Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150513

Happening in washington and watching the dysfunction in this nation, i think that the major motivation for running for office had to be more out of frustration than anything else. Theties parity, the inconsistency in pl policies, decisions being made that lack i think, the Public Interest and are being made more so as a result of political decisions. Unfortunately, what im going to talk about tonight i dont think will be the only subject i come back and talk about over the next several months. It seems that often times the federal governments decisions, policies regulations seem to lack any type of connectivity to whats actually happening on the ground. Decisions being made in a vacuum. Decisions lacking, i think, the true expertise and what im going to talk about tonight is an example of that. This picture right here is a picture, or the result of bad federal policy. Now, the administration would lead you to believe that this picture is whats going to happen by building the Keystone Pipeline. This is oil, mr. Speaker. This is oil in all of these bags that was recently picked up. But the administration would make you think that this is whats going to result from constructing, from building the Keystone Pipeline. The irony is that these bags dont have anything to do with the Keystone Pipeline. This was actually oil picked up just in the last few months from an oil spill that happened in the gulf of mexico, the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill, five years ago. Five years ago mr. Speaker. This administration has been asked over and over and over again by the state of louisiana and the coastal parishes in our state to force the responsible parties to come clean up the oil. Its not happening. It hasnt happened. Theyre not being held accountable. Its unbelievable to me that we have an administration talking about the Keystone Pipeline because they concerned about environmental consequences but at the same time allowing this to continue for five years. Its hypocrisy its absurd and its not in the Public Interest mr. Speaker. The only reason that the white house, the only reason the state department is involved in any Decision Making whatsoever in the Keystone Pipeline is a result of the fact that the pipeline actually crosses the barter between border between canada and the United States. Thats the one thing that introducing the federal government into this decision. For the most part pipelines can be permitted and built by states work state approval. They dont need interaction or approval from the federal government. Now by not building the Keystone Pipeline, or not approving it, many folks in the administration would lead you to believe that that is going to benefit the environment. That it will result in less oil consumption. That it will result in less Greenhouse Gases being released into the environment, into the atmosphere. And the reality is that thats not accurate at all. The reality is that first of all, if you dont build the Keystone Pipeline, you are still going to trps that oil. The canadians will still be producing that oil. But whats going to happen is theyll use other modes of transportation. Theyll use barges, or rail. I think its note worthy to look at the statistics to look at the historic performance of these other modes of transportation, which clearly indicates that transporting by pipeline is actually the safest means the safest mode of transportation to get this product into the United States. Its safest in regard to different incidences. Its safest in regard to spills. Impacts on individuals, on communities. On the economy. On the environment. The safest way to transport is doing it by pipeline. You know, i mentioned that the oil will still be transported and heres an example of what happens when you transport through other modes. When you dont transport by pipeline. This is an example of what happens. As a result, youve had Additional Oil being transported by rail lines and look at the extraordinary spike look at the extraordinary spike and the spills and the impacts to the environment as a result of transitioning to that mode of transportation. Mr. Speaker, we have all seen in the news the various accidents that have happened. All over the nation. As a result of this flawed policy of refusing to allow for this pipeline to proceed. The state of louisiana is a logistics its an intermodal hub. We have five of the top 15 ports in the United States. We have enough pipelines in our offshore region that would go around the equator if you put them end on end. We have an extraordinary network of pipelines demonstrated right here. You can see the high concentration of our state and in the adjacent state of texas and in all 48 states in this graphic here. Very, very clearly. Ill say it again, the only reason the administration is involved in the Keystone Pipeline decision is because that pipeline crosses the u. S. Canadian border. It is the seoul reason. All these pipe it is the sole reason. All these Pipeline Networks here probably did not include federal approval in regard to crossing over international borders. So take a look at this, mr. Speaker. Take a look. As i recall 1. 5 million miles of pipelines across the country. The reality is that major components of the Keystone Pipeline are actually already built or can be built without the approval of the federal government. That one foot section crossing over our Canadian Border in the north is the only reason, again, that the administration is involved in this. The fact remains number one, by building the Keystone Pipeline, were not going to it will not result in additional groan house gases being released. The canadians will continue to produce the oil. The oil will be set through other modes of transportation in the United States or it will be sent to other countries, which i remind you, mechanic, the Clean Air Act regimes in these other nations new york most cases is not as stringent or as strict as it is in the United States. So resulting in a net increase in the Greenhouse Gases that this administration is so concerned about. Ill say again, by not approving this pipeline, you are going to force the oil onto barges, onto trucks, onto rails or other less safe means of transportation. I certainly have nothing against those other modes of transportation. Theyre all critically important. But to see this administration hide behind the oil spill or the suggested oil spill impacts of the pipeline is simply absurd. Facts prove otherwise. And as you see here, this pipeline can be built, the majority of this pipeline by far can be built without the federal governments approval. Its simply nonsensical. Its nonsensical to watch this administration hide behind false excuses to drag this decision out for years whenever its contrary to our economy. Whats going to happen if we dont build this pipeline . In addition to using other means of transportation, wohl be importing oil, not from the north American Continent but from other countries like venezuela, like nigeria and middle eastern nations that make up the top 10 nations that export oil to the United States. In many cases mr. Speaker, ill say again venezuela, countries that dont share american value, yet were exporting hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands and thousands of jobs to other country. Who is running this place . Mr. Speaker, the house of representatives and the u. S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill that was going to allow for the pipeline to be approved, for taos put this behind us and move toward other things, toward higher priority things that actually should have the attention of the United States congress and the white house. As opposed to these things that should have decisions that should have been made years ago and we should have passed on from them. But as a result of these ridiculous decisions, all these tortured reports, all the involvement of various agencies including the e. P. A. , state department and other agencies, were continuing to go through this long process, dragging this out, resulting again, lets safe means of transportation whether its coming in through ships from other countries, across the atlantic ocean, its or its coming in rail line, its coming in tugs and barges on our waterways its being transported to the United States. Through less safe means of transportation. So mr. Speaker i just want to say, i just want to say in closing that this is what happens when you have bad federal policy. When youre making bad federal decisions. This is what happens. It results in oil, thousands of pounds of oil on miles and miles of shoreline, tens of miles of shoreline still oiled in our home state of louisiana as a result of bad federal policy. And were watching a similar bad federal policy unroll right now as the administration continues to invent impediments to what makes sense, to what statistically makes the most sense by approving a pipeline and getting out of the way and obstructing our economic development, jobs for americans and north American Energy independence. Mr. Speaker i want to thank you very much and i yield back my time. Pursuant to clause 12a of rule 1, the house stands in recess subject to the the speaker without objection. The speaker will the members of the new york delegation present themselves in the well of the house. And will all members rise. And will the representativeelect raise his right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies and bear true faith and alegionages to the same and you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation and you will well and discharge the duties about which you are about to defend. Congratulations. You are now a member of the 114th congress. Without objection, the gentleman from new york, mr. Rangel is recognized for one minute. Mr. Rangel my dear friends, the good people of the Staten Island and brooklyn state of new york has sent to us to represent the 22nd seat of the empire state of new york, the open door for immigrants that have come here historically from all over the world, we welcome him on behalf of this delegation as well as the good democrat and republican members of this house of representatives. I welcome him to the house look forward to the great contribution we hill he will make to our city, our state, the congress and our great country. Id like to introduce also a good democratic of good democratic stock if the great state of new york, peter king, who will join with me in welcoming our friend from richmond county. Peter king. Mr. King thank you, charlie. Thank you, congressman rangel. It is my privilege to introduce a man who has been a friend for many years hes been a career prosecutor, 12 years he was District Attorney in Staten Island, he was overwhelmingly elected a true public servant, universally respected, it is my privilege to introduce the congressman from brooklyn and Staten Island, the honorable dan donovan. Mr. Donovan thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Mr. Speaker thank you so very much. I am honored to join you and im humbled by the confidence that the people of the 11th Congressional District have placed in me. I want to thank all of my volunteers, all my supporters for helping me get here. I want to thank my family for everything they have done for me and i promise to make all of them proud through my representation of them down here as a member of the greatest legislative body in the world. Thank you so very much. President obama spoke about poverty today. The New York Times expressed skepticism that would happen but says conservatives care about the poor even if they do not put that into practice. He appeared at a roundtable discussion with robert putnam. Part of Georgetown Universitys catholic evangelical summit. We will show you the discussion next. That is followed by the panel of mayors talking about their cities approaches to preventing Youth Violence. Now to Georgetown University for the president. This is one hour and 15 minutes. [applause] it is an honor to be here with my two residents president s. My friend david brooks curled the most vicious insult at me when he said i was the only person he ever met whose eyes lit up at the words held discussion. Poverty is a subject we talk about when events such as those in baltimore grab our attention. And then we bury it. We say it is not a lyrically shrewd. I salute georgetown. All the others who are gathered here for the summit. From all religious traditions all over the country. Our friend once said, if you cut everything jesus said about the poor out of the gospel, you have a book full of holes. These are people who understand what the scriptures said. Two organizing points. The first is, when it is time to go, please keep your seats so the president can be escorted out. The other is we agreed we should direct more attention to president obama than other members of the panel. I say that in advance so you know this was our call and not some exercise in executive power. This was our decision to do this. We hope this will be a backandforth kind of discussion. Feel free to interrupt the president if you feel like it. My first question, mr. President. The obvious. A friend of mine said, when do president s do panels . What came to mind was the late admiral stockdale. Who am i come a why am i here . This is an unusual venue for a president to put himself in. Where do you hope the discussion will lead beyond today . And i was struck with something you said last week. Politicians talk about poverty and then gotut policies that you alleviate policy. President obama i want to thank the groups who are hosting this. And this terrific panel. I think that we are at a moment in part because of what has happened in baltimore and ferguson and other places. In part because of a growing awareness of inequality in our society. Where it may be possible not only to refocus attention but also to bridge some of the gaps. The ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress. There are a lot of folks here who i have worked with. They disagree with me on some issues. But they have great sincerity when it comes to wanting to deal with helping the least of these. And so this is a wonderful occasion for us to join together. Part of the reason i thought this venue would be useful, and i wanted to have a dialogue with bob and arthur, is that we have been stuck, i think for a long time, in a debate that creates a couple of straw men. The stereotype is that those on the left that want to pour more money into social programs and dont care anything about culture or parenting or Family Structures, and thats one stereotype. And then you have coldhearted free market capitalist types who are you know, think everybody is moochers, and thats and i think the truth is more complicated. And i think there are those on the conservative spectrum who deeply care about the least of these. Deeply care about the poor. Exhibit that through their churches, through community groups, through philanthropic efforts, but are suspicious of what government can do. And then there are those on the left who i think are in the trenches every day and see how important parenting is and how important Family Structures are and the connective tissue that holds communities together and recognize that contributes to poverty, when those structures fray, but also believe that government and resources can make a difference in creating an environment in which young people can succeed despite great odds. And it seems to me that if coming out of this conversation, we can have a both and conversation, rather than either or conversation, then well be making some progress. And the last point i guess i want to make is i also want to emphasize, we can do something about these issues. I think its a mistake for us to suggest somehow every effort we make has failed and we are powerless to address poverty. Thats just not true. First of all, just in absolute terms. The poverty rate when you take into account tax and transfer programs has been reduced 40 since 1967. Now, that does not lessen our concern about communities where poverty remains chronic. It does suggest, though, that we have been able to lessen poverty when we decide we want to do something about it. In every lowincome Community Around the country, there are programs that work to provide ladders of opportunity to young people. We just havent figured out how to scale them up. So one of the things im always concerned about is cynicism. My chief of staff, we take walks around the south lawn, usually when the weather is good. And a lot of it is policy talk. Sometimes its just talk about values. And one of our favorite sayings is our job is to guard against cynicism cynicism, particularly in this town. And i think its important for us to guard against cynicism and not buy the idea that the poor will always be with us and theres nothing we can do, because theres a lot we can do. The question is, do we have the political will, the communal will to do something about it. Thank you, mr. President. I feel as a journalist, maybe im the one representative of cynicism up here. So ill try to do my job. I want to go through the panel and come back to you, mr. President. I want to invite bob, and im going to encourage us to reach for solutions. Before we get there, i think its important to say in your book, bob, its above all a moral call on the country to think about all the kids on the country who have been left out as our kids in some deep way. You make a point that the the better off and the poor, now so far apart that the fortunate dont even see the lives of the unlucky and the left behind. You wrote before i began this research i was like that. And following on what the president said, you insist the decline in mobility, the blocking of the American Dream for so many is a purple problem. And i may have questions later on that. But i would like for you to lay out the red and blue components. And also how do we breakthrough a politics in which food stamp recipients are cast as privileged or the poor demonized. But i would like you to lay out sort of a moral call of your book. Thanks, and thanks to the president and arthur for joining me in this conversation. In this domain, there is good news and bad news. It is important to begin with the bad news. It we have to know where we are. The president is right, the war on poverty did make a real difference. It made more of a difference for people my age than kids. With respect to kids, i agree we about some things that would work. Some things that would make a real difference. What the book that you referred to, what it resented was a lot of evidence of growing gaps between rich kids and grow it poor kids. Things have gotten better and better for kids from welloff homes. And worse for kids from less well off homes. I dont mean bill gates and some homeless person. I mean people from College Educated. And high school educated, they are not. And its not just that theres a class gap. The class gap on our watch. I dont just mean on the president s watch, but on my generations watch, that gap is growing. You can see it in measures of family stability. You can see it in measures of the investments that parents are able to make in their kids, the investments of money and the the can see it in the quality of schools kids go to and see it in the character of the social and Community Support that kids rich kids and poor kids are getting from their communities. Churches are important source of social support for kids outside their own family, but Church Attendance is down much more rapidly among kids coming from impoverished backgrounds. So i think what all of that evidence suggests is that we do face, i think a serious crisis in which increasingly the most important decision that anybody makes is choosing their parents. And if you like my grandchildren, did it smartly, the best decision was to choose College Educated parents and great grandparents. But out there there are kids just as talented and hard working and who you know, happen to choose parents who werent well educated or high income and those kids fate is being determined by things they had no control over. Thats fundamentally unfair and also by the way bad for our economy because when we have this large number of kids growing up in poverty, its not like thats going to make things better for my grandchildren, its going to make things worse. This is in principle a solution that we ought to find solutions to and historically, this is the kind of problem americans have faced before and solved and this is the basis for my optimism. There have been previous periods in American History where weve had a great gap between children and we have ignored in which im thinking of the guilded age at the end of the 19th century and both have written about that period in which there was a great gap between rich and poor and we were ignoring lots of kids and lots of immigrant kids and america seemed to be going to hell in a hand basket and a philosophy that said its better it is better if everybody is selfish. But that is not unlike some of the ideology of ayn rand which you refer to. That. Was quickly overcome by reawakening of the conscience of america across party lines, with the attribution of religious leaders and people. To the fact that these are all our kids. Now is not the time to reverse those lessons, but i think it does give me grounds for hope. This is a kind of problem we could solve as long as we all recognize it is in everyones interest to raise up these poor kids. And not leave them in the dust. Thank you very much. And let the record show that the president was not looking at when he referred to cold, hard capitalists. When he said that, i was thinking, please dont look me. Please dont look at me. [laughter] but when bob said social darwinism, he pointed at me. I more outnumbered that my thanks giving table. Enough to look at your heart. Your views on the subjects have changed. And i think it is one of the reasons you wanted to join us in 2010. You talked about makers and takers in society, and a culture of redefinition. In february 2014, you wrote being openhanded to your brothers. We have to declare peace on the safety net. I think that is an important thing to say. The safety net we have has cut poverty substantially. Twin questions could you talk about how your own views have changed . If i fairly characterize that. And the idea of transideological partnership there is a mouthful for you. Where cansan republicans cooperate with democrats, expanding the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit. Where can we find verbal Common Ground, but actual Common Ground . Thank you, mr. President. It is an honor to be here. This is an important way to bring catholics and evangelicals together. One of the main things i do is to talk publicly about issues and start a conversation that i hope will stimulate and spread around the country. At the American Enterprise institute, where we have a longstanding history on the nature of american capitalism, where we focus deeply on poverty, it sends a signal to people that are deeply involved in the Free Enterprise movement. My colleague robert, came to aei because poverty was the most important thing. When i came into the Movement Many years ago poverty was a thing i cared about the most. 2 billion people have been lifted up out of poverty because of ideas revolving around Free Enterprise and free trade. And the globalization of ideas sharing through Property Rights and the role of law all of the things the president is talking about in policy debates now. We have gotten into a partisan moment, where he substitute a moral consensus about how we serve the least of these brothers and sisters, we pretend that moral consensus is impossible. We blow them up until it becomes a holy war. That has to stop, it is completely unnecessary. [applause] and we can stop that absolutely, with a couple of key principles. How are we on the centerright talking about poverty in the most effective way . Number one is with a conceptual matter. We have a great tendency on the left in the right to talk about poor people as the other. Remember, in matthew 25, these are our brothers and sisters. Jim and i have this road show, we go to campuses, we set up this right versus left, and it never works out. We both have a commitment to the savior when it comes to treating our brothers and sisters. When you talk about them that way, you do not talk about them as liabilities to manage. They are assets to develop. That is a completely different approach to Poverty Alleviation that is a humancapital approach that is what we can do to stimulate that conversation on the political right. Just as it can be on the political left. One concept that rides along with that is to point out, and this is what i do for many of my friends on capitol hill, i remind them that just because people are on public assistance doesnt mean they want to be on public assistance. That is the difference between people who are making a living and you are accepting public assistance. It is an important matter to remember about the motivation of people, humanizing them. The question is, how can we come together . I have written this piece on the safety net. I say that as a political conservative. Why . Because Ronald Reagan said that. Because Friedrich Hayek said that the social safety net is one of the greatest achievements of Free Enterprise. That we can have the wealth and largess to take care of people we have never even met. It is ahistoric. We should be proud of that. Why talk to policymakers, how do you distinguish yourself from the traditional marketplace of ideas, from progressives, you should also talk about the fact that the safety net should be limited to people who are truly indigent. As opposed to being spread around in a way that metastasizes around middleclass entitlement. And the third part is that health should always come with a dignifying the power of work. To the extent that we can, then we can have, a safety net only for the indigent and always with work. Then we can have an interesting moral consensus and policy competition of ideas to maybe make some progress. Thank you. Im hoping people will challenge each other about what that actually means in terms of policy. And i want to buy the president. Identity go in a couple directions at once. One is, i am again hoping that you will let us know, as your lobbyists have done if john boehner and Mitch Mcconnell were watching this and suddenly had a conversion, a lot of religious people in the audience it would be a miracle. [laughter] it is a hypothetical. It is a religious audience, they believe in miracles. If they were persuaded that it is time we do something about the poor, mr. President , tell us a couple of things that we could pass. When you think about, when you talk kind of abstractly about the family on the government can do, what you think would actually make a difference . Maybe you could put that in the context, bob mentioned the gilded age. As you know, i was taken by that speech i need to learn how to pronounce that thanks to you. Back in the, help me, anyway 2011. We do seem to be having the problems we had back then. What would you Tell Congress please help me on this . And how do we move out of this gilded age. . . President barack obama a few of these may be challenging to them, and they want to respond. Let me talk about big picture then we can talk about specifics. First of all, we can all stipulate that the best impact on Poverty Program is a job. It confers income, structure dignity, and a connection to the community. Which means we have to spend time thinking about the macro economy, the broader economy. What is happened, since 1973, over the last four40 years the share of income going to the bottom 90 has shrunk from about 65 down to about 53 . That is a big shift. It is a big transfer. So, we cannot have a conversation about poverty without talking about what is happened to the middle class. The letters of opportunity into the middle class. When i read bobs book, the first thing that strikes you, is when he is growing up in ohio he is in a community where the banker is living in reasonable proximity to the janitor of the school. The janitora daughter may be out with the banker son. There are a set of common institutions, they may attend the same church. It may be a member of the same rotary club. There anyy may be active at the same parks. All of things that stitched them together, that is intriguing to social mobility and a sense of possibility an opportunity for all kids in the community. Right question . Part of what is happened, and this is where we will have some disagreements, we do not dispute that the free market is the greatest producer of wealth in history. It has lifted billions of people out of poverty. We believe in Property Rights, rule law, so forth. But there have always been the trends in the market in which concentrations of wealth can lead to some being left behind and what has happened in our economy, those who are doing better and better, more skilled more educated, more luckier are withdrawing from the comments. Get started going to private schools. Kids start working out at private schools. An antigovernment ideology that disinvest from that common good. And that, in part, contributes to the fact that there are less opportunities for our kids all americans. That is not inevitable. A free market is perfectly compatible with us making investments in Public Schools universities, investments in public parks, investments in a whole bunch of Public Infrastructure that grows our economy and present around. In part, what has been under attack for the last 30 years and so in some ways rather than soften the edges of the market, we have turbocharged. We have not been willing, i think, to make some of those investments so that everybody can play a part. The other thing i have to say about this is, even back in bobs day that was happening it was just happening to black people. [applause] so, in some ways, part of what has changed those biases those restrictions on who that accesses to resources that would allow them to climb out of poverty, who had access to the firefighters jobs, the Assembly Line jobs, the bluecollar job that paid well enough to get you to the suburbs, and the next generation were suddenly Office Workers all of those things were foreclosed to a big chunk of the minority population in this country for decades. And i related. And it built up. Over time, people with less and less resources it is hard being poor. People dont like being poor. It is timeconsuming, it is stressful, it is hard. And so, over time, families prayed. Men who cannot get jobs, they left. Mothers who are single, are not able to read as much to their kids. And now, what were seeing is that those saying trends have accelerated and theyre spreading. The pattern that you are recording in your stories, bob the one that Julius Wilson was talking about when he talks about the truly disadvantage i sale this, and i know that without an answer to your question. [laughter] i will be willing to answer. But i think it is important for us at the outset to acknowledge if, in fact, were going to find Common Ground, then we also have to acknowledge that there are certain investments were willing to make as a society, as a whole in Public Schools and public universities. In today, believe Early Childhood education and making sure that that Economic Opportunity is available in communities that are isolated. And that somebody can get a job, and theres actually a train that takes folks to where the jobs are. That broadband lines are in Rural Communities and not just in cities. Those things are not going to happen through marketplaces forces alone. If thats the case, then our government and our budgets have to reflect our willingness to make those investments. If we dont make those investments, then we could agree on the earned income tax credit, which arthur believes in. And home visitation for low income parents, all of those things will make a difference. But the broader trends in our society will make it harder and harder for us to deal with both inequality and poverty. And so, i think its important for us to recognize there is a genuine debate here. And that is what portion of our collective wealth and budget are we willing to invest in those things that allow a poor kid whether in a rural town or in appalachia or a rural city, to the inner city, to access what they need both in terms of mentors and social networks, as well as decent books and computers and so forth . In order for them to succeed along the terms that arthur discussed. Right now, they dont have those things, and those things have been stripped away. You look at state budgets and city budgets. And look at federal budgets, and we dont make those same common investments that we used to. And its had an impact. And we shouldnt pretend that somehow we have been making those same investments. We havent been. Theres been a very specific ideological push not to make those investments. Thats where the argument comes in. If i can follow up, which gets to the underlying problem. Where we talk biasedly sometimes about lets tear down these thee ideological red blue barriers here. When push comes to shove, they get rejected. How do you change the politics of that . I mean as you said, mcmcconnell , and john boehner were unlikely to be watching us. That has a political significance, not i didnt. I was just saying they are busy. I think they have votes [laughter] i think you are saying something else. How do you tear down those barriers because you lay down a fairly robust agenda there . And forgive me, arthur and bob how do you get from here to there . Well, part of what happened in our politics and part of what shifted from when bob was young and he was seeing a genuine community, there were still Class Divisions in your small town. There were probably certain clubs or activities that were still restricted to a bankers son, as opposed to the janitors son. But it was more integrated. Part of what happened is that at least in a very mobile globalized world, we are able to live together away from folks who were not as wealthy. So, they feel less than. They commit to making those investments. And in that sense, what used to be racial segregation now mirrors itself in class segregation. This great sorting thats taking place, that creates its own politics. Theres some communities where i dont know not only do i not know poor people, i dont even know people who have trouble paying bills at the end of the month. I just dont know those people. So, theres less sense of investment in those children. So, thats part of whats happened. But part of it has also been theres always been a strain in american politics where youve got the middle class. And the question has been, who are you mad at . If youre struggling, if youre working but dont seem to be getting ahead . And over the last 40 years sadly, i think theres been an effort to either make folks mad at folks at the top or to make be mad at folks at the bottom. And i think the effort to suggest that the poor people are sponges, leeches that dont want to work, lazy, undeserving got traction. And look, its still being propulgated. I have to say that if you watch fox news on a regular basis, it is a constant menu. They will find folks who make me mad. I dont even know where they find them. I dont want to work. I just want a free obama phone or whatever. [laughter] that becomes an entire narrative that gets worked up. And very rarely do you hear an interview with a waitress, which is much more typical, raising a couple of kids and doing everything right, but still cant pay the bills. So, if were going to change how john boehner and Mitch Mcconnell think, were going to have to change how our body politics thinks. Which means were going to have to change how the media reports on these issues and how peoples impressions of what it what its like to struggle in this economy looks like. And how budgets connect to that. Thats a hard process because of that requires a much broader conversation than typically we have on the nightly news. Ive been tempted to welcome arthur to defend his network but instead, i want to sort of maybe invite him to an altar call here. [laughter] i want to invite you to altar call. The president talked about basic public investments that are actually pretty oldfashioned public investments, along the lines of president eisenhower Abraham Lincoln thought of things like landgrant colleges, infrastructure, investments in basic research and science were important. I suspect, arthur, you would agree in theory about those investments. And the question would be how much. How much, look, no good economist, no selfrespecting person who understands anything about economics denies there are public goods. There are public goods. We need public goods and markets fail sometimes. And theres a role for the state. There are no radical libertarians up here. Libertarians who believe that the state should not exist. For example, even libertarians dont think that. We shouldnt caricature the view of others because that impunes the motives. I think were talking about one, when are there public goods . And when can the government provide them . And when are the benefits higher than the cost of the government prying these things . In point of fact, when we dont make costbenefit calculations at the macro level about public goods, the poor pay. This is a fact. If you look at whats happening in the periphery countries of europe today, this is a as george w. Bush used to say, this is a true fact. [laughter] its more emphasis, nothing wrong if you have austerity the poor always pay. Jim wallace always taught me this, the poor always pay when theres austerity. The rich never pay. The rich are never left with the bill. Its the poor left with the bill. If you join me in believing the safety net is a fundamental moral right, and its a privilege of our society to provide, you must avoid austerity. And you must avoid insolvency. The only way to do that with smart policy. Im 100 sure the president agrees with smart policies. Im not caricaturing this either although, can you believe he said obama phone . [laughter] and hes against the obama phone. So, lets stipulate to that. Thats only because they took away his phone. Now, since we believe that there should be public goods then were really talking about the system that provides them officially. The president talked about the changing structure of the Income Distribution and unambiguously true. What i would urge us to regret is this notion that its not a shift, but a transfer. I know, its not a transfer. Since the 1970s, its not that the rich have gotten richer because the poor have gotten poorer. The poor are not having money taken and given to the rich. The rich have gotten faster than the poor moved up. And we might be concerned because that reflects on opportunity. And as opportunity society, we should all be really concerned with that, to the extent we can get away from this notion that the rich are stealing from the poor. Then, we can look at this and think in a way thats constructive. Why . Because the rich are neighbors and poor are our neighbors, and everybody else should be our neighbors they are all our kids. , getting away from that rhetoric is really important. Last point is actually as we come to consensus, remembering that capitalism or socialist or social democracy or any system is just a system. Just a system. Its not just a machine. Its like your car. You can do great good or evil with it. It cant go uninhibited and so far drive on its own. It will, soon enough. The economy will never be able to. Capitalism is nothing more than a system and must be predicated on right morals and must be. Adam smith taught me that. Adam smith, father of modern economics, wrote the wealth of nations 17 years before he wrote the theory of moral sentiments. A more important book, it talked about what it meant for society to earn the right for Free Enterprise and economics. It is true then and true today. This is why this conference is so important, this conversation with the president of the United States so important, from my point of the view. I say with the appropriate humility. Because were talking about right morality towards our brothers and sisters. And built on that, we can have an open discussion to get the capitalism right. And then, the distribution of resources is only a tertiary question. [applause] i still want to know how much infrastructure youre willing to vote for 41 billion. Its a start. We can negotiate. This is for both the president and bob, because in this conversation about poverty theres theres kind of consensus on this stage that yes, you need to care about family structure. It really matters. But if you dont worry about the economy, youre not sort of thinking about why the battering ram against the family. This family conversation can make a lot of people feel uneasy, because it sounds like either youre not taking politics seriously, or youre not taking real economic pressures seriously. And i just want to share two things with the president and bob, and have you respond. One, as you can imagine, i ask a lot of smart people what they would ask about if they were in my position. One very smart economist said, look, what we know is when we have really tight labor markets, unemployment down below down to 4. Or even lower, Kenny Johnson years, world ii, at the end of the clinton years. All sorts of things happen. Maybe this person said, even though he says yes, family matters, lets start with moral lectures and run a really tight economic policy. We could have really good things happen to us. And then the other thing i wanted to share, and im being pointed here, mr. President , because ive heard you talk about this but not that often, publicly which is ive heard you in sessions, you do with opinion reporters, wrote coates wrote Something Back in 2013 about your talk about what needs to happen inside the africanamerican community. I know you remember this. Taking full measure of the Obama Presidency thus far, it is hard to reach the conclusion that this white house has one way of addressing the social ills that afflict black people and black youth and another way of addressing everyone else. I would have a hard time imagining the president telling the women of barnard theres no longer room for any excuses, as though they were in the business of making them. Id love you to address the particular question about maybe it is primarily about economics, because we cant do much about the other things through government policy. And also answer the critique because i know you hear that a lot. Bob i want to i want to hear what the president has to say about this. But briefly, on the earlier conversation about public goods, i agree very much with the president. The framing of the issue, that is we disinvested in collective , assets and collective goods that would benefit everybody but are more important for poor people because they cant do it on their own. I want to give one example that is very vivid. This is a case where weve clearly shot ourselves in the foot. For most of the 20th century all , americans and all walks of life thought that part of getting a good education was getting soft skills. Not just reading and writing and arithmetic and so on. And part of that was everybody in the country got free access to Extracurricular Activities and football and music and so on. About 20 years ago, the view developed which is really deeply evil, that thats just a thrill. And so we disinvest and said if , you want to take part in football here or music, youve got to pay for it. Of course, what that means is that poor people cant pay for it. Its a big deal. 1600 for two kids in a family 1600 to play football or play in the band its not a big deal if your income is 200,000. But if its 16,000, who in their right mind is going to pay that . It seems the allegation of the benefits of learning hard skills i mean hard grit, were only on the individual. That isnt true. The whole country was benefitting from the fact we had a broad based set of skills that people had. Im trying to emphasize this how deep runs this antipathy for the notion that these are all our kids and have to invest in all of them . I want to come back, if i can, to the thing we maybe havent spent enough time here. And that is this is a purple problem. There are those of us who, on the left, can see most clearly the economic sources of this problem and want to do something about it. But then there are people on the conservative side who can who use a different lens and can see most clearly the effects of family disruption among poor families of all races on prospects of kids. In the stories of the kids we gathered across america, i want to return a little bit, not just the abstract discussion very soon, doesnt have anything like the same opportunities as my granddaughter. But part of that is because mary sues parents behaved in irresponsible ways. We interviewed a kid from duluth who is now on drugs. How did she get open drugs . Because her dad was addicted to meth and wanted to get high and didnt want to get high alone. So, he taught his daughter molly is her name, how to do meth. I dont even know how you do meth, myself. Id have to check with him. [laughter] and its systemically. The fact is, we all know that its im not making an attack on single moms often doing terrific jobs in the face of lots of obstacles. But i am saying its harder to do that. And therefore, we need to think all of us, including those of us i know the president agrees. Even those on the more progressive side, how did we get into a state in which twothirds of American Kids come from the working class have only a single parent . And what can we do to fix that . Im not sure this is governments role, but i do think if were concerned about poverty, all of us have to think about this purple side of the problem. I mean, this family side of the problem and we shouldnt those of us, now speaking to my side of the choir, we shouldnt just assume somebody who talks about family stability is saying the economics dont matter. Of course they matter. It is both and. Its not either or. [applause] president barack obama first of all, going back to what was said earlier about how we characterize the wealthy and that they take this extra wealth from the poor and middle class these are broad economic trends. Turbocharged by technology and globalization, a winnertakeall economy that allows those with even slightly better skills to massively expand their reach and their markets and make more money. And it gets more concentrated and that reinforces itself. But there are values and decisions that have aided and abetted that process. So, for example, in the era that bob was talking about, if you had a company in that town, that company had a whole bunch of social restraints on it. Because the ceo felt it was a member of that community and the sense of obligation about paying a certain wage or contributing to the local high school or what have you was real. And today, the average fortune 500 company, some are great corporate citizens and some are great employers, but they dont have to be. And thats certainly not how they are judged. And that may account for the fact that where a previous ceo of a Company Might have made 50 times the average wage of the worker, they might now make 1,000 times or 2,000 times. And thats now accepted practice inside the corporate border. Thats not because they are bad people. Its just that they have been freed from a certain type of social constraints. And those values have changed. And sometimes tax policy has encouraged that and government policy has encouraged that. And theres a whole literature that justifies that, as well. Thats what you need to get the best ceo, and they are bringing the most value. And then you do tip into a little ayn rand, which arthur, you would be the first to acknowledge because im in dinners with some of your buddies and i have conversation with them. If they are not on a panel theyll say, you know what, we created all this stuff. And we made it. And were creating value and we should be able to make decisions where it goes. So, theres less commitment to those public goods, even though a good economist who has read adam smiths moral sentiments would acknowledge that actually were under investing or we have to thats point number one. Point number two on this whole family character values structure issue, its true if im giving a commencement in morehouse, that i will have a men about taking responsibility as fathers that i probably will not have with the women. I make no apologies for that. The reason for that is because i am a black man who grew up without father. I know that i have the capacity to break that cycle and is a consequence, i think my daughters are better off. [applause] and that is not something for me to have that conversation does not negate my conversation about the need for Early Childhood education or need for job training or a need for greater investment in infrastructure or jobs in low income communities. So look, ill talk to you are blue in the face about hardnosed economic macro policies. In the meantime, ive got a bunch of kids right now who are graduating. And i want to give them some sense that they can have an impact on their immediate circumstances and the joys of fatherhood. And we did something with my brothers keepers which emphasizes apprenticeships and corporate responsibilities, we are gathering resources to give very concrete hoax foroks for kids to advance. Im going hard at criminal Justice Reform and breaking this prison pipeline that exist for so many africanamerican men. The when im talking to these kids, and i have a boy who says, you know what, how did you get over being mad at your dad . Because i have a father who beat my mom and has left. He is left the state, and i have never seen him. Because he is trying to avoid 83,000 in Child Support payments. I want to love my dad, but i do not know how to do that. Im not going to have a conversation with him about macroeconomics. [applause] im going to have a conversation with him about how i tried to understand what it was my father had gone through. And how issues that were very specific to him created his difficulties in his relationships. So that im a be able to forgive him. That i might be able to come to terms with that. I dont apologize for the conversation. So, this is what i mean this is where i agree very much with bob. This is not and either or. The reason we get trapped in the conversation, is because all too often, not arthur but those who have argued against a safety net or argued against Government Programs have used the rationale that character matters, family matters, values matter as a rationale for the disinvestment in public goods that took place over 20 or 30 years. If in fact, the most important thing is character and parents then it is ok if we do not have banndd and music at school. That is the argument you would hear. It is ok. There are immigrant kids that are learning, and we are spending huge amounts in the district, and we still get poor outcomes. Obviously, money is not the issue. What you hear is a logic that is used as an excuse to underinvested in the public goods. And that is why a lot of people are resistant to it. And are skeptical of the conversation. I guess what im saying is, guarding against cynicism, what we should say is we are going to argue hard for those public investments. We are going to argue hard for Early Childhood education. By the way, if a young kid three or fouryearold, he is going to hear a lot of words and succeed in school. There actually, by the time theyre in the third grade, they will be reading a great level. Those are concrete policies, but it requires money. Were going to argue hard for that. And lo and behold, if we do those things, the value and and character where they can read a great level and are less let the dropout, it turns out, they haare less like the to get pregnant as teams and less likely to do drugs and enough in the criminal justice system, that is a reinforcement of the values and characters we want. That is where we as a society have the capacity to make a difference. But it will cost us some money. It will cost us some money. It is not free. You look at a state like california, that used to have by far the best Public Higher Education system in the world. And there is a direct correlation to proposition 13 and the slow disinvestment in the Public University system so that it became very expensive. And kids got priced out of the market. They started taking on a whole bunch of debt. That was a Public Policy choice, based on folks not wanting to pay property taxes. That is true in cities, counties states all across the country. That is really a big part of our political argument. Im all for values, im all for character. But i also know that those character and values that our kids have that allow them to succeed, delayed gratification and discipline and hard work, those are shaped by what they see. What they see early on. And some of those kids right now because of no fault of those kids, because of history and some tough goings generationally, those kids are not going to get help at home. Theyre not going to get enough at home. The question then becomes, are we committed to helping them . Is for president , i want to follow up on that him and then invite bob to reply. We have all kinds of positions in the session. A lot of us i think feel that we made bargains with our friends on the conservative side. That i agree with the idea you have to care about what happens in the family if youre going to care about social justice. And you have to care about social justice if you care about the family. Yet, when people like you Start Talking like this, it doesnt seem much give back on ok, we agree on these values. Where the investments in these kids . Similarly, when welfare reform was passed in the 1990s, there were a lot of people that said we are not going to hear about welfare cheats anymore albeit people are going to have to work. Yet, we get the same thing back again. It was as the work requirement was never put in the bill. How do we change the idea, the agenda where the other half gets recognized and we do something about it . President barack obama i last arthur for some advice on this. The devil is in the details. If you talk to any of my public and friends they will say that your report. And i believe it. And they will say there are some public goods that have to be made. And i will believe it. But when it comes to actually establishing budgets, making choices, prioritizing, that is when it starts breaking down. And i actually think that there will come a time when political pressure leads to a shift because more and more families, not just innercity africanamerican families or hispanic families in the barrio more and more middleclass, workingclass folks are feeling pinched and squeezed. That there will be a greater demand for some more public goods. And we will have to find a way to pay for them. Ultimately, there are going to have to be some choices. When i, for example, make an argument about closing the carried interest loophole that exist whereby Hedge Fund Managers are paid 15 on the fees and income they collect i have been called hitler for doing this. Or least this is like hitler going into poland. This is an actual quote from a hedge fund manager. The top 25 Hedge Fund Managers made more than all the kindergarten teachers in the country. So, i am not, when i say that im not saying that because i dislike Hedge Fund Managers or i think they are evil. Im saying that you are paying a lower rate than a lot of folks who are making 300,000 year you pretty have much more than you will ever be able to use in your family will be able to use. There is a fairness issue involved. If we were able to close that loophole, i can now invest in Early Childhood education that would make a difference. That is where the rubber hits the road. That is, arthur, where the question of compassion and my brothers keeper comes into play. And if we cant ask from society of lottery winners to just make that modest investment, then really this conversation is for show. If we [applause] and by the way, i am not asking us to go back to 70 marginal rates which existed back in the golden days the bob was talking about when he was a kid. Im just saying that maybe we can go to tax it like ordinary income. Which means they might have to pay a true rate of around 23 or 25 , by historical standards would still be really low. That is the kind of issue, if we cannot bridge that gap, i suspect we might not make as much progress as we need to. Although we can find some agreement on the Income Credit which i give arthur a lot of credit for extolling. It could actually strengthen families. Arthur, raise Capital Gains taxes for us . Arthur sure. Corporate jets are show issues. The real issue, middleclass entitlements. That is where the real money is 70 . Until we take that on, if we want progress, the left and the right want to make progress, we need to make progress on that. If we want to increase taxes on carried interest, that is fine. For me. By the way, Mitch Mcconnell and john boehner are watching directly and their paying attention to this 100 sure because they care a lot about this. They care a lot about culture and economics, and they care about poverty. We have to be really careful about not impugning their motives. That is the one barrier against making progress. Ad hominem who by the way are you having dinner with that was discussing ayn rand, and why wasnt i invited . [laughter] lets have a rumble over how much money were spending over public goods for poor people. For sure. I want to spend money on programs for the poor, but these ones are counterproductive. These ones are ineffective. The government democrats say no theyre not. I want to have that idea. It is productive. But we cannot get to that when politicians on the left and right are conspiring to not touch middleclass entitlements. We are looking at it in terms of the right saying all the money is gone on this, and the left saying is all we need is a lot more money on top of these things. When most people were looking at it realize that this is an unsustainable path. It is an unsustainable path for lots of things. We cannot act adequately fund the military. We have agreement on the misguided notion of the sequester. We cannot spend money on purpose. We are on automatic have to spend tons of money in entitlements that are leading us to fiscal unsustainability. We cannot get to these progressive conversations where conservatives and liberals really disagree. To Work Together to help for people. I just want to say, if the carried interest is a show issue, why cant we just get out of the way and move forward . [applause] it is real money. We have about three minutes left, i would like for bob to speak. And i have one more question. We need to rise out of the bubble. I understand why theyre important. Actually, were speaking here to an audience of people of faith. Were speaking more largely to america, and we should not disempower ordinary americans. If they care about these problems, americans can change the politics over the next five years to make a huge difference. Im not talking about changing republican or democrat, im talking about making poverty and the opportunity to escape from poverty to hire issue on both partys agendas. [applause] i have some hope that will happen. I understand that this may not be true, mr. President. There is an election next year. It is a proven fact. [laughter] and i think American Voters should insist that the highest domestic priority issue is this issue of the opportunity gap. This is a really important issue. Ask candidates, what are you going to do about it . Then use your common sense. As a direct way to go forward . From the top down, grassroots, we need to focus conversations and parishes all across the country on what we can do to reduce this opportunity gap in america. Mr. President , i wanted you to reflect on this religious question. One of your first salaries was also paid for by a group of catholics. Not a lot of catholic bishops noticed that. You were organizing for a group you know what fatebased groups can do. Can you talk about three things at the same time which is, the role of the religious community simply in calling attention to the problem. The issues to how government can cooperate with these groups. And sort of the prophetic role for you, when your own reflections on euro faith have led you on these quest. S. President barack obama my first job was the campaign on human development. Funded to the catholic church. [applause] i think that fatebased groups across the country and around the world understand the centrality and the importance of this issue. In an intimate way. In part, because these faithbased groups know these people are struggles. They know how good they are, and they know their stories. It is not just ideological, it is very concrete. They are in embedded in the community and all kinds of ways. I think that what our ministration has done is really a continuation of work that has been done previously by the bush and ministration, the clinton administration, a lot of faithbased organizations that are working. My brothers keeper is reaching out to churches, synagogues, mosques consistently to try to figure out how we reach younger boys and young men in a serious way. But the one thing i want to say to you today, when i think about my own christianhood, my obligations. It is important for me to do what i can myself individually mentoring young people are making charitable donations in some ways impacting whatever circles of influence i have. But i also think it is important to have a voice in the larger debate. And i think it would be powerful for our faithbased organizations to speak out on this in a more forceful fashion. This may sound selfinterested because there have been there are areas where i agree with evangelicals and there are issues where we have had disagreements. Be it reproductive issues, samesex marriages, or what have you. Maybe it appears advantageous to focus on these issues of povertys and on these other issues. But i want to insist, i will not be part of the election next year. So this is more a broader reflection of someone who has worked in churches, there is great carrying and great concern , but when it comes to what are you really going to bat for what is the defining issue . When you are talking in a congregation, what is the thing that is really going to capture the essence of who we are as christians or is catholics or what have you . This is oftentimes viewed as a nice to have issue relative to abortion. That is not across the board there are but there has sometimes been that view and certainly that is how it is perceived in our political circles. And i think that theres more power to be had there more transform tiff voice thats available around th issues. That could move and touch people. Because the one thing i know is that heres an area where again, arthur and i agree. I think fundamentally people want to do the right thing. I think people dont set out wanting to be selfish. I think people would like to see a society in which everybody has opportunities. I think thats true up and down the line and across the board. And but they feel as if it is not possible and there is noise and arguments and contention. So people withdraw. They restrict themselves to what can i do in my church or my community. And that is important but our faith based groups have had the capacity to form this and nobody has shown it better than pope francis who i think has been transformtive just through the sincerity and insistence hes had that this is vital to who we are. This is vital to following what jesus christ our savior talked about. And that emphasis i think, is why weve had such incredible appeal including to young people all around the world and i hope that that is a message that everybody receives when he comes to visit here. I cant wait to host him because i think it will help to spark an even broader conversation of the sort were having today. All events are better with a reference to pope francis. Thank you so much mr. President. [applause] i really want to thank arthur and bob and thank you bob, for writing this book thats moved us all. Thank you, mr. President , for being here and, john and so many others for creating this. If i may close by simultaneously quoting amos, dr. King let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Bless you all. Thank you, mr. President. Thank you. On the next washington journal tennessee congressman john duncan joins us to talk about his recent piece in american conservative called a return to the peace party and hell explain why he thinks the Republican Party needs to move away from the use of military intervention overseas. Then representative Keith Ellison of minnesota will discuss his resistance to giving president obama more power to authorize the Trans Pacific partnership trade deal and efforts to reauthorize the patriot act. Later, our guest from Purdue University will explain their new poll measuring Civic Knowledge in america. Those conversations plus your calls, tweets, and emails. Our show is live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern, 4 00 pacific on cspan. Sunday night on cspans q a veteran canadian astronaut Chris Hatfield produced many videos on his activities on the International Space station and shares both scientific and personal aspects of life in space. The only time i actually felt a shiver of fear go up my back though was on the dark side of the earth looking at the one side of eastern australia in the darkness and watching a shooting star come in between me and the earth. At first i had the standard reaction of wishing upon a star. But then i had the sobering realization that was in fact just a huge, dumb rock from the universe going, who knows, 20 miles a second, that missed us and made it down to the atmosphere. If it had hit us it was big enough that you could see it. If it had hit us, woo he would have been dead in an instant. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Now under the Fourth Annual National Summit on preventing Youth Violence, it brings together city officials from around the country and several federal agencies including the departments of justice and education to discuss strategies to reduce and prevent Youth Violence. This Panel Features mayors talking about their approaches. It runs an hour. So thank you all the more for making them available to help us out with this. Thank you so much, bob. So as we transition now id like to ask our panelists to come up for what is entitled champions for justice, leaders working to end Youth Violence. If you could join me now in welcoming our mayors from camden, minneapolis, oakland, and salinas as they come up. [applause] so this is kind of exciting. This is an opportunity now for us to have a conversation with leadership that really is tasked with leading the work. And so when we had thought about this conversation, we knew that we would hear the support from the administration. We knew we would have congressional leadership and folks at the federal level speak to what we can do at the national. But so much of what we do when it comes to addressing and preventing reducing Youth Violence is led by our mayors. We know when we put together the form we said we needed commitment, clear commitment from mayors, our chief of police, our school superintendents, our Public Health commissioners. We knew that it kind of started and ended with mayors. And so im delighted to have with us mayor redd from camden. The mayor from minneapolis, the mayor from oakland, and the mayor from salinas, california. Some pretty heavy hitters. You have their bios. I would encourage you to look at those. I want to jump into the conversation. Because i think what we have here is an opportunity to hear directly from some mayors who i would say just in short get it. They understand how important this is. And so to start off, what i want to do is have our mayors, who i know are not shy, and who i know will speak their minds, share with us, just take three minutes, at least go down the table first, and have you open for us the conversation and frame for us why is it important . Why is preventing Youth Violence so important for you and that youre here with us today, you have a number of things on your plates. You have an endless list of responsibilities. Why are you with us today . What is so important about addressing this issue for you . And so id love to have you open that up for us and kind of take that question and respond to that and then well move further in. So, mayor hodges lets start with you. All right. Is this working . I dont know how to turn this on. Okay. Good morning. I walked slowly because i knew if i sat here id be first. [laughter] the good news is, this is actually a priority of mine. It predates my time as mayor although i was on the city council. But we put together a blueprint for Youth Violence prevention in 2008. And the reason why when i walked through the doors as mayor a year and a half ago i have made it such a priority is because i know the future of our city depends on it. Now, theres a moral argument to be made about violence and Youth Violence and the fact that it is not evenly distributed across populations across the city, across cultures. Its not. And that in and of itself eats up the fabric of the community and eats up the foundation of the community. For me this is an issue for every Single Person in the city of minneapolis as well as every Single Person across the country. But if that is not a persuasive argument for people its also our economic future. The devils of inequity that we have persist, and minneapolis has some of the biggest gaps between white people and people of color in the entire country including on violence and the factors we know are correlated to and cause violence, if we dont get a handle on those inequities we are leaving so much genius on the table. Were going to need every bit of that genius to compete in a global world, especially in an era of growth. And to get to and meet the goals that we have for prosperity in our city. And everybody isnt equipped to contribute to our growth and prosperity and we know the baby boomers are retiring. We know that were going to need all kinds of people stepping up to the plate to take those jobs. And we know that the population is increasingly of color. And we know that our kids of color are the people increasingly not getting the education they need to take those jobs. Then we are just shooting ourselves in the foot economically. A study of the minneapolis st. Paul region shows if we were to end these inequities by 2040, we could have 32 billion more of personal income sitting on the table. So this is important to me as a human being frankly. Knowing whats happening in my community. Knowing that its just wrong on a moral level. And then as a mayor who has stewardship of our city and the Public Safety in our city, but also has stewardship of our economic future. Thank you, mayor. So mayor, again, if we could just have you say as well why here, why is this so important for you . Well, good morning. My name is libby shaff the newly elected mayor of oakland, california may hometown, app growing up in oakland, you know, the sense of violence was something that held the city back. I remember being a little girl scout and going to my First National encampment and somebody asking me if i was afraid to live in oakland. And the performance of our Public Schools had been the other thing that just always felt like it was holding our city back. All of this just like mayor hodges said, unmet potential. You look at these statistics and they are shameful. You talk about Racial Disparities and oakland 77 of our caucasians read at grade level. Only 27 of our africanamericans students read at grade level at third grade. 23 of our latino students. That is shameful in a city that prides itself on progressive values, diversity, and inclusion. Now, i think as a mayor, the statistics are daunting, but it is the personal, visceral experience that you have. Its the morning when you hug your own 8yearold and then get the call about an 8yearold that was shot. And its having to go to that neighborhood and try and help a community, not just a family, but a whole community make sense of something so senseless. And that this child, and im, you know, recalling obviously a very specific example. An 8yearold girl named alasha care dine who was murdered on purpose as a retaliation for a gangrelated murder her father had committed. To have to attend the open casket funeral of an 8yearold child is something that is so personal and heart wrenching and its not just the tragedy of 8yearold alasha carradine, its the tragedy that we as a community raise ad young man who made that decision to purposely kill her. So its a loss of two lives. And so i think that is the sense of urgency and the sense of personal touch that i think we mayors bring to the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] mayor redd . Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for inviting us to participate in this panel. I have to say sitting here with my colleagues today from across the nation i can feel their passion and their energy, their commitment and drive to bring about Public Safety and to reduce violent exposures for our children who are growing up in urban centers. And certainly i want to recognize and thank the forum because we are excited in camden for the work of the forum and how we are able to enhance Public Safety. And so the question is, why is this important to us as mayors . I can tell you that taking office in 2010 Public Safety and education has been a priority of mine. Camden has held the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous city in america and the most impoverished city in america. As a mayor assuming office with a number of issues all happening at the same time, i wonder to myself how can i best help the children, youth, and families in our city to overcome violence in the neighborhood and certainly to increase academic outcomes in our school system, making sure that our children are going to college or coming out of high school with a career that theyre ready to enter into and, indeed, driving a wedge in the cradle to prison pipeline . And so in camden we have begun to embark on a holistic plan to enhance Public Safety in our city. Our plan started with the transition to a Camden County police force in 2013. And what i remember of that day was hearing the sound of children at play as we made a switch over to a force that would allow us to put more than 400 officers patrolling our streets and our corridors and certainly our neighborhoods. And really launching a Community Policing paradigm that interacted with young people on a positive engagement. For instance we have a Pacer Program as police and Community Enjoy reading to enhance literacy between our young people and the Police Officers that read to them on a daily basis. It was watching our metro officers out in the Community Taking up a threeonthree basketball game with our young people again as a way to bring about safety in the city of camden. We could not do this without collaboration and i want to enhance the importance of collaboration. And we heard our attorney general lynch speak to that today in that government cannot solve this problem alone. And it is the strength of collaboration. It is the strength of the forum in helping us to identify evidence based strategies to really move toward the outcomes that we are looking to achieve again to mitigate and reduce violent exposures in our communities for our young people. So Public Safety and education are important to all of us on this panel and particularly in the city of camden. Thank you. [applause] last but not least, mayor duncan from salinas. Your thoughts . Well, as you become a mayor, you realize you have taken on a large responsibility. And it isnt just hiring policemen and firemen and patrolling the streets and seeing that. I come from a unique background. I did a tour of duty in vietnam, came back, and was a policeman for 33 years. Ive seen lots of Youth Violence. Ive worked a lot of the homicides. And i looked at it a little differently as i stepped into the role of mayor. I realized that i had a huge responsibility working with the youth of our community. And ive had the blessed position of stepping into a program where weve reached out to our community and we realize that we need education. We need to work with our youth. We have a couple youth leaders here. And it becomes your drive. It becomes one of the main things you want to do. As you do this, you realize that its not done by the city alone. Its not done by the mayor. And i used a phrase bully in one of the forms yesterday and the group looked at me kind of odd that they said first time they had ever heard somebody use the phrase bully and realize it could be meant in a good way. I think sometimes the mayor has to be a bully and has to bully all the other organizations in your city. You have to work with your education, your health, your faithbased commaunt. Im very blessed. I have a very strong faithbased commaunt. I had a little breakfast for 320 pastors all showed up for breakfast. And we had someone talk to us about juveniles with mental illness. Something that i hadnt thought about. And the number that had been going to juvenile halls that probably should have had some mental help other than incarceration. You know, Early Childhood development, libraries. How important all of these things are, your parks and recreation. You know, your public works. How do you plan your parks . You dont think about that. Your social service programs. And your police department. How do they react . How do they work . We in salinas have had our ups and downs in the last couple of years. Weve had lots of homicides. Weve had lots of violence. I have a very good chief of police and im very blessed to have that. I have a very good police department. Theyre working very hard. We also have all the other partners that i think drive you a little harder as the mayor. And i know these three ladies have worked very hard at the mayor and they all do it for the big salaries they make im sure. [laughter] they give up a little more of their life. When their cell phones ring its not because people call you and say, hey, youre doing a great job. Keep up the good work. Theyre calling you to tell you whats wrong whether it be a pothole. But when you get that phone call that another young person has died, it hurts. You feel the passion. You go, first of all as a cop my goal was, i got to get him. I was very good at getting them. But now i got to figure out what caused this . I have a police of chief whose job it is to go get him. My job is to figure out how we can prevent the future ones from happening. To help him with resources and to help the public work as a whole community. I have a very young population. You know, a third of my community is under 28 years old. We got rated as one of the dumbest nations or cities in the nation by some panel and i got angry and called them up. I said, how dare you . Well, you dont have enough engineers. I dont have a fouryear college. We got one coming to our town. That was the number one reason we were rated as dumb. I was livid. One of the things weve worked on, i learned to blow out the bad news. A little bit. [laughter] not much. But a little bit. How dare them talk about my community . We have good people. We produce produce for the entire world. A 4 billion industry. We have an ag tech. We have social Silicon Valley 45 minutes ago and theyre coming to our town app teaching our young people about computers. And that zip code that nobody wants to be from. But i think the reason that my group of friends are here, we believe in what were doing and we believe that theres hope. We believe that we can make a difference and turn around. All we got to do is each Community Save one child and were moving in the right direction and itll be two and well move forward. Thats why were here. Thank you. Okay. So its evident as to why we wanted to have a conversation with you. Its both personal. Its both connected to your community. Its to the inequities you see. The inequalities, the challenges that you see. And understanding that you cant do it alone. And so having this kind of collaboration and building this community is necessary. So we thank you for that. And we know, though, that that work is not easy. And i think one question we have is, how are you in your communities with your leadership building those necessary collaborations . People have talked about, there are those groups that, you know, you have the authority. You have the serp systems and sectors where you have the authority. You can easily kind of give the instruction. Give the order and it happens. There are also partners have you to pull in who you dont necessarily have oversight and a say in terms of how they might use their resources. Nonetheless, you need to partner with them in your city. So how are you going about building kind of the Necessary Coalition that you need to address these challenges . Once again, its personal. Its the families you see who are touched by violence. It also has an impact economically on a community. So how are you going about pulling in all those necessary partners to do this work . And so again i throw that open to the full group but i will not hold us to the that we go down the line. I know some people have thoughts on that. One of our mayors want to i know on this list who i might ask but i thought id open it as a question and see who wants to take the first lead on that. Ill be happy to start. In our city, we formed a group called the Community Alliance of safety and peace. They meet every other wednesday morning at 7 00 a. M. For some very bad coffee and there are 70 nonprofit groups that come together. Weve also included our health department, our probation department, our education. We hold it in one of our salinas school district, in their conference room. And it always amazed me that after i became the mayor the first time you go to this group 2k347 the morning people are happy. Theyre there for a passion and a reason. And i think what this has done because they all see what the other groups are doing. They get a chance to Work Together. We have presentations. And the energy level in that room is amazing because it falls generally the day after one of my Council Meetings where things always arent pleasant. So i walk into this room and these people are jazzed. Theyre enthused about what theyre doing. They talk about the young people. Not by name. The ones theyre saving. The they talk about the youth leaders and the programs theyre putting on. That forces me to up my game a little bit. To be a little better at what i do. Because theyre very good. And the city has reached out and said how do we keep this sustainable . How do we get all these groups involved . Well, one of my concerns as mayor was we have been funding two fulltime and a halftime position for our own city Community Alliance of safety and peace. So we moved the funding into something more sustainable so that if i drop dead as the mayor, if the next person doesnt like this program, they cant touch it. Itll be there and take them years to undo what weve done. But i think what makes it work and how you get the other groups involved is you have to use a little bit of your Political Savvy and power and tell them, you go to your educators. You go to your probation and say, this is going to make you look good. Because everybody in those positions wants to look good. And you sometimes have to convince them, this is going to help them. But in reality what you have, youre telling them is this is going to help your community. Because if kids arent in trouble and theyre getting educated being mayor was a really cool job then because, guess what . Then that says good things are going on. But if youre working with these different groups and you can purr vey the importance of this, then youre stepping up and i think thats really what works. Mayor thank you for that. Ive had the privilege of being there at 7 00 a. M. With you all. Bright and early with all of the stakeholders around the table and like you said some 70 folks that you all were able to bring together to do this. I would encourage you all, you have to talk to salinas and check in about what theyre doing. This is actually a very impressive approach to bring that number of people together on a consistent basis to talk about violence prevention and really to have people held accountable for all that is taking place to address that. So that i think is a great model and example. I other thoughts on how are you building the Necessary Coalition and collaboration to do this work . Ill jump in. I want to talk about why why the evidence of it is so important to have that coalition. In oakland, california we are doing just about every single Model Program. I mean, were doing it all. We are the National Model for emergency room intervention. We have Public Health officials clinicians ride with our police and respond to calls. Our model for a Restorative Justice practices and our schools. I mean, every Model Program ceasefire both the chicago and the boston model we do it all. And, yet, our outcomes are still completely unacceptable. And ill tell you a little secret. As a council member, i discovered that i had this really interesting constituent that lived in my council district. Her name is rachel davis. You may have heard of her. And when i found out what she did, we sat down on a park bench one Sunny Afternoon before i was mayor and i said, why is it that oakland still sucks . Were doing everything money, you know, what program are we not doing . She said, Libby Oakland is doing every right program. But there never has been a coalition. There never has been a body where there is shared ownership of the total agenda. [applause] so ive only been mayor for a little over a hundred days. But, boy. I picked up the phone and said, rachel, now im mayor and we can do this. And so we had the first meeting of oaklands gnaw coalition, and we just started our blueprint planning process very inspired by the work in minneapolis. And the energy in that room was amazing. And it was a group of people that had never in my 16 years of working in oakland politics, im new as mayor but not new to politics, i had never seen those people in a room together. Fantastic. And so that is the important work that needs to be done. And part of it is its both being a leader and putting out that call. Because when the mayor calls, people do show up. It is a nice thing about being mayor. But at the same time, you also sometimes have to share that leadership. So this coalition is cochaired by the president of the city council. In oakland the mayor doesnt sit on the city council. The mayor is more like the c. E. O. The president of the council, the police chief, and the superintendent of schools. And the four of us are equal cochairs of this coalition. So both making the call, leading by example, and then also sharing that leadership. And the last thing to demonstrate how much you care about the issue, sometimes you have to do more than just call a meeting. I spent my first 100 days sitting in justice circles with 100 oakland youth. I am trying to demonstrate my commitment through action and example. [applause] the evolution of coalitions in camden began in 2011 when we created the congress of faithbased and Community Based organizations