to go because they are afraid to get sick. So, there are a lot of factors beyond just the disease. I am a big sports fan, and a lot of these College Towns depend on games in the fall with all the hotels booked, and then later in the year, graduation. They have no idea if they are going to be booked. Therefore, they have to make assumptions and decisions, and a lot is just not known. We just dont know if there is going to be a second wave, how consumers are going to behave, and frankly, what local restrictions will look like. I wish we had a better answer, but part of it is we dont know. Wellinformed, in many cases, guesses about what lies ahead, and then try to craft Public Policy to address some of it. But i think it would be an enormous mistake to say we know for sure, for a bunch of money into it, and then it is all tied up in the wrong thing and pour a bunch of money into it, and then it is all tied up in the wrong thing and cannot be used for something else. I agree with much of what you said. What do you think is the appetite among congressional offeringns to sustained fiscal support for wellmic recovery into or toward the end of 2020 . Senator rubio i think first is the recognition that no amount of Government Support can economic00 privatesenator rub activity, not even a country with this amount of gdp, spending capacity, and Borrowing Capacity can sustain that level of spending and to do so in a way that replaces what the private economy can do. If so many key players in your economy collapsed, then when the conditions are in place for some level of recovery, there will n economy to recover. Its not just Small Businesses that closed down, its the landlords that get the rent and so forth. There is a question about weaning and how much we need to do on a quarterly basis. This is not really about trying to deny what is necessary for the economy to turn around. It is more of a recognition that no matter how much you spend, it cannot replace the private economy. To provide so much that ultimately you realize you did not make a difference and may have even done more harm. There is a difference between the systemic spending built into the baseline of a budget and something you do on an emergency basis. I dont think we had a choice but to do something. You could lose some of the domestic capacity we need to rebuild the economy in the first place, but i dont think we should go around assuming that if we continue to pour money into the economy that is a substitute for private activity. It is not. I think there is an appetite to do more. I think that more has to be more specific, more tailored, more targeted than it was in the first couple of days. Thats helpful. Let me turn to the subject of resiliency. You mentioned this in your opening remarks and you published an opinion essay in the New York Times at the end of april on this subject. I would encourage everybody watching to read that. I think it is a thoughtful and important contribution to some of the policy debates happening. Pastrote that over the several decades our nations political and economic leaders, democrat and republican, made how to structure our society. I hear that argument more often now than i used to from conservatives. I want to ask you to reflect on let people know, what are some of the specific choices you think our nations leaders have made that prize economic efficiency over resiliency. Over the course of the 1990s and the past few decades, the two or three specific choices you think were wrong. What do you think those are . This. Me begin by saying one of the reasons im such a supporter of capitalism is it will always lead to the most efficient allocation of capital. It will always flow to where you will get the most efficient result. Thats the right place to land. Every now and then, however, the most efficient outcome is not necessarily in our national interest. A couple of examples, it may be more efficient to rely on china, 70 to 80 of the pharmaceutical ingredients in many of our key drugs in the generic marketplace, i dont know if that is, im confident thats not longterm in the national interest. To rely on china developing needs technologically. Im not sure in the long run however thha intest but it begis by identifying the industrys key not just to the 20th century but key to the national interest. Its not just defense. Interrelated is a creation for stable jobs and in my view its one of the most important an economy we have, that provides it dignified work. Its not just the money that you make in your pocket. There is more to the American Dream than money. Its about getting up and feeling you are fairly rewarded for it. And as a result you are able to contribute to your community, families are stronger, so forth and so on. I would say Industries Like telecommunication, like rare minerals, and some of the other manufacturing capabilities. Should be grateful if the nation still retains some manufacturing capability that we were able to repurpose for ventilators or we would have had a real struggle on our hands providing what at the time looked like it could have been a catastrophic shortage of this equipment. We know this because we know nations that dont have the capacity are trying to buy off of us, for whatever surplus capacity we have. Thethe notion though is not be built entirely have all material in the u. S. That we will entirely have all the material in the u. S. If it cant be here you want to have enough to do enough diversification that you are not so heavily reliant on one nation for so much of it. As an example, the second leading exporter of her slow protective equipment for the United States is mexico. The fact that they are continuing to produce that in the pandemic helped quite a bit. Its not just a realization we are coming to. Its a realization that many nations are coming to and the ideal outcome is that if we identify a critical industry for National Security or welfare and we dont have a domestic capacity for that, we should at least try to be a part of an allied capacity. Enough sos diverse that in a time of crisis if it is not made in the u. S. It is made in germany, france, canada, mexico. On the pharmaceutical front, puerto rico has a long history of being a key place for capability and it has been lost over the last few years. A two, rebuilding the economy in a territory that is right now facing huge economic calamity and creates a domestic capacity in that realm. Thats the way i view it. Talking about telecommunications , the made in china plan, they have identified the Key Industries of the 21st century. Some are at the height thats a high edges of the, of the production chain the high edges of the production chain. China is no longer sticking to manufacturing components. They are trying to supplant this , inuantum computing artificial intelligence. These industries will define much of what happens throughout the centuries. We cant simply a little rely on those because the chinese marketplace is manipulated. They will always create conditions that make it more efficient in the shortterm. In the long term it makes us deeply vulnerable to be denied the resources in a time of potential conflict and it gives them tremendous geopolitical leverage. Lets leave china out of it. They may be a special case. Lets concede for the sake of argument that we dont want to be critically dependent on china for a whole bunch of different defense goods and pharmaceutical goods and things of that nature. What is the problem with having , orsupply chains in vietnam other developing countries, where we dont have as friendly of a relationship and they are not as close to us as canada or mexico are, but where it is the best economic decision for a business and are they are not in a country that many people think we have an adversarial relationship with. Again, its better to be in vietnam than china, but you want to be diverse. You dont want vietnam collapsing and industry. You want a diverse supply chain to the extent where it is impossible for a component to be in the United States. You want it to be diversified. Not one move away disruption. Litical what was the continent . What would the western hemisphere look like if some of those jobs currently in intheast asia roundup guatemala, hundreds, el salvador. It would have the added benefit of dealing with the migratory issues that we have seen, providing stable jobs and opportunities for people today to see them selves threatened by transnational crime. I dont think there is anything wrong with geopolitics saying that if the supply chain wont be in the u. S. , can we encourage it to be in places where we have an interest . There are impediments to why it cant be in guatemala. Is it diverse . Furthering other policy aims . Does it serve the country . In a country that is friendly and reliable. The diversity part is key. The absence of diversity leaves you look, even in india, a major producer, for a couple of weeks they were restricting the exports of certain things that we needed for our response. A number of countries have done so. Some have done it because they want to keep the supply to deal with their own emergency and some have done it, frankly, as geopolitical leverage. That is why i think the diversity of supply chain is important. You refer to this as a proamerican industrial policy. A typical conservative freemarket view is that industrial policy doesnt work and it is hard for the able tont to be effectively execute industrial policy. The government doesnt have all the information to do it well. How would you respond to that . I think if you are thinking about traditional industrial policy, where the government directs the private sector on where it needs it to produce and who is going to get a contract and so forth, thats a valid criticism. Im talking more about creating incentives. The government wont be running factories. But what we can do is creating places, expenses to make america an attractive competitor in industries that we identify as critical to the 21st century and our country. Second, in addition, there are places where the government can create demand for these. In the u. S. , the military, the Veterans Administration was required to , that would create a demand. Likewise for the department of defense, stockpiling minerals sourced from the u. S. And or International Consortiums with allies to mine for rarest minerals, creating demand. I dont think that this should be taken and applied across the economy, but there are, its an important bit of work to identify the industries critical to our future. You dont want is used as an excuse to be involved in every industry. Im talking about an incentive model where we make america more competitive. The 5g competition is a perfect example. The chinese achieved that through the domestic market place and put companies of their own others over others that left allies little choice than to turn over to a chinese company. My view on that front, if its a u. S. Company, theres an international consortium. They have come up with an alternative to it through the private sector. I think that is the big difference here. Incentive ace models. Ones that we believe are in important capacity. But i do know we have to have manufacturing capacity, particularly things in hightech like ships and airplanes, the sorts of things that you would need to be able to produce if we had a conflict. There are certain things were a come country has to have domestic capacity. I would say agriculture. Important that america have that capacity and not mexico and not countries we have a friendly relationship think it is possible that in some industries that you would want a consortium or a partnership. I dont think you want all of your reliance to be on any single country. If someone runs the country and they have an event that disrupts supply, its very industryspecific. Assuming its an industry of great importance, its a source of good, Productive Work for americans. Durable work that can provide a dignified limit living. When people are gainfully employed in dignified work that provides for them and their family, it opens the door for the family to for those people to be active members of their Little League team. That kind of work becomes corrosive to not only the individual, but others who are critical to natural strength. We are brushing up on the end of your time and im still getting used to this technology, i apologize. Let me close with one question from a viewer that i think is from your home state of florida. You have spoken about the challenges facing the american middle class. Do you think the middle class is worse off than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago . And if so, whats the problem . Thats a tough question for a country this diverse. I tell everybody the same thing, we can focus all day on all of our problems and one thing that is special about america, we have never been complacent. We always think we should be better. The lack of complacency is what makes it special. We should never be satisfied, that makes us unique. Second, i would say it depends on how you judge it. There are many people in the Country Living lives well beyond what their parents ever lived. Most americans today, even those facing difficult circumstances, have a Higher Quality of life than the king or queen of england did 100 years ago. The way i keep it in perspective is i ask people, if you dont like the way that things are going in the country, who would you trade places with, who would you rather be . Even in the midst of the pandemic theres no nation on earth i would rather be in. In the case of the middle class, lifeld say this, my own experience. My parents came here from cuba and practically worked their entire lives in the Service Sector. No amount of retraining was ever going to turn my dad into a Software Engineer and my mother into a act office professional. They were able to own a home and retire with dignity. Two people with the same jobs today would struggle to attain the same standard of living. Part of it is because there are new costs in the 21st century that didnt exist back then. Some of them we may consider luxuries but i would argue to you that being connected to the internet is no longer a luxury. Ids going to school from home some people say having two cars is a luxury but if you live in a Community Without rapid transit, you need to cars to get out to work. Oft is by nature the reality our economy moving towards a more Service Sector technologicallybased economy, the people in those circumstances, the employment that allow them to obtain this same standard of living becomes less available. Its one thing to put a premium on education and we need to recognize that and say that the answer is not to have more Hotel Workers being paid more money, though there is nothing wrong with that. The answer is defined as how can we have industries in the country that produced different but comparable jobs that allow people to provide for their dignified life that my parents were able to achieve without much education. Tots an important thing talk about. The absence of it has political ramifications, societal ramifications, economic ramifications. Thats the part i try to focus on. In many cases that is the cornerstone and key to the future in this country, ensuring that people arent going to get an eight year degree in technology. That we are an economy that is still going to produce jobs that not make people rich, but allow people to have a dignified lifestyle and provide for their means. In the end, the country is more n the economy, its an its a society. Becomes all apart, it corrosive and difficult for the country to be successful. We should leave it there, thats a good bit to end on and a challenge that i think one of thegrees is right ones to be working on. Thank you for your leadership, for taking time to speak with us today. The next time we are talking i hope we can do it in the same room. No masks on. Access right. Thank you so much. Thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] flex the Trump Nominee to serve as the Energy Department treasury secretary testifies today before the energy and Natural Resources committee. Watch live at 2 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listen live on the free cspan radio app. With the federal government at work in d. C. And throughout the country, use the congressional directory for Contact Information for members of Congress Members of and federal agencies. Order your copy online today at cspan. Work. Cspan. Org. The president s, available now in paperwork paperback in ebook. Biographies of every president organized by the ranking by noted historians, from best to , featuring perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website to learn more and order president your copy today, forever books and ebooks are sold. Nancy House Speaker pelosi holds her Weekly News Conference talking about her legislative agenda, including negotiations over economic aid in response to the coronavirus pandemic. From earlier today, this is about half an hour. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. We have some