Transcripts For CSPAN Politics Public Policy Today 20120601

the government to offset the reduction of 6.8% to a lower rate. and the measure we passed in 2007 accomplished that with a pay-for, because it eliminated a lot of wasteful bank subsidies and fees to make sure that that cut from 6.8% to 3.4% was actually going to take place. so we are here today in a situation where student loan debt now is the largest challenge that faces middle class families who are trying to just do the right thing and give their children the opportunity to get the skills they are going to need to compete in their lives and help our economy, by the way, perform in a very competitive global environment. and yet we still have not come up with sustainable, long-term path in terms of trying to make college affordable. my bill, h.r. 3826, locks in the lower rate at 3.4%, not just for one year but permanently. we also need to look at the issue of college costs. we need to put incentives out there in terms of federal programs to make sure that colleges are not running wild with tuition increases. i think it's important to note that president obama when he gave his state of the union address challenged congress to protect this lower interest rate, he coupled it with a number of reforms to the title 4 programs that paid for higher education from the federal government that basically tells universities and colleges, if your tuition rates go up in an unacceptable level, you'll be basically disqualified from participating in these programs. that's the first time that has ever been cited as -- or suggested as a way of trying to put some carrots and sticks into the system right now because college class -- costs are driving that affordable challenge, some are driving that high loan levels, those high debt levels that families are almost forced to take on to pay for college. it's almost like buying a house now if you are going to a four year private college in terms of paying the bills. so we need to, again, not just look at this issue in terms of protecting lower interest rates, which again it looks like we may have a glimmer of hope of one-year fix coming down in the senate next week, but we also knee a longer term strategy for providing lower term interest rates on a longer term basis for middle class families and we need to look at what's the driving factor in terms of college class. we need to create incentives within the financing system to make sure that colleges are doing a better job of managing their overhead so that they, again, aren't just shifting that cost on to students and families. again, the stakes could not be higher in terms of success of this country. we must as a nation make sure that we continue to invest in our education system in our higher education system. i would--citing another sort of benchmark that's covered up on the short period of time. as my chart indicates on july 1 we are going to hit the doubling of the interest rates unless congress acts. what's also going to happen, though, on july 2 we are going to observe an anniversary in this country. it will be the 150th anniversary of when abraham lincoln signed the moral act. it was law that was passed during the darkest days of the civil warrering -- civil war. again a time when we were going through a crisis in this country about whether or not we were going to survive as a public. despite that challenge president lincoln was able to look above and beyond and looked into the lomple. and he started the program that said each state must establish an institution of higher education for the purpose of propagating agricultural sciences and engineering. what an amazing act for someone whose nation is fight fog for its life to see long-term we must continue to look forward and we must invest in our future. over time since the moral act was signed, on a bipartisan basis, we passed the stafford act. the stafford student loan program, which i mentioned here, which was sponsored by a republican senator, robert stafford, from vermont. we passed the pell grant program, named after claiborne pell. we passed the perkins program, named after carl perkins, a democrat from the kentucky. over time, even the darkest, most challenging critical case of our nation's history, we have had leadership in washington which understood we must keep our eye on the real crown jewels of our country, which is our people. we are a nation blessed with great material wealth. we ever a nation that is blessed with the greatest military fighting force in the world. we are blessed with great financial institutions. but what really makes this country tick is our people. is investing in future generations. that is at the end of the day what's at stake with this issue which has 29 days for congress to act. i'm an optimist, i think we can do this. we can see movement. took a little external pressure with the president visiting college campuses and the ticking time clock i have been putting on this floor day in and day out, and the 130,000 petition signatures from college campuses across the country which we brought to the speaker's office on day 110, that external pressure has finally gotten some movement in this issue and hopefully next week we'll see the glimmers after real solution to making sure families are not going to see their rates double to 6.8%. but again our work is not done if we get that measure passed. we must deal with long-term sustainable solutions to the issue of higher education cost it is we as a nation are going to have any viable future and success. we can do this, but it's going to take a lot of bipartisan concerted effort to come together and solve this critical problem. with that i yield back, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 30 minutes. mr. king: thank you, mr. speaker. as always it's my privilege and honor to address you here on the floor of the united states house of representatives and take up a series of issues that i think you should be considering and i'd recommend that that be the case. as long as the broader part of the body of this congress and the public is listening in to this conversation that we are having, mr. speaker, i make a series of points on where a nation needs to focus our energy, where congress needs to focus this energy, and how we turn this country back into the country that was envisioned by our founding fathers. i would make the point, mr. speaker, that we have now coming on almost four years ago elected a president who rode into office with large majority from his party in both the house of representatives and the senate. and i warned then going into the 2008 election that if america elected, i quote this way, the ruling troika, the troika of president obama, majority leader of the united states senate, harry reid, and speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, that the three of them could go into a phone booth and thereafter make a decision on what they decided to do to america without accountability that could check them and their very active endeavor to shape america in a way that wasn't envisioned by the founding fathers. lo and behold, mr. speaker, that is what happened. the voters in 2008 made that decision. they expanded the democrat majority here in the house of representatives. and they also elected barack obama to the presidency, the most liberal president america has ever seen. of course maintained a majority of democrats in the united states senate and what unfolded was an effort here in the house that passed cap and trade. and we stood here on the floor, mr. speaker, over and over again and did battle with cap and trade. we called it cap and tax. cap and tax was the right way to scribet bill that would tax people who were burning hydrocarbons and doing so, create a disadvantage for american industry and advantage for the industry at places like indiana and china where they care less about what goes into the father than we do here in this country. that legislation, which i will always believe we had the ability to kill, even in the house republican minority at the time, if we turned up all of our efforts, we had the ability to kill it, mr. speaker. we didn't get that done. we came close. we didn't get that done. and the cap and tax legislation passed over to the united states senate where it was subsequently killed in the senate. but the -- the president of the united states, the speaker of the house then, nancy pelosi, and the majority leader of the united states senate was to impose cap and trade or cap and tax on us and they tried. they tried mightily. and president obama has since said if he can't get cap and tax passed, he would say cap and trade, mr. speaker, that he would implement it by rule and implement it by regulation if the congress will not comply with his directive. we haven't heard very much about that effort in the media. not very much from the president. not very much from democrats in this congress or democrats in the united states senate. but it remains that this executive branch is implementing rules and regulations to carry out the initiative of cap and tax, cap and trade which has been so rejected by the american people and supposed to be at least perpetuated by a flawed of data information that went back and forth between the united kingdom and the united states. and so that's one piece that has been coming at us that's a result of that decision made by the voters in 2008. and as they pushed on cap and tax from that election, we saw, then, also that supermajority of the house democrats, senate democrats, and the most liberal president america has ever seen -- by wait, mr. speaker, i'm not making that number up. that is the data that shows that when they measured the votes of the united states senators, certainly the entire tenure of barack obama as a united states senator, which i recognize wasn't long, he voted to the left of every senator in the united states senate. including bernie sanders, the independent senator from vermont, who, i served with in the house of representatives, personally liked the gentleman, he's a self-professed socialist, yet barack obama voted to the left of the self-professed socialist bernie sanders and to the left of every united states senator while he was a senator, advancing cap and tax, cap and trade. he said that if -- under his proposal of cap and tax, cap and trade that the costs of electricity generated by coal would, quote, necessarily skyrocket, close quote. well, that's happening. they have written regulations through the e.p.a. and other means of the executive branch of government to the point now where it's been, i think, clearly established that it has -- from a regulatory perspective it is not just virtually, mr. speaker, but literally impossible for a new coal-fired generating plant, no matter how clean burning that coal might be, to be constructed in the united states. we tried that in iowa a year and a half or so ago to build a plant at marshall town, a coal-fired plant, had the best combination of entities you could bring together that could utilize this as the longest term best vision you could put together with the engineering and the business model, and they finally had to, as we say on the chessboard, tip over their king and concede they couldn't build a new coal-fired plant. now it's become ever increasingly clear that expanding coal-fired generation and also regulatoryly virtually impossible, perhaps literally impossible as well. and -- so the costs of our electricity goes up, and the wleverage that comes in on creating -- leverage that comes in on creating some subsidized forms of energy that fit with the political wishes of the president seems to be pushed well out of the white house. in any case, mr. speaker, that was one of the fights that went on here in this congress back in those years between 2008 and the election in 2010. of course another one was the passage of obamacare. obamacare sometimes is described as a pejorative way to -- to define the health care plan that the president advanced that had the full support of then speaker pelosi. i would remind people of that, then-speaker pelosi. that legislation first came to the floor as h.r. 3200. that was the precursor to the final package of obamacare, and in the end the bill that they define it as, two different bills by the way, one the reconciliation package that was slid around the filibuster in the senate, that's a component of obamacare, and the other one is legislation that passed out of the house and senate with the supermajority in the senate that temporary supermajority in the senate, i might add, and that was only passed because there was a promise made here that the president would sign an executive order that in effect amended legislation that the house was about to pass. mr. speaker, if there are any civic students listening to this discussion, i imagine that i just heard their jaws drop across america to think that the president of the united states who talked constitutional law -- taught constitutional law at the university of chicago as an adjunct professor would think that he, now as president of the united states, could sign an executive order that could amend legislation that was about -- under the promise it would amend legislation that was about to be passed on that condition in the house of representatives. that took place here. right here, mr. speaker. that's what's happened in this country. that's what's happened to the constitutional construct of this country when you have leftist activists in charge of this government and they took the bid in their teeth and ran off the cliff in the left and we ended up with obamacare that they call the patient protection and affordable care act. you can walk up and down the streets of america and with the exception of right around the capitol here in washington, d.c., i would suggest that you wouldn't find two people in 100 that would know what that means. we know what obamacare means. that's the president's advance of the health care policy that takesway our constitutional right to manage our own health care. . and i tell peam often that oshe cair needs to be -- i tell people often that obamacare needs to be repealed for a lot of reasons. it sets up rationing. sarah palin was right. it reduces research and development. it means that america will no longer be the lead in the innovation and health care systems in the world. all of those things are bad and wrong and unsustainable about it. and -- but the worst thing is that obamacare is unconstitutional, it's a direct assault on americans, on our sovereign right. and, mr. speaker, the most sovereign thing that any of us have in the united states or anyplace in the world is our own soul. we protect that. we decide, that's freedom of religion, that's in the first amendment in the united states constitution, take care of your soul. that's somp. second most sovereign thing we have is our health. our bodies. our skin and everything inside it. and what is obamacare? they went in and nationalized chrysler, they nationalized general motors. for a time they nationalized three large investment banks, a.i.g., fannie mae and freddie mac, the entire flood insurance program in the united states, and the student loan program in the united states, all of that taken over by the federal government in the last few years. and then obamacare came along and that is, mr. speaker, the nationalization of your skin and everything inside it. and a 10% tax on the outside if you go to the tanning salon, just to add a little extra insult to injury. that's what obamacare has done. it has tapped into this vigorous american people the most vigorous people the world has ever seen. we've skimmed the cream of the crop off of every civilization on the planet and gotten the best that any civilization had to offer because they are inspired by the american dream and inspired by those visions that are embodied within the statute of liberty -- statue of liberty. those visions altogether attracted people to come here to this country so they could live free, be free, breathe free and do as they will in a free enterprise system that has a rule of law, fream of speech, religion and the press and assembly, and no double jeopardy and tried by a jury of your peers and states rights that flow down to the states or the people respectively. all of that is a promise of america and when you come to america and you embrace that promise, then you can work to, work to achieve the american dream. but the federal government taking over the nationalization of our bodies takes that away from us. and the 1,300 health insurance companies that we had 2 1/2 years ago when the ruling trick toa imposed obamacare on this country, are fewer now. the 100,000 possible health insurance policies that were out there on the marketplace that one could choose from are fewer now. and the government stepped in and reached more. and just yesterday i got the news that a indemnify shah company, which is a subsidiary of the herman miller incorporated, it provides 111 jobs up in sioux center, iowa, 111 jobs making furniture and other equipment, a lot of it that goes into medical clinics and hospitals, a specialized type of a production facility, 111 jobs will close its doors, will close its doors because, and they cited, mr. speaker, obamacare. the uncertainty and the cost and the burden of the imposition of obamacare upon a company that's building products for health care, causes them to shut their doors down. they didn't give any other reason. i didn't talk with them, i didn't solicit this. that was what came out in their press release and i learned it when i read the paper. because obamacare forces them in a situation where they're shutting down a company that's been there for years and it has 111 jobs, well, the profit has been taken out of it for them. that's why the plant has to be closed. and we need to remember that this economy doesn't function to produce jobs, this economy in this free enterprise system we have functions to give a return on capital. when capital is invested it needs to be invested with an anticipation that there will be profits. and that anticipation for profits is what brings about jobs. and keeping those jobs competitive is what is an incentive to produce the expanses in technology so that america can be the innovators for the world and the most competitive economy in the world. but this administration seems to believe that you can't have a business model unless you can have the government at the table and the government will decide what kind of health insurance policy you can buy and that you shall buy it and that there's an individual mandate in obamacare that takes away our constitutional rights and that's the unconstitutional takings of the most -- second most sovereign thing we have which is our skin and everything inside it. and if the supreme court, and i believe, mr. speaker, they will make a prudent constitutional decision, and i anticipate that decision very early -- or i'll say next month some time, i anticipate that decision. they will be deliberating on this. that the constitution defines a limited government. the principle of federalism, the principle of federalism isn't to grow the federal government, it's to limit the size of the federal government and for those powers to be devolved down to the to as close to the people as possible. the federal government should be the last resort, not the first option. and if you can take care of things at the family level, take care of at the family level. if you can't do that, take care of it at the friend level. if you can't do that, do so in your church, neighborhood, school, community, do so in your county and if you can't do that, do so in your state. but as a last desperate resort the federal government then maybe can step in, if the cause is high enough and there's a constitutionally innumerated power to do so. but this enumerated power of the commerce clause is -- enumerated power of the commerce clause is where the obama administration pointed to require every american that fits within their defined category to buy health insurance policy that's approved by barack obama, with the mandates on it that are approved by barack obama which by the way include, by presidential edict, legislation by, not executive order, not legislation by -- from the bench as we sometimes complain about with an activist judicial branch, the president of the united states legislated by press conference. when he directs kathleensy bellous to -- sebelius to issue the order that even our faith-based organization and especially our catholic health and care providers, it also includes many of the protestant organizations, that they shall provide contraceptives, sterilizations and they shall do so free of charge, that it should be a part of every health insurance policy, so, mr. speaker, can you imagine if you are someone who had committed your lafe to christ, for example, -- your life to cyst, for example, you're required to provide contraceptives to those who are not? and, if it violates your religious convictions, whether or not you were -- you wear a col, we can't discriminate in favor of one who happens to be a bishop or a cardinal, and a lay person on the street whose convictions may be as deep. it needs to have the same conscience protection from a religious perspective. and so for the federal government to step in and declare you're going to provide health care services, you're going to buy this health insurance policy and you will guarantee that it will cover contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-causing drugs, for every one of your employees even if you're in the business to oppose the very idea of abortion-causing drugs. the president got the political pushback on that, mr. speaker. and over a couple of weeks' period of time, of taking the crossfire that came from across this country directed at the white house for the audacity to make that declaration, the president held a press conference, it was at noon on friday, several weeks ago now, and he said this. i'm going to make an accommodation to the religious organizations and therefore rather than requiring catholic health services, for example, to provide abortion-causing drugs and sterilizations and cadillac contraceptives, i'm going to instead make that accommodation and require the insurance companies to do that for free. now, you heard me say a little bit about ago, legislation by press conference, mr. speaker. and i say that because of this, the rule that was made by health and human services, kathleen sebelius, that imposed this thing on religious health care providers especially, that rule was never changed. the language is identical to what it was. there's not an i dotted differently or a t crossed differently. the rule is the same. so the only thing that changes was the president did a press conference and said, ok, i'm going to cut you some slack, religious organizations, i'm going to make an accommodation to you and i'm now going to require the insurance companies provide it for free. he repeated himself. for free. the audacity. king george would not have the audacity to step up and do a press conference 20 years ago and say to -- 230 years ago and say to america, regardless of what the parliament think, i'm just going to go ahead and require you to, let's say buy tea at the rate that the british would like us to buy. no, there would be a tea party in boston harbor if that happened. there's going to be a tea party in this country,, too only it's going to take place in november and the american people will reflect upon what has happened over these last three-plus, going now on four years. the imposition of obamacare on all of america, without regard to the constitution and the restraint, requiring people to buy health insurance policy that's approved by the federal government, that has mandates that are stuck into it by what? not by legislative action, not by a rule approved by the united states congress, by an executive branch that's directed out of the white house to write up the rules however they see fit and a president that has the audacity and that's one of his favorite words, by the way, mr. speaker, the audacity to seek to legislate by press conference. edicts by press conference. it is breath taking the extra constitutional reach that's been taken by this president and this administration and this country needs to rise up and get back to our constitutional underpinnings. we need to reject obamacare. i want to see this house vote again this summer, after the supreme court decision, no matter what the supreme court decision is, and i'm optimistic about getting a constitutional decision from the supreme court. but i want toe to see this congress vote -- but i want to see this congress vote again for a 100% repeal of obamacare, so everybody understands that it must all go, it must all be pulled out by the roots, there can be no vestige of obamacare left behind, it's an unconstitutional takings of american liberty -- excuse me. in a vigorous nation, mr. speaker, cannot reach our destiny if we are tied to the anchor of obamacare that directs and rules our lives and consumes about 17 or --% -- 17% or more of our gross domestic product. excuse me. and so the difference is this. the trick toa -- troicka of harry reid, nancy pelosi and barack obama has been broken. it was broken in the election of 2010 when they saw the extra constitutional reach of obamacare, they saw the effort on cap and trade, they saw dodd-frank pass through the house and the senate and become law, an overreach. we had the people involved in the solution for the economic downward spiral that we're contributing to the problem. there's a whole series of things we need to do to put this thing right, mr. speaker. one of them is to scrub out the regulations that have been put in place in an effort to try to implement cap and trade around the resistance of this united states congress, the separation of powers that's clear in the constitution itself. between the legislative bive and the executive and the judicial branches of government. i'm just very confident that barack obama taught those separations of powers, that the article 1 component of this that says, here's how we set up the legislature, they set the laws, they set the policy, and the establishment of the executive branch of government, whose job it is to carry out the laws and take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and we have a president who apparently encourages someone like eric holder to disregard, especially immigration laws, and only enforce those laws that do not make them politically vulnerable. maybe decided they had 300,000 people that were in this country illegally that had been already adjudicated for deportation and they said, we don't have the resources to enforce the law against everybody that's here illegally and so they commit their resources to going back through the files, looking law that 300,000 forms, of people that had been adjudicated for deportation, and coming up with a reason or an excuse to try to let them stay in america, to try to turn another blind eye. those resources had already been used to enforce the law, all they to do was follow through with the directive of congress. . they createdhis nearment that careful balance, close quote, between the various immigration laws because it affects the different interests of the executive branch. enforcing immigration affects our foreign relations so the state department has an interest. it affects the homeland security so janet napolitano has an interest. it affects the educational system so you have the secretary of education with an interest and it goes on and on and. congress has directed all of these laws be faithful enforced and the administration has refused, and that's a new approach to -- let me say -- prosecutial discretion, mr. speaker. they have to repeal amace, ress doesn'tce the budget. maybe a simple majority in the house could be convinced to do so. it would be very tough. you can't get it done in the united states senate, even if we could cal the budget we can't keep that happening year after year and pay down this national debt. we need a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution. s extensio, m debtlingere this coress such ti ts coressor a and to payown end national debt. my youngest little granddaughter, reagan ann king, was born about 19 or maybe now 20 months ago into the world she came with i looked at that little girl and thought typical student loan might be $24,000, $30,000. she's got a $44,000 loan and mortgage on her head with interest accumulating every day and she's just drawn her first breath. by the time she turned a year old her share of the national debt was $48,000. and this little blonde haired, brightest blue eyed little girl with a beautiful giggle and smile doesn't know what kind of responsibility has been stuck on her by people that are living today at her expense. and the expense of all those babies that have been born and those yet to be born that will be taxpayers. and only about half of them set that category today. so, mr. speaker, that little girl turned a year and a half old, and now her $44,000 debt that was $40,000, it became $51,000 when she's a year and a half old and she's going to be a taxpayer and producer. so you have to take that times two. because only half the people have a federal income tax liability. $102,000 on the head of every american young and old, that's our national debt. we have watched trillion dollar deficits roll up over the last 3 1/2 years. the president's budget came to this floor at $1.33 trillion in deficit. $1.33 trillion, mr. speaker. now we are approaching $16 trillion in national debt and it's got to stop. we have to turn this country around. the american voters spoke in 2010. they sent 87 freshmen here into this house of representatives who are constitutional conservatives and every one of them voted to repeal obamacare and they want a balanced budget. they want a balanced budget amendment. they are god's gift to america. we need another one in november of 2012. and more fresh faces and vigorous people here and we are here to repeal obamacare, a balanced budget amendment, an all of the above energy plan and we need more of the same people in the united states senate and president that will sign that legislation into law. i look forward to the privilege to work with those new faces as they arrive here and work to make the case before the american people every day from now until november and thereafter. mr. speaker, i appreciate your attention and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. does the gentleman have a motion? mr. king: mr. speaker, moifer the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 12:00 noon on tuesday next for morning hour debate. >> it is pretty exciting when they come here. it is a thrill. with today's jobs report is clear we have worked to do. this is the 27 months of continuous job increases in our economy. is not enough. it is clear from that jobs number that we have work to do. we know it and the american people know yet and people across the country know it. it is clear one way we can help is to pass a transportation bill. it was instructed to read the jobless numbers this morning. the job loss in the construction sector was the largest of them all. once again, if we can -- we have an answer to this, and that is to pass a transportation bill. the bipartisan transportation bill. republicans will say they have sent 30 bills to the senate. we do not meet 30 message bills. we need one good bipartisan bill, and that is the transportation bill. it should pass in a bipartisan way in the senate. we are calling upon the speaker of the house to bring the transportation bill to the floor. this is a bill that historically has been bipartisan for 35 years of current record, and it has been bipartisan. the senate bill is a good bill that will create 2 million jobs. let's get on with it, let's get our work done. in addition i am calling upon the speaker to bring a middle- income tax cut to the floor, which will build confidence in our economy, grow our economy, and will create jobs. we need to get this done, and the time is long overdue. i will yield to my distinguished colleague, steny hoyer. >> thank you, madam leader. there cannot be an american that was disappointed with the jobs numbers reported today. the private-sector kate 82,000 jobs, and the public sector lost 13,000 jobs. we had a net growth of 69,000. the good news is we have 27 months straight of job growth, 11 quarters of economic growth in our country. progress is too slow because of the gridlock and lack of substantive agenda being pursued by our republican colleagues in the congress. gridlock in terms of the highway bill, which passed with 75 votes. 3/4 of the senate pass the highway bill. that was sponsored by one of the most liberal members and co- sponsored of one of the most conservative members who came together to create jobs and making our country more competitive. that bill could not get through that house, notwithstanding the fact i urged cantor to put that bill on the floor. that bill as the boats on the floor of the house. unfortunately the public at leisure it will not put it on the floor. we find ourselves 30 days from the highway bill expiring, which would create jobs, make us more competitive, create economic growth -- >> and make it in america. >> is part of our make it in america at jeddah. we believe we need to grow this economy, invest in people, invest in creating jobs, and if we do so we will create jobs. in the bush administration we lost 8 million jobs, 4 million jobs being lost in the last year of the administration. month of the bush administration, the month that obama became president. we are growing the economy. the recession has ended, but we are not growing it fast enough. if you do not have a job, this is a depression. if your home as underwater, this is a depression for you. we need to take vigorous action and give confidence to the marquette, and one way we should -- to the market, and one way is not put at risk the credit worthiness of the united states cannot not pretend we are going to play another political game with the debt limit of this country and undermine economic growth and confidence. i am hopeful we will move ahead cooperatively to create consensus, jobs, pass the highway bill, invest in our economy, and grow our jobs. thank you. >> thank you, mr. whip. [unintelligible] >> how are things going? >> approve will be in the pudding when they bring the bill -- approve will be in the pudding when they bring the bill to the floor. from the standpoint of senator boxer, the chairman of the committee in the senate, she is optimistic because they have bipartisan support in the senate. you would have to be a contortionist in order -- expense of opinion, but they have come together in a bipartisan way to create 2 million jobs. this is so important to our country. this is about the infrastructure of america. this is about how our people are traveling, how commerce moves. it is about our infrastructure and our transportation, and they have neglected it. it is time for republicans to stop stalling on a transportation bill that will create jobs, stalling on a middle-income tax cut, and stop implying there is any thought that we would not honor the full day and credit of the united states of america. this is about competence. this is about growing the economy. it is time for them to stop stalling, and until they can come forward with a bill, that is how i view their performance. [unintelligible] i would not support that. it is important for us to take the matter at hand and deal with it. we know there should be an end to the height-and tax cuts -- high-end tax cuts, and they are deepening the deficit. they are not creating jobs. they have to go. we have a moral imperative to create jobs, educate our children, and to reduce the deficit. the tax cuts increase the deaths and do not create jobs. i would not be supportive of that. >> punting should not be an option, it will undermine confidence even further. one of the reasons that i think that major corporations and banks who have a lot of money on hand, more money than they have ever had, are not participating because they lack confidence. why? because of gridlock in washington. growingt interested in and our economy. punting will continue to undermine confidence that the congress can work. the congress needs to work. it comes together, crete's compromise, not confrontation. the three bills referred to earlier have all seen compromise reached in the united states senate, all of them. the significant republican participation in bipartisan resolution of differences. unfortunately we have not been able to do that in the house. the american economy sees that. punting will be another indication that there they go again, they cannot reach agreement, they are putting this down further to sometime in the future. i believe the single biggest thing we could do for the economy is to show the american people on the highway bill, student loan bell, violence against women bill, and on a balanced plan for putting our country on a fiscally sustainable, credible path, is the biggest thing we can do not just that at 82,000 private- sector jobs, but 164,000 jobs, perhaps 400,000-plus jobs, like during the clinton administration, where we created 22 million jobs in the last -- in eight years. [unintelligible] >> there is no question we are part of the global economy. what has happened in europe has had an impact on our economy. in terms of confidence, markets for products, and the rest, but the fact is we are in charge of our own house and we cannot have a policy or practice of obstruct, stall, and punt, because that is not an agenda for making progress, growing our economy, restoring confidence, sending a message that what ever is happening elsewhere our house is in order. this obstruction is not just about trying to make the obama administration look bad, which what some people say. i will not subscribe to that. i do subscribe that doing nothing is the republican agenda. their jobs bill is a bill that says tax cuts for the rich, and trickle-down, and if jobs are created, that is good, and if not, that is the free market, and in the words of the speaker, so be it. we did not say amen to that. what we say is we have an obligation to give incentive to the private sector to create jobs, and confidence is essential to that picture -- to that. while we are concerned because we are caring about what happens, we have that responsibility to be strung ourselves. that requires decisions, not hunting, requires strength, not stalling. that is what we see. stop the stalling, stop the punting. pass the transportation bill. remove all doubt that we will honor our full faith and credit and we will do it by giving away reduces the deficits and create jobs. >> one additional thing, i am convinced that the europeans see stability, consensus, and the movement in the united states, it will help the europeans deal with their problems. a strong, secure, thoughtful program in the united states to put our country, which is the key country in the world, on a fiscally sustainable, credible pat, in my view will have positive effects in europe. the european economy is affecting hours, but we are the leaders, and if we lead, it will help them as well. [unintelligible] >> what are the final issues holding up the bill? [unintelligible] >> we are waiting to see what is the bill they put forth. i do not know what you have just said. i trust you think it is a fact there is no other obstacle to the bill calling for. i thought you said it was the only thing holding up the bill. i'm interested in seeing the bill. i have not been on record one way or the other on keystone, but the fact is that issue should intervene in this bill that over the years has been bipartisan, has sought consensus, rather than finding a snag. this is not about keystone. it is about obstruction. >> the leader is absolutely right on that. keystone -- i have said i am for keystone, but i think keystone, like every project of that magnitude cannot needs proper consideration to go through the proper consideration to make sure that it is environmentally safe. having said that, the senate has strong views on that as well. it did not hold them up from passing a bill because it was not an essential part of a highway bill, which has always been pass in a bipartisan fashion -- passed in a bipartisan fashion. this is undermining the growth of jobs and our economy. thank you. >> we are calling upon republicans to stop stalling on the transportation bill, create jobs now, bring it to the floor, and we hope it will do that soon, as the question was asked about the concerns that we do not see it coming out. and recognizing the construction trade was the biggest source of job loss that we are talking about here. that is just shameful, because it is urgent for our country to build our infrastructure. it is part of who we all are. these people are called public improvements to call -- to grow the erie canal, the transcontinental were road, and i smile because we celebrated this weekend the 75th anniversary of the golden gate bridge. it is the seventh the fifth best 75th anniversary of the bay bridge, too, but that was in a depression, and the public had the confidence, new the urgency of build the infrastructure, bringing people together. we need to do it now. stop stalling. thank you. >> nancy pelosi from earlier today. we also heard remarks from boehner on a recent unemployment numbers. may added 69,000 new jobs, but the unemployment rate went up. boehner is joined here by other leaders during this briefing. >> good morning, everyone. it is clear that people are asking the question, where are the jobs? another month of disappointing job gains. it is clear that people are hurting. small businesses continue to avert the hiring of additional people, and it is clear the policies we have seen are not working. i would hope the president, my colleagues in the senate, will look at our plan to create american jobs. we passed over 30 bills that are sitting in the senate. we can help the american people if the senate would look at the bills before us. you have watched us for the last year and that have come up here every day and every week and make clear our focus is the focus of the american people. we promised we would listen and their focus is on this economy, and jobs. that is why that has continued to be our focus every day over the last year and a half and it will remain that because the american people are in a desperate spot. millions of americans have lost their jobs, are looking for work, and it is time for us to change course and have real policies that will put americans back to work. >> good morning. these job numbers are apathetic. the american people really deserve better, and under right leadership we can do better. we remained committed to doing all we can to remove the uncertainty that is plaguing working families, but small business people. that is why you will see us continue to focus on the fact we are not going to come if we can, about taxes to go up on anybody, and we will put a bill on the floor this summer to make sure that signal is sent to working families and small businesses of this country. we believe strongly that the uncertainty provided by the president's health care bill is laying down a job creation, weighing down innovation, and we will seek to repeal in total the "obamacare" bill. we will bring a bill before the summer that will say stop regulations coming out of washington because they are proving to be an obstacle to job creation. stop everything that is providing disincentives to our job creators so we can get this economy going again. >> the only news this morning is that three and a half years later the president's policies are still failing. millions of americans still remain unemployed. millions of americans are under employed. the president's policies continue to fail. this should not be a surprise. if you threaten the symbol bogard -- the single largest tax increase in america, you're not going to get robust economic growth. if you have an avalanche of new regulations, you are not blood have robust economic growth and job growth. if you go about vilifying success and free enterprise, you are not going to have robust economic growth. if you engage in serial trillion-dollar deficits, which business people know sooner or later they are content to pay- for, you're not going to get robust economic growth. unfortunately for our constituents, who have seen their gas prices almost double under this administration, who know their disposable income is down under this administration, who still see their friends, neighbors, the unemployed come up under the said ministration, the news today 3 and a half years later the president's policies are still failing the american people. >> as i look at these numbers you cannot help think about that americans continuing to look for work and are not able to find jobs. these are tough numbers. i think about the fact that when the president was elected he said if he had not heard the economy around in three years that he would not be in office in his fourth year. after inaugurated, the cornerstone of his economic plan for america was a stimulus package edge. it was at $800 billion stimulus package, a record amount of spending, and he told congress at that time if you pass the stimulus package upon it will not go up to 8%, and by this time this year, unemployment would be below 6%. it is clear that has not happened. i cannot help but think it did not have to be this way. we could have taken an approach that focused on unleashing the private sector, and a recent house republicans opposed the big-government purchase was we believed there was a better way that focused on the private sector. president obama could taken a lesson from reagan in the early 1980 us, and reagan inherited a difficult economy. interest rates were off the charts. reagan at this time was -- he had an economy that was booming. we need an approach coming out of this administration that is more focused on the private sector, more focused on what is going to take to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit. >> day the president was going -- today the president was going to minnesota -- i am wondering if you plan to move on any of these, and if not what would you say to the president today about this? >> the president might want to engage what democrats and republicans on capitol hill, to handle the big policies that are affecting our economy. whether it is the tax rates will expire at the end of the year, whether to sequester that is due to go in in effect in january that will gut our military, this or are $16 trillion national debt, the budget deficit -- maybe the president should get out into the badminton game and get into the bread became in front of him. [laughter] [unintelligible] >> you are basically saying vote for us. [unintelligible] >> we believe the policies we have advocated over the last three and a half years will have our coming in a much better place than it is today. [unintelligible] >> are in many cases [unintelligible] from candidates that have won in the past. why are you highlighting such a different group of candidate? will you think it is going to be easier to get things done? [unintelligible] >> that are on the list. we did not choose them for their demographics where their style. they just happened to be good candidate in districts that are winnable for us. [unintelligible] are you talking about -- [unintelligible] instead of playing politics over there. >> my question -- [unintelligible] where do you think the jobless rate would be now? >> all i can say is it they would have taken our advice and worked with us, the comet would be better. more americans would have better jobs, have a better income. that is clear to us. >> you have your list. at any placeerlap at all? >> we have worked together for the past -- to pass the free trade agreements, the veterans jobless bill. the minority whip worked on the majority-minority import- export bank. there is a constant search, and it is hard to find common ground when the president is always out campaigning every day. no, let's go to the front. loudmouth. passy won't the congress the high will build? would that not at least improve things? >> question is very important. the house has pass a bill. we are in conference. conferees are working diligently to come to an agreement which will put americans back to work. included in there are energy provisions like the keystone pipeline that would create nearly 20,000 jobs immediately, directly into this job, and up to $100,000 -- 100,000 jobs indirectly. this will help put americans back to work. [unintelligible] >> do house republicans have any culpability for these numbers? >> they went their own way into the asinine, 2010, on virtually every bill. they have created quite a mess. our job is to stay focused on what the people are most concerned about, and that is exactly what we have done. >> the you have any scheduled appearances, fund raisers, with mr. romney? >> no. >> i get your comment on the new york chari drink ban? -- sugary drink ban? >> are you kidding me? [unintelligible] >> tonight the second debate between candidate running in the june 5 wisconsin governor recall election. scott walker and tom barrett faced off any debate that took place last night, but you can see the debate last night on c- span at 8:00 p.m. eastern. this week on c-span2, it is booked tv and prime 10 -- brooke t.d. -- book tv in primetime. at 10 up 20, remarks from dan gens on how to restore hope while fixing -- van jones on how to restore hope while fixing democracy. >> date -- >> -- sunday -- >> another side of him wanted to be the best. he is the fiercest competitor that i have ever written about, and i have written about presidents, and cronkite's desire to be the best was very pronounced. >> douglas brinkley on his biography of walter cronkite, sunday at 8:00 p.m. at eastern on c-span. jeb bush said he supported the government must rest you of financial institutions -- rescue of financial institutions in 2008. he protested the norquist pledge. this is two hours and 45 minutes. >> ready? all right. the committee will come to order. i welcome all for this hearing on one of the key threats posed to our system. while we are dealing and tough economic times, americans live in the most prosperous country in the world. our system has lifted millions from the grips of poverty. both parties have pursued deficit-driven spending aimed at favoring companies, tax carve out for the reagan -- for the well-connected. this creates a game where success is too often the term not by the quality of products business provides, but by relations since in washington. -- but by relationships in washington. to that and we pass a budget in house that lifts the debt and strengthens the safety net for those who need it. our reforms insure a level playing field. policies take us and at the wrong direction. he has called for greater complexity and the tax code, insists on wasteful spending. we have seen the results of this type of government-centered society in europe, massive spending, high taxes, and corporate favoritisms which have crossed -- crushed economies. this hearing is an effort to explore how we can advance reforms that match the magnitude of today's challenges. we can insure citizens are guaranteed the freedom to pursue their dreams and make sure we leave the next generation with a more prosperous america. i want to thank our witnesses today. we have former governor jeb bush of florida. thank you very much for traveling with us today. you have been an advocate on restoring government's proper role. we also have chris edwards, director of text plat -- tax policies studies at the cato institute. his criticism of the subsidies and favoritism that pervade our washington spending and the tax code -- and we will be joined with henry waxman. henry as a previous engagement. he will show up hopefully by the time our opening statements and the witnesses are done. henry is the ranking member of the energy and commerce committee, and he is the minority's witness today. when the gentlemen are done, we will go with henry, and i will yield to the ranking member, mr. van hollen. >> thank you and i want to to join you in welcoming out witnesses. let me start in a place where we all agree. we all love america, we all believe america is a unique and special place, we all believe in american exceptionalism. the question is how do we keep america strong, dynamic, and exceptional? on that we have different views and we make different choices. we believe our strengths brink not only from the undisputed benefits from a free people pursuing their dreams, but from also card is the best talents for important national purposes. we believe our greatness is the result of not only a collection of individuals acting alone, but also from our capacity to work the big zero -- to work together for the common good. we believe in expanding the circle of opportunity so all americans have a chance to prosper. i must confess i am surprised that governor bush decided to be here today to criticize the efforts made over the last three years to lift the economy out of the mess that president obama inherited. for eight years, the president bush pursued a failed ideology of trickle-down economics is based on the theory that it would boost all boats. it lifted the yachts, but the other boats all went aground. retirement savings collapsed by one-third between 2007 and the day president bush left office. our nation's this will help solve the greatest reversal and largeans' history from projected surpluses to large projected deficits. i have searched the record and as far as i can tell during that eight-year. he did not challenge the busch's administration challenging of the economy, or the rising deficits. and now, looking at your testimony, i am looking forward to hearing it in full. you are here to tell us that government actions prevented us from the kind of snap back economic recovery we have seen in other post-whorled war ii recoveries. -- post-world war ii recoveries. after all, none of the other post-world war ii recessions required the kind of research -- actions taken by the preserve, as low as the huge wall street bailout called by president bush with the signing of tarp to stabilize the system and prevent another great depression. the tarp bill was a huge government intervention in the marketplace, called for by president bush, supported by asehner, chairman andryanrayn, a -- ryan as the necessary action. with the rest of the industry, main street america was feeling the pain as millions of americans were losing their jobs. we all know what the figures were -- 839,000 jobs lost per month, at the economy was headed down at a very rapidly collapsing rate negative gdp. the president was taking action and he believed if we adopt the president bush's proposal to rescue banks and help precipitate a crisis, we should be willing to take action to help millions of americans turned out of work through no fault of their own. president obama pass the economic recovery act which the experts at the congressional budget office have created or saved up to 3 million jobs in 2010 alone. the president also believed if we address get the banks we should prevent the s audit and a sheet from being wiped out. this was an action that saved millions of jobs. this was not about crony capitalism, as the chairman has suggested. it was not a do -- it was not about doing special favors. it is about ensuring a critically important industry had an opportunity to survive given the financial crisis going on and around it. governor romney has suggested we should have let the trick go bankrupt and the crisis should have been handled to the normal bankruptcy process. bob lutz took umbrage with this and said it is once again the fiction that we did not need the government, and this could have been a privately run bankrupt state with the normal chapter 11. what these people always deliberately forget is there was no money. nobody had money. when the chairman refers to this as crony capitalism, many of us take great offense. we also passed the wall street reform bill to make sure that we would never gamble on wall street, and lead taxpayers holding the bill. i will wrap up any minute, mr. chairman. i would like to point out, governor, that during that period of time we were not getting very much help from our republican colleagues, not a single republican house member voted for the recovery bill, not a single one voted for the wall street reform bill. senator mcconnell, the senate leader, in a moment of candor, said, "the single most important thing you want to achieve is for president obama to be a one-term president." so, we have made progress on except -- on improving the economy. are we where we need to be? absolutely not. these numbers show we need to make further progress. let's learn the right lessons from what happened in the past, because if we diagnose the problem wrongly, then we will have the wrong prescription. and i do worried greatly about those that say the way forward is to adopt a souped-up version of many of the policies that got us into the mess to begin with. as we go forward, i hope we will try to find a way to gather, and i will close where i began on a point of agreement. if there is a government program that is not a cheap it's intended purpose, let's amend it or get rid of it. if there is a regulation that has outlived its usefulness, and get rid of it. i hope we look at adopt the same approach with respect to special interest tax breaks. >> are you done? >> i am, mr. chairman. let's remember we have made some progress and we need to make more. let's not misdiagnose the program -- >> i now know why the opening statement was so long. mr. waxman just a ride. i get it now. henry -- congressman waxman, we welcome you. we have announced you already. mr. van hollen was just saying how excited he was that governor bush here today. we see things a little differently here today. some of us wanted to -- why don't we go with governor bush. pleas. >> -- please. >> it is a joy to be here. i did not come here to criticize anybody for the record. i came here to share my views. i am not used to the 9:00 food fight that starts early in washington. we do not start that way in florida. it is great to be here. i am here to talk about what i think is an important subject as we try to recover the may -- to recover. the may jobs numbers were any leaks. we have an l-shaped recovery. there is a cloud over our country that relates to this growing pessimism that we cannot restore the vitality of our economy in a way that creates opportunities. more and more people are becoming more and more dependent on government at every level because of its pick is important for this committee and for policy makers in washington were to reflect on that and to figure out how to gather republicans and democrats can restore their right to rise in our country and restore a sense of optimism to begin to rebuild our country. i did not question the intentions of people at all. there is a shared belief we need to do better. the question is how. what do we need to in this chamber to improve the outlook for job creation, business expansion, should be the dominant question across our country. i would urge you to look at your primary responsibility, which is to manage the budgetary affairs of the united states government. that is a good place to start. at 3.8 trillion dollars, the u.s. budget is a powerful force in the economy. its size means entire industries operate in constant awareness of what you do here. when you combine this budgetary paula -- power which separate powers of taxation and regulation, the federal government wields significant influence over the economy cannot directly and indirectly. it is not an overstatement to say that right now the united states economy operates significantly at the behest of the united states government, not the other way around. the government is taking sides. behind every spending program and regulation, there is an idea. it might be a good idea. those good ideas and the knights to it -- and not the good ones at up, and the cost of everything you do hear about every line item, earmarked, trade act of the investment and create did efforts at of the private sector of the economy. my best advice is for you to perform a fundamental cost- benefit reconsideration of many programs. consider the unintended consequences of your actions. here is one example. there are 49 different job training programs in our country today. i wonder about that number. what do we get from 49 that six could accomplish. -- ? how do we know the right people are running those programs? should all the programs be packaged and sent down to the states so you could benchmark success and develop a 21st century strategy as it relates to job training? do these programs operate with a sense that they could or should be closed if they fail? this is the daily torrey of american businesses in our country. worry ofis the daily american businesses in our country. when you try to solve one problem he may not only fail, but you may create several others. if he multiplied that example across the country, in multiple industries and ways, it's not hard to see what would happen, and it has happened. not only does the government grow bigger through every program, it displaces the private economy, the innovators, inventors, people who risk their savings on a business idea, he established businesses who could not grow, and we see this in spending programs and we see it in taxing programs as well. tax policies that advantage certain economic activities are just another form in my opinion of government spending, and while they grant to some companies and industries benefits, they also tend to disadvantage other companies and industries. this is a matter of fairness. i understand there may be political support for specific industries and companies, but we know from experience that the government is not good at picking winners and losers in the economy. it is not the job of government to pick winners and losers. i recognize why the government tries to control the marketplace by sheer power and size. i recognize it is because -- i became clearer about this because i see it in the private sector as well. there are countless examples of companies that failed to move with markets because of a smaller and -- smaller competitor arrives first period when a small company is been to the punch, it either it gets lean fast or it goes out of business. we should remember that failure is part upset -- is part of a competitive market, and when government tries to eliminate the possibility of failure, they create more of it rather than allow the more innovative approach to work. the problem with government involvement is it does not go to the same process of innovation, and sometimes failure, that exists. none of us will allow government to fail. what would occur in most private institutions, failure, followed by defunding, does not happen here. if programs did not work, do not fund them. i want to return to the rationale behind such a process. this is not about making government more efficient. this is about making government a smaller part of our economy. we have to resist the impulse to sell all of our problems from here in washington. this impulse has only make government bigger, and problems remain. we have to ask whether the status quo is the best way to address the problems that congress has set itself up to solve, and i believe there are better approaches to that, and i think the committee court its attention to these issues and look forward to answering its questions. >> thank you very much for inviting me to testify. i will talk about corporate welfare and economic growth. i will discuss why corporate welfare is bad and about the real solution. the first reason why welfare is bad is it costs money. we have a trillion-dollar deficits. i estimate business subsidies are about $100 billion a year, a small part of the total budget. corporate welfare is unfair. the largest program is farm subsidies. they are like a reverse robin hood program. they take from taxpayers and get to high-income farm households. farm subsidies and other business subsidies are unfair. they get to higher income books. corporate welfare is not work. policy makers want to support business because they believe subsidies will make them more competitive. i think subsidies back firepits on energy -- i think subsidies backfire. you had a project, a republican boondoggle in the 1970's, that ended up being a total failure. then you had a democratic boondoggle, synthetic fuels corp., wasted billions of dollars. it was a huge boondoggle. this is a bipartisan problem. why does not corporate welfare work? political pressures often undermined decisionmaking. businesses become more spendthrift when they get subsidies, and you see that with solyndra. they built a fancy factory. a lean and added the -- a lean, competitive company would not have done that. that is the story of enron. enron received subsidies from many federal programs. that induced them to invest in all kinds of foreign investment parker -- projects. enron would not have done that without federal subsidies. all those foreign projects they took part in came crashing down and helped pull down the company. subsidies induced a bad decision making by businesses. corporate welfare it generates corruption. business subsidies have always generated corruption and go all the way back to the first transcontinental or road. that generated a huge subsidy scandal in the 1870's. go to ronald reagan's department of hud, that overflowed with corruption. they handed out business subsidies to friends and republican party donor straight 99 week's, president clinton's commerce department overflowed with corruption. he handed out subsidies in return for campaign, tuition's the the democratic party. this is a bipartisan problem. corporate subsidies do not work. what can we do to spur growth proof which it unleash entrepreneurs. most grow it as not come from government. it has come from new business is creating new industries, and you can look at history, the electricity industry cannot control combustion engines, automobiles, aircraft, those are all new industries created by entrepreneurs. helping get out of the way up entrepreneurs is the most important thing we can do for the economy. the modern telecommunications revolution is the result of mci's battle during the 1970 costs to compete against at&t monopoly. federal express created a revolution and package delivery by battling against government regulation. i think mike recommendation cannot remove business subsidies, tear down barriers to october norris -- to entrepreneurs. repealing farm subsidies would spur innovation in agriculture. we need to go in that direction. privatizing amtrak, the air traffic control system, as canada has done -- those sorts of rougher will spur innovation, and we saw last week the success of the spacex flight to the space station. that is the example of the awesome job entrepreneurs can do. tax reform is very important. the chairman supports lowering tax rates and eliminating loopholes. we need to lower the corporate tax rate. it is important for business investment and venture-capital. i support the chairman boss approach to tax reform. -- the chairman's approach to tax reform. thank you. >> congressman waxman. >> i am honored to be among you to discuss this very important issue, which goes to the question of what is the role of government, its corporate wait for a capitalist economy to succeed, because all three of us believe in the couple must quit the catalyst market picked out to get the economy to function best, and how do we deal with market failures and inequities that have left us with a very stark contrast between the people who have a lot and the many who have very little, as well as the middle class, which is getting squeezed? we have a different sense about the vision for america. republicans will argue government regulations are bad for the economy. public investment arm free enterprise. democrats have a more optimistic vision. we believe the economy works best when the government establishes the rules of the road, protecting the middle class, promoting competition, and preventing abuses. we believe educating workers, supporting entrepreneurs, new industries will grow our economy faster and better. we think this issue has proved our side of the case. house republicans seem to want to return to an america that predated the new deal, the great society, and appeared at a time when robert terrance ran this country. the decision of the house would bring back the world where there are no restraints on wall street banks, enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else. we tried that. in the 1930's, the absence of regulation and fair rules for competition brought us the great depression. in 2008, the same theory brought us the great recession. it is not government regulation that caused our economic woes, i chaired hearings in 2008 on the collapse on wall street, and what we found was the absence of cops on the beat. the heartbreaking unemployment hurting families stems from a philosophy that wall street banks should be allowed to operate free from regulation. even if that means jeopardize in our economic future for their profits. americans cherish clean air, clean water, safe food, protections of the environment and their health, but republicans and house have voted again and again with the oil companies and corporate polluters. this is the most anti- environment house in the history of this country. last year i asked my staff to start tracking anti- environmental votes on the house floor, and to date, the republican-controlled house has voted over 200 tons to weaken and eliminate protections for human health and the environment. the house voted to repeal the health-based standards that are part -- the heart of the clean air act, with no hearings and 10 minutes of debate. when it comes to health issues, that house is stunningly anti- health. not only do we see proposals to cut back on preventive care come and opposition to the affordable care act, which would provide 30 million americans without insurance, the republican budget adopted by the house slash's medicaid by over $1 trillion. it ends the guarantee for medicare benefits for seniors and individuals with disabilities, and instead gives them a voucher and tells them to go shop in a broken health insurance market. crier is reflected in the house budget are wrong. that budget would make seniors pay more for their medicare, and they would preserve a tax loopholes for all oil companies and that at the time lower taxes for millionaires and billionaires. corporate subsidies are not just government expenditures. they are expenditures through the tax code as well, and we see a lot of that going on, so i find myself in common grand with something that mr. edwards had to say. 98% of the republican members of congress have pledged to oppose any increase of tax rates and any reduction of tax loopholes to reduce the deficit. no wonder the wealthiest continue to grow wealthier as the middle-class struggles just to get by, and no wonder we are facing a fiscal crisis. one especially clear and what amount of the misplaced priorities of house republicans is their hostility to clean energy. the international energy agency says trillion dollars are going to be interested in new energy infrastructure over the next 20 years. our economic growth and our national security will be determined by whether we succeed in building these new clean energy industries for the future. yet house republicans want republicansdefund -- house republicans want to defund these investments. this will crush competition if the government does not stand up to allow these new enterprises to take their place. the house republican position is based on science denial. if you deny the existence of climate change, and an overwhelming majority denies that science, the need for investment in clean energy may not be apparent. if you live in reality, you know the world cannot continue its dependence on fossil fuels, and you know without government involvement we are in danger of losing the clean energy industry and millions of jobs to competitors such as china and germany. we can out compete china. we can grow a stronger and better america with jobs for everyone who work hard and play by the rules, but to do so we have to reject the defeatist, anti-science, anti-progress, anti-jobs the views of those who oppose investments in clean energy. they want to preserve tax breaks for the wealthiest at the cuts of the middle-class, who want to slash the safety net and and medicare plus guaranteed. this is an important hearing. week-old starkly different views about the role of government, and i welcome the opportunity to discuss these differences with you today. >> thank you. that -- so much for bipartisan comity on this issue. >> are we not allowed to talk about class warfare? >> we just got the unemployment numbers about a half hour ago. only only 65,000 jobs added last month, about half of what the market was expecting. the last two months, job growth was revised downward by 49,000 jobs. the unemployment rate has gone up to 8.2%. the u6 unemployment rate that a lot of people still track, with people who stop looking for a job or people who found a part- time job but still want a full- time job is up as well. it is not working. the economic policies we have on the working. i always try not to say what it is my political adversary is in favor of -- i will let him speak for himself -- but i think what we are trying to establish here is both parties messed this up. mr. edwards did a good job going over how with good intentions, republicans and democrats, had believed that if they could put some kind of preference in law for a selected industry, a selective bowl, a selected company, that good things would result from that. it is helpful to us to go back and look at the track record of this bipartisan idea that government is smarter and better at picking winners and losers in the marketplace than the market itself is. what we have learned from this bipartisan approach is that corruption does occur. cronyism does occur. what ends up happening is those who are connected, those who have established connections, those who know the ways of washington end up usually getting the benefits, and those who are out there were around america working hard, slaving away, creating ideas -- they are not on the winning side of this -- those who are out there in america working hard. it makes it harder for people to rise and create new ideas and businesses, which, as we have learned through the economy, through economic evidence, is the greatest chance of giving people prosperity, of decentralizing wells in this country, allowing people to rise and have social mobility -- of decentralizing wealth. ist we're trying to do recognize that both parties messed this up. let's not sit around and point fingers at each other. let's go back to what works -- and entrepreneurship, small business growth, risk-taking, and, yes, regulations that are fair for all. regulations that do put guard rails up so that we have transparency, so that we have on his plate, so that we have rules of the road that apply equally to everybody. that is what we are trying to reestablish your. no one is suggesting we have some kind of dog eat dog society where the powerful and connected survive at the expense of everybody else. we are seeing the same rules apply to everybody so that you, based on your own merit and god- given talent -- that determines success so that our goal in america is to establish a starting line so we can promote equal opportunity so people can make the most of their lives instead of having people pick and choose winners in washington. what ends up happening, whether a republican is in the white house for a democrat is in the white house or whoever is running congress, is interest groups get involved and decide how it is done at the end of the day. that does not work. we have seen our friends in europe try this, and we look at the results of that now. governor bush and mr. edwards, you have seen this work. you have great experience in government. has this worked that the state level? state government does not do this the lot. the stimulus, for example, sent a lot of money to the states. did that work? did these job programs, which were created with good intentions -- does that work to actually giving people the tools they need to go into getting skills so they can get onto a career path that they were in an obsolete industry that is gone? you know, where i live, we lost four of factories since 2008 -- four auto factories. the guys i grew up with and went to high school with do not have a sector to work in and people are trying to go back to school to get back on their feet again. does this approach work? did the stimulus program work? mr. edwards, give me more examples of that the canadian system. i think that is intriguing. you are right about how canada went after a lot of this corporate welfare, this cronyism. give me more anecdotes on that. i think there is something we can learn from the canadians on this front. governor bush. >> we had a mini-stimulus package when i was governor, and for some states it works because they had chronic deficits, and they filled the gap, and they consider that stimulate rather than changing how they do things. in the case of florida, we took that money and used it on a onetime basis to try to help create -- to invest in basic research, which i think is the proper role of government. this is where my cato institute friend and i might disagree. i think there's a role for government in building capacity, building infrastructure, and that is what we use the money for. it was not stimulative in terms of an economic recovery, but we already handled our budget because we have a balanced budget requirement. as almost every other state, we had to make decisions and challenge how we do things, and we got through the crisis quite well. similarly, i think many states did the same thing this last year. florida did not raise taxes the last couple of years. florida has not raised taxes. in fact, florida has cut taxes. the challenge became an opportunity, which happens in the private sector as well. when you do not have the pressure of a balanced budget requirement, as you all do not have here, then it does not really matter, but every other jurisdiction -- local and state governments -- have that challenge, and they adjust. i would say, to use the clean energy example, a better approach would be to spend less money, but spend it on basic research that creates the disrupted technologies that are market-based -- disruptive technologies that are market- based instead of picking and winners -- instead of picking winners and losers that ends up protecting companies that did not have the best ideas. the market than punish them, and the united states government was out of pocket. a better approach would be for the government to do what it does best, which is to fund basic research, applied research, to be able to create the next generation of industries, but let the market solutions be the means by which we achieve the desired result. >> i believe in the 50 states as the laboratories of democracy. i believe in federalism. i believe we ought to get a lot of these programs out of washington and let the states figure out whether they want to do them. we have had job-training programs since john f. kennedy's administration. they have never worked very well. let states fund it and do it, and then the states can learn from each other to see what works. the problem is we have over 1000 federal aid to state programs now. they are massively bureaucratic. there are rules and regulations with each of these programs. they put state governments in a straitjacket, which does not make any sense, and we see that now with no child left behind -- states have rebelled against that. we have sort of a marble cake with american federalism, and we should have a layer cake with each level of government doing their own programs and the states looking to see what works. to transition over to canada -- this is one of the things canada did. two decades ago, canada was in a horrible budget situation -- massive deficits, overspending, wall street downgrading its debt. they did a series of five years of really big spending cuts. they cut their total federal budget 10% in two, which would be like us cutting $400 billion out of the budget -- in two years. they cut aid to foreign governments. they cut defense. they cut all kinds of stuff, and it has worked extremely well. the canadian economy did not go into recession. the canadian economy boomed for 15 years. even as these spending cuts dramatically dropped the size of their government. but a couple of numbers on that, go back a couple of decades. federal governments in canada and the united states were both around 23%, 24% of gdp. the canadian federal government is around 15% of gdp. ours is up around 23%, 24%. they cut government and decentralized federalization, and it worked very well. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i do believe this is a lot of agreement, but let me just start with what got me going here. the chairman, in his opening remarks, talk about the obama's administration and crony capitalism and continued to refer to the auto rescue. not as an example a government package that created millions of jobs -- that rescued millions of jobs, but as an example of cronyism. i believe you supported the efforts that president bush took to rescue the financial sector, which, in part, precipitated the crisis. many of us believe it was also appropriate to take the actions that president obama did to help rescue the auto industry and a billion jobs. did you support that effort? no? ok. i understand. do you agree with governor romney's position that we should have let them go bankrupt? >> they did go bankrupt, but it was in a way -- it was a government-induced bankruptcy that allowed for general motors now not to pay taxes, based on profits that otherwise they would have to be paying taxes on. that is the form of capitalism when the government intervenes in a very muscular kind of way, and i do not believe that is appropriate. and then maybe i made an assumption. maybe i was wrong. did you support the rescue of wall street banks? >> i have never been asked that either. now you are asking. i think given the circumstances of the potential for a meltdown that would have been hard to recover, some support was appropriate. was the next step adding regulations on top of regulations? the congressman in his remarks made an interesting point -- assuming there was no regulation on the banks or financial services industry prior to the passage of dodd-frank -- in fact, there was massive regulation. i would argue that enforcement was the problem. in short term solution to a problem that had global implications -- i think that was probably the right thing to do -- as a short-term solution to a problem that had global implications. to add on to the challenge that we face massive rules that will take years to implement that create more uncertainty and the probability of more unintended consequences that will create a weakening economy rather than a strengthening one, i think it was the wrong approach. >> thank you for stating your position on the record. i think many of us believe the decision to help rescue the financial industry was a bitter pill, but a necessary one. many of us also thought it was worth taking extraordinary action to help save over 1 million jobs in the auto industry. let me talk about government expenditures. a figure of government spending right now is about $6 trillion, and a big part of that is social security, which came about after the great depression as a way to provide retirement security for americans. i assume, per your testimony, you do not think that is an inappropriate interference in the marketplace? >> that is correct. >> another major part of that is the medicare program. we realized in the 1960's that the private health insurance market did not see a lot of profits to be made in ensuring older and relatively sicker people, so that is a major chunk -- in insuring older and relatively sicker people. i assume you think that is a brief intervention -- appropriate intervention in the marketplace? the idea that there should be some government role in providing health security to seniors? >> in a dramatically different way, i could see it happening, but i'm not sure that accepting medicare as it was created in 1965 in 2012 -- i mean, that is the problem. we have this attitude that if you start something in the mid- 20th century, it is appropriate to keep doing it the same way 50 years later. >> governor, actually, there is a difference of opinion as to what kind of reforms we need to take in medicare. that is a long discussion, but i think everybody around this table recognizes that we need to address those issues. we have different models, and there are efforts to modernize the program. the part of the budget that most of this conversation is circled around, at least with respect to the spending side, is discretionary budget, which represents about 16 percent today of our overall budget. it is a shrinking part of the budget, as a result of the cuts that we made in the budget control act last august. it will be reduced to a -- the lowest percentage of the economy since the eisenhower administration. it is the part of the budget that helps the fbi, homeland security, and you mentioned basic research. nih, i think you agree, does an incredible amount of important research. there are lots of investments at nih research that do not pan out, that do not cure cancer. i hope you will agree with the logic that just because some of those investments in particular research project do not pan out, that the solution is to get rid of investments in nih -- you are not suggesting that, are you? >> there is a huge difference between a loan guarantee for solyndra and investment in nih. of course, research never works out exactly, but through trial and error, great minds develop discoveries in cooperation with other scientists that yield results that improve the human condition. it is not a venture capital investment. it is more related to an expenditure that i think is more than appropriate for the federal government to have. you know, there may be cuts over a very high base, but there have been dramatic increases in spending at nih if you look at it over the last 20 years. i am not uncomfortable with that. i brought it up in my testimony -- you should challenge every method of how money is spent. a particular size project by a particular research if it does not work out -- that is not my point. >> i did not think it was. we also have stood a loan programs. not every student loan gets repaid. most of us anyway, those who support a student loan program say we do not get -- do not say that if we do not get student loans repaid -- i do not think the solution is to shut down stallone's. you mentioned doing more advanced, cutting edge research into energy. i agree. i think that is a very important role. the budget that is coming out of this house significantly cuts into the proposals the president has asked for in that very area. i think back -- that, you know -- the chairman asked about efforts by governors. i know many governors who have made efforts into the energy area. some of them were successful and some not. i hope you do not think that because some of these did not work out we should not be making investments in basic research and applied research, as you mentioned. let me close with this -- i agree with you. i also agree with mr. edwards that we should get rid of some of those agricultural subsidies we put forward or proposed recently. but i agree with you back -- that if we find a program that is not working, let's get rid of it. i wonder if he would take the same approach to tax expenditures that are not serving their purpose. in other words, would you agree that if you identify a tax expenditure that is not serving any useful purpose, that we just get rid of it to reduce the deficit? >> i would love to seek common ground, to see dramatic reductions of tax expenditures, or whatever you want to call them, and have a dollar for dollar reduction in tax rates that would spur economic activity that would move us away from an l-shaped recovery to a v-shaped recovery. >> you disagree that wish to make the tax code simpler and use the funds generated to help reduce the deficit? you agree with essentially the form of the grover norquist pledge, which is -- do you agree with the grover norquist pledge? >> i ran for office three times. the pledge was presented to be three times. i never signed the pledge. i cut taxes every year i was governor. i respect grover's political involvement. he has every right to do it, but i never signed any pledge. >> thank you, mr. governor. >> thank you very much, governor. good to see you. thank you for being here. if i may, thank you for being here not only as a representative of a family with extraordinarily -- an extraordinary remarkable -- an extraordinarily remarkable record of public service, but being here with accomplishments of your own and certainly with the ability to speak for yourself, not for every other member of your family. thanks for being here. >> mr. congressman, can i say that my brother says his warm regards to congressman waxman? >> i am sure he does and i'm sure he does it from a great distance. i appreciate your brothers class, frankly, since he has left office as well and the manner in which he has handled himself -- your brother's class. maybe if our committee operated a little more like we saw yesterday at the white house, we would get a little bit further down the road. we have dealt with a lot of history here. i'm not exactly sure why we are always look like -- looking back, maybe trying to score political points. i want to ask you about a couple of comments we will be facing very quickly. the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will soon be expiring, and the president saw fit to extend as a couple of years ago. he must've thought at that point those tax cuts were in the best interests of the economy. got a couple of things he wanted as well -- an extension on unemployment, the payroll tax cut as well. all of those things will be revisited. i would like very much your views on whether those tax cuts ought to be extended and what other things within the tax code you think we ought to be doing to try to achieve the objectives you outlined in your remarks. >> i think, given the economic circumstances we are in, i think they should be extended. the idea that a cut in taxes that took place 12 years ago is an extension of a tax cut rather than what it truly is, which on december 31, if nothing happens, a massive tax increase -- something close to 3% of gdp, which would be a historic tax increase -- the country has never done anything of that scale -- speaks to the language of washington. i have never understood why we would not -- maybe it is because of budgeting considerations that it is an extension of a tax cut, but basically, you are talking about a massive tax increase. i do not think that is the proper way to restore economic growth. i think the objective ought to be that if we are growing at 1.5% per year at a time where historically, in this time of the cycle, we should be growing at 4%, 5%, 6% and have a stable growth over a sustained time at 3% instead of 1.5% -- that 2% incremental growth over two years, which is how you all look at your budget -- that growth creates a germany in the 10th year. the incremental growth create something like $2.90 trillion of additional economic activity -- creates something like $2.90 trillion of additional economic activity. that is over $1 trillion of revenues without raising taxes. the focus ought to be, in my mind -- how do you create sustained economic growth? and then you restore the proper balance of government. if we are always reacting assuming we will only grow at 1% per year than we are in a heap of trouble. there is no way to get out of the mess we are in where we are spending roughly 40 cents of every dollar financed in increasingly shorter durations in monetary policies that yield 0% interest rates. at some point, we will not be slightly larger than the smallest country in europe, and the focus of the world's financial institutions and investors will be looking at the united states. when that happens, we are not prepared because we have not dealt with the structural challenge we have faced, and we are not creating a higher-growth economy, and then the price we pay is enormous, particularly for the next generation. i would say the place you can get the greatest sustained growth would be an energy policy based on our own resources and based on american innovation. i would argue -- i'm a little out of step with my own party here perhaps, temporarily -- i would argue for looking at immigration as an economic solution to our problems. that we identify aspirational people, allow them to come in and pursue their dreams in our own country. i think a total review of the rulemaking process and existing regulations on our country today, to apply 20th century rules on top of our economy would be a burst of economic activity. and a transfer of our educational system at the state and local level. those things are not necessarily idealogical. i'm sure your tax fights will go on without me. that might help create economic growth, and then the debate might not be about the ones we are having in washington today and might be about something different. i think tax reform would create a really interesting climate for sustained growth. >> thank you, governor. i yield back. thanke in for meat -- >> you. your information sounded good to me. >> it might sound good to me, too. i want to ask you whether you support the dream act, as it has been introduced, for young people who came here through no decision of their own as a child have a path to citizenship if they play by the rules, go to school, and are ready to contribute to america. >> i have not seen the current form -- >> it is the same version we have offered the last four sessions against republican opposition. >> i am not familiar with it. i do not want to insult you, but i do support -- i have read senator rubio's plan. let me go to something you mention -- why should a company raise taxes for something to support one of its competitors? mr. edwards answered the question specifically in saying the place to start is to eliminate $100 billion almost of business subsidies every year. do you agree with him? >> yes. this is a place where there seems to be common ground. i think we should go through a thoughtful review of all sorts of subsidies -- >> i know we want to be thoughtful, and i know we want to review, but do you agree that we should eliminate $100 million of business subsidies? >> with all due respect, i do not know. give me the specifics, and i'm happy to answer. >> i will give you a specific that i think is included, and that is $4 billion every year in preferential tax treatment to exxon, chevron, and the other big oil companies for drilling off our coast lines. do you favor eliminating those subsidies? >> i return for lower tax rates? i think that is exactly what we ought to be doing. >> great. we have had discussions about simplifying the federal tax code. everyone is for it, but it has been simply impossible to get a description of any preferential tax provisions or loopholes that ought to be close. could you identify, in addition to closing the preferential treatment for exxon, any other tax loopholes or preferential tax provisions that you favor closing? >> first of all, just to be clear because this is a gotcha kind of environment, it seems -- i am not specifically for closing loopholes just for exxon. let's be clear. i would say this ought to be industry-wide in return for lower rates. are you asking me should we target one company? >> i am asking me, if -- i am asking, if we were to lower corporate rates, which is something i agree on, and we do not borrow from the chinese and the saudis to do it, you had indicated you would be willing to close the loophole for exxon and chevron to pay for that. i am asking if you can identify anything else, since i cannot get my colleagues to do that, to identify any of the loopholes they will close. which other ones are you in favor of closing in order to get lower corporate tax rates and not have to borrow from the chinese? >> i would start by doing it like -- maybe you all can start with all of them being eliminated and build from that basis. i think the general approach ought to be that this is -- this crisis that we face is an opportunity to recast who we are as a nation. do we trust the american people interacting amongst themselves in ways that have historically created more prosperity than this command-and-control approach? >> i appreciate that, and we have had some bipartisan commissions looking at our budget. every one of them has said we cannot get our budget in balance without new revenues. in contrast, republican presidential candidates, when offered the choice of $1 of new revenue for $10 of reduced spending said they would not agree to a bipartisan agreement like that. would you? >> 10 to one? this will prove i'm not running for anything. yes. i appreciate your candor. basically, we cannot close the budget gap without addressing both spending and revenue, as all of those bipartisan commissions have recommended. would you agree? >> if you could bring to be a majority of people to say that we are going to have $10 of spending cuts or $1 of revenue enhancement, put me in, coach. >> thanks for your testimony. >> that would be wonderful. let's see it. that would be spectacular. >> thank you. thanks to all of you for being here. when i went back to the fortune 500 list and the energy companies there and how much money they make, i rarely hear anyone talk about the top five technology companies on the fortune 500 list who make more than the top energy companies, but the conversation is always about what we do to hit the oil companies, and it goes back to the same question -- it is this body trying to determine who they like and do not like today, and then to determine tax policy to determine what company makes too much money that you do not like and what companies make just enough money that you do like. the challenge becomes -- how do we handle a tax policy that actually reforms the system and that cleans up all the preferences that are out there? mr. edwards, you have made multiple comments on this, and i would like to hear what you think about the process you see working through the system, that it does not come down to this body determining "i like you, and i do not like you" kind of politics. >> canada has chopped their federal corporate tax rate to 15% right now. if the look at our 35% corporate tax rate, it raises the same amount of gdp. what is going on? the canadians collect just as much as we do with a rate that is less than half as high. there has been a massive reduction in tax avoidance in canada. the biggest loopholes are not the legislative loopholes but the one for the energy industry. they are automatic loopholes. if you had a high rate, it pushes companies to bend the law, to move their profits offshore in fancy ways would fancy financial accounting. if we lowered our rates, that money would come back to the united states. it is the tech companies that are the best at this automatic loopholes stuff. apple and microsoft are great at legally moving their profits offshore. their profits are very mobile and the global economy, intellectual property is very mobile. these companies move their intellectual property offshore in legal ways. that is the most important thing for us to do. >> i am astounded at the number of times we have talked about the gm bailout. that was a bankruptcy process. many of us a flight delta air lines, or american airlines. i will get on an american airlines flight this afternoon, currently going through bankruptcy. you go back to the preferences of how we pick and choose what is our favorite group and how we will help them and not help another, there was not a rush to go bailout american airlines. it was just a rush -- another one is the venture capital. he sinks a lot of his time into that. this body seems to spend a lot of time -- this entrepreneur or less to do this kind of stuff, but it is his money. how would you suppose we processed through some of those areas a start up? when we moved from research to implementation? >> with venture capital and angel investment, tax rates are extremely important. capital gains tax rates are important because these wealthy people, they invest in new companies, what is their return? they pumped 50,000 or $100,000 in a new company. they have to wait to see if the company makes it into profitability. if it does come that they get a capital gain as a return. -- if it does, they get a capital gain as a return. it is a direct incentive for them to invest. ordinary income-tax rates are very important because a lot of people in the very top income groups are small business people and our angel investors. there are 300,000 angel investors in the united states. these are rich people who spend a lot of time pumping money into small start-ups. if you raise the tax rates on them, they will have less cash and less incentive to put their money into new startup companies. we have to look at tax policies to spur more financing of entrepreneurship. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to the panel. governor, welcome. my family owns a company based in your state. my brother is down their running it. -- tehre running it. -- there running it. i am astounded about the discussion of special interest and there has been no discussion in terms of approaching that about the ladies preferences get into the law. i am talking about campaign -- about the way these preferences get into the law. in terms of dealing with all these things, do you believe that has any role or that we ought to address the way we finance campaigns? many of these preferences get put into the law because of the lobbying and the money in the political system. >> in a perfect world, we could have a different financing system. i love the idea of having campaigned be funded directly rather than indirectly. and have no limits and total transparency. if people were offended by a large donor, the candidate would have to accept responsibility for the message and for the amount of money. that would be, for me, talking about markets rather than the government controlled kind of response, it would be a better approach. magic wands did not exist. the law exist the way it is. i would suggest congress ought to show more self restraint about 11 bad influence to change policy, -- allowing that influence to change policy, if that is the view. this should not be a honey pot for people to create a sanctuary for their own business, to give them advantage at the expense of another business, or to give them a special deal that hinders the ability to recover any more robust way. >> would you like to comment briefly on that? >> why not pick on energy? they are not doing it because they think we ought to let the free market worked its way. alternative energy -- i am sure they want to promote that. i will not go into that. corporate leaders have a fundamental right to lobby or petition congress. there is nothing we can do about that. that is the fundamental rights, it is always going to happen. you can pass as many laws at issue want, i do not think it will stop that. -- as you want, but i do not think it will stop that. you can stop spending the money. having business subsidy programs, you throw fuel on the fire of the lobbyists. the more business subsidies companies did, the more they will lobby for more business subsidies. it is a vicious cycle. >> congressman, would you like to comment? >> of the rich and powerful want to stay rich and powerful. unless the government gets involved, they will get richer. the lower income people will not benefit. it is going to be the wealthy few. some of these energy companies, they do not want competition from alternative energy. they want to squash energy. -- competition. we certainly oughton the house e dealing with the appropriations for the energy and water bill and we are cutting the money for the cutting edge energy research at nearly a third below current level. they're cutting back on research and we are hearing everybody is to blame, so what we need to do is to have the government do less and less the rich and powerful state rich and powerful. >> i really applaud your comment about research and also about immigration reform. what would you say about infrastructure? that is an important thing we ought to be dealing with. >> i am an old school guy. i think the role of government is to protect our shores, provide security on our streets, to be the means by which we build and the structure so we can grow. this is not the role of the federal government. so that these gaps in income are dealt with in a more fundamental way. prepare people to be more competitive in an open system, trying to -- rather than trying to redistribute wealth. i am a conservative, that is what i think. beyond that, if anything ought to be challenged. if you do not challenge it, those are the things that get squeezed out. >> thank you. this has been very educational. governor, had saw to your family as well. -- how it's off to your family as well. i was so proud to be an american family -- i was so proud to be an american - 9. -- last night. i also do not think you are old school. i think you believe in the constitution. it is a unique document, the first time those ideas came together at the same time. i hope we never lose sight of that. i want to focus on my colleague, mr. waxman's commons. we have some questions to answer. we are at a crossroads for the heart and soul of this nation. the rules of the road, as if that is what one of the groups around your bonds to do. as if the other group wants to engage in anarchy. which could not be further from the truth. we all understand that there is a need for government and a need for it to have reasonable regulations so that there is an even playing field. equal opportunity for success. perhaps that is where the differences. on another level, i think this is really about how much control is appropriate for government to have over the individual. i think that is where we really disagree. this last year, i engaged in my office a program called red tape will back. -- rollback. one congressmen's work to try to roll back the scope and a heavy boot of this federal government. we had 71 different businesses and individuals. about 41 separate different regulations. most were very obscure. they prove that what this federal government and what a certain group of people in washington, d.c., want to do goes far beyond establishing the rules of the road. several farmers roche in and said the epa is considering regulating the dust that might tractor's kick up as to cultivate the fields. that is not establishing the rules of the road. another group of farmers said, they want to limits the kind of work that farm kids do. this country was built on work ethic and character and liberty. all those qualities in past generations and in current generations occurred through work on a farm. and worked in other places. the department is labor -- the department of labour is considering prohibiting youth soccer referees. i used to be a referee. the department of labour is considering prohibiting these kids from earning the $10 a game. little soccer games that happen on the weekends and after school all over this country. for some of us, that is establishing apparently, the rules of the road. for others, that goes way beyond what is necessary. i do not know any other country on the face of the earth that is so -- more masochistic and we are. when it comes to carving something out of the ground like oil and considering it well. every other country understands this, and exploits it in the best sense of the word to its benefit. except for a group of people here in america, who cannot understand that. that is beyond the rules of the road. we are getting told what light bulbs to use. , it's water can be and are toilet. -- how much water can be in our toilet. a farmer has to get pesticide permits from the same agency. we have a medical device tax being proposed. there are 300 medical device companies in indiana. all this started as an entrepreneurship. another foundation of this country. yet we think that it is within the rules of the road to put a tax on these folks and think they will keep innovating, they will keep creating. that is just a couple of examples in this document, mr. chairman. >> i want to thank the panelists for being here. i am a classroom teacher, i am not a financial expert. we have bounced all over the map. we've talked about free enterprise, barriers to free enterprise. i heard from each one of the things i do agree. and some of you, i disagree with the very strongly. i guess what we are hearing are high plains and low points of each other's party. i think this country -- are high plains and low points of each other's party. -- high plains and low points of each other's party. looking to a balanced approach to our economy, a balanced approach to being fair to each other, do you really think that money behind each person is a factor that gives power to a vote? it seems that only talk about the votes, we talk about money first, rather it the power of each individual's -- one man, one vote, regardless of their standing. where would we be today if we -- where would we be today in this country if if each person had the same amount of votes without reference to their economic standing? how would that affect -- how would that affect our economy in this country? >> we would be in a heap of trouble. in power and people to make decisions -- as it relates to money and politics, we have parity, both sides spent the same amount of money. if you total it all up. four years ago, president obama and his team spent more. this time, it looks like it is about the same. >> with respect to one person, one vote, without respect to the pocketbook -- >> i am for it. >> going through a comparison -- if you had the money, how that would be different. >> all i am saying is that money goes to both parties. it is equal opportunity. >> you are suggesting that because the wealthy are more powerful and they can -- >> i am not sure i suggested. i am just asking. if each person had a vote to and that one vote counted without respect to their pocketbook, how would that be different than what we're looking at today? >> that is a political science question. the main reason why policymakers make decisions is because of the voters in their district. it is not money, it is what they think the voters want in their district. i think we already have an equality between voters. >> why do we need supreme court decisions that define corporations as individuals? >> i do not buy the line -- the idea that corporations have so much power in washington, more power than anyone else. if that was true, why do we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world? if corporations were so powerful, they would have cut the corporate tax rate and done all kinds of things to benefit them. the problem is that corporations spend all their time pushing for these narrow benefits just for their company, often to get a competitive advantage. i want the government and the economy to be a referee to provide equal treatment. i am against any kind of on equal treatment for businesses or individuals. -- in equal treatment for businesses or individuals. >> we talked about the special interests in washington. at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. he is absolutely right. we opened up the special interest elections by distortions. there is a fantasy that has been circulated that epa wants to regulate farm dust. this was referred to a minute ago. that is not true. they are not proposing anything like it, but that example promoted by the special interest is being used to undermine the bill that gov. bush's father's side. which is the clean air act. it calls for regulation of arsenic and toxic pollution from mines and power plants and other industrial facilities that poison kids. kids get their mind destroyed, often before they're even born, because of exposure to these chemicals. they take a little example, blow it up, you do not even know who is paying for the ad, and then they get their way to try to repeal the bush i respected the most, his greatest accomplishment. only because i do not know gov. bush well enough. [laughter] you have to have regulations because the benefitss so heavily weighed the owl -- so heavily outweigh the costs. promoting a community that can work together and accomplish great things. money speaks very loudly and that supreme court decision made a big megaphone to people who have a lot of money. >> i want to thank the panel for being here as well. i've really enjoyed the conversation so far. i wanted to pass on to gov. bush. i had a chance to visit with your son within the past year. we have exchanged e-mails and he is a great guy. i am really glad to get to know him. i am sure he reflects the values that you taught him. i appreciate your family. i want to talk about states' rights, states' responsibilities. i really do believe that the states are going to be the solution to the problems that the federal government has created and has been a major part of. i was in the indiana legislature in 2004 when gov. daniels was elected. we had a transportation hole to fill. none of us felt that was the right thing to do. to raise taxes or borrow money from the future. there is a toll road we have an indiana. for $3.8 billion from the private sector. now washington is wanting to punish indiana because we were creative, we were trying to find other ways of finding transportation programs. gov. bush, if you could talk about that. mr. edwards, if you could talk about that. congressman waxman, coming from the state of california talk about where it -- why can we allow states to be creative in finding solutions like that within the state? >> i love that deal because they overpaid. in this case, indiana least out a road that people from illinois and ohio pay disproportionate fares. the money was -- it was a very creative deal. around the world, this is commonplace. center-left, center-right, it does not matter. it seems as though this idea of public-private partnerships is very common. the united states has lagged way behind in this regard. this is an example of we must do it the way we were doing it rather than pausing for a moment and saying, are their best practices we could apply from other places? to allow states to be the laboratories would be a great idea. canada -- transformation has allowed them to whether these huge storms. far better than we did. there reforms and their pension obligations and the things they did to get their government back to the proper level were done under conservative and liberal administrations. this was not an ideological battle. it was simply a recognition that the structural problems that exist, fix the structural problems. that seemed to be the duty of leaders in canada. now they are paying a huge dividend because -- i will give you another example. medicaid, i got a waiver to try a different approach on medicaid. it is based on independent analysis, it has proven to be more effective. where we moved if -- effectively to a defined contribution system, we got better health care outcomes, in power people to make decisions for themselves, and yielded a better result. that pilot that exist, i think the law is even better than what we proposed. it was modified based on seeing what the pilots yielded. now it is part of obama administration to see if they can get an extension of the waiver. >> letting states try things on their own. in california, we adopted a medical malpractice law that has held down insurance rates for doctors. what did the republicans want to do? law, taket a federal the power away from the states, and have one size fits all medical malpractice. that is their solution to health insurance inequities where people cannot buy insurance because the companies discriminate against them. we will learn allot -- we will learn a lot. >> to punish indiana for that told rolll road? >> i want to learn more about it. >> mr. waxman, i have two questions. after july 2010, the government ended subsidized banks to make guaranteed student loans. switching to 100% government direct lending saved taxpayers $61 billion over 10 years. i want to know if you thought performing the student loan program was in the best interest of the taxpayer. my second question involves a hearing that you had in 2008 were you held a series of hearings with the ceo of lehman brothers, aig, and others into the causes of the wall street collapse. i wanted to know if you could share what you learned from the testimony that was given about the need of the government to regulate. >> there are a lot of people look at the lot and then try to figure out how to get around it did that with the tax system all the time. they have to pay their taxes, but they look if they can expand loopholes to their benefit. the student loans have been abused, a lot by the private colleges that get students federal loan money. and they do not deliver the education that they promise. we have a chance to lower the interest rates for students who are struggling under the cost of student loan higher interest. the republicans -- they have come up with a new proposal. they want to take away the ability of states to raise money for their medicaid costs through taxes, on the providers. it is being used by many states. if the state cannot come up with the money, the state cannot provide service for the very poor. that does not make sense to me. we had a lot of interesting hearings about what happened in 2008. the most dramatic ones to me was alan greenspan had the power of the head of the federal reserve to regulate some of these loans that would be used for mortgages. it brought about the downfall. he had the power to regulate, and he did not. i asked him whether his ideology kept him from recognizing the failure in the market. and he said he was shocked that he was blinded by his ideology. he thought markets will correct themselves. what i am concerned about, there is too much of the faith that markets will correct themselves, that businesses will do things right. they will if they have the rules of the road to regulate them and make sure they do not abuse their power. it also means we have to protect the public. whether the biggest problems for the 2008 recession, whatever laws we had were not being enforced, laws that should of been adopted were not adopted by the federal reserve. you cannot use other people's money and take these kinds of risks. the glass-steagall restrictions came about in the great depression. banks, up we will protect you with federal dollars. -- we will protect you with federal dollars. that was repealed under president clinton come up with strong bipartisan support. it allowed the banks to take all those risks. with those risks, the taxpayers ended up having to pay the cost. a lot of people are still suffering because of unemployment. >> with the remainder of your time, if you would like to -- the document about regulation. >> you gave a bunch of examples and i could not agree more. we do not want stupid regulation. regulations are needed. in order to protect the public interest. president george h. w. bush signed the law that put in place a cap-and-trade program that told private enterprise, you figure out how to reduce the sulfur emissions causing acid rain. they're killing this forests and the streams in the northeast and canada. he said, we cannot allow that. you have all the market incentives. the industry said, we will go bankrupt. but they did at less than a fraction of the price they said it would cost, and were successful. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this has been an interesting conversation. we have talked about tax deductions and subsidies a little bit. one program that i have become aware of in my last 16 months being in this office and visiting a number of the industries in my district, does better in the food production area have made me aware -- those that are in the food production area has made me aware of market allotments. in the sugar program, market allotment to certain producers based on their history and their expected productions. this has made it difficult for new entrants to come into the market, which they tell me really does cause unnatural high costs for sugar. does the sugar program for these market allotments, in your opinion, provide a structural barriers? >> absolutely. it is an interesting example of corporate welfare. it is a regulatory corporate welfare program. the united states has a soviet- style system for sugar production. we have detailed quotas, loan programs that guarantee the price. what it does is by blocking entry into that industry, it raises the domestic sugar price. it is twice the world sugar price. the effect is to hurt consumers. it hurts consumers buy about $2 billion a year. it also hurts u.s. companies that produce food items with sugar. companies like kellogg, companies that make chocolate bars, they have had to move their production out of the country to canada or mexico to access the lower price sugar. it is an example of corporate welfare. it creates a broader damage to other businesses. >> one of the pieces of information they gave me was an actual advertisement coming from the canadian companies. produce your cake and the united states, but send it to canada to get its sugar frosting. they can save some much money. we see a market that is moving into canada, taking jobs away from us. and increasing the cost of the consumer at the other and. i appreciate your information on that. are there other market allotments that you would raise up. besides sugar? >> we have similar sort of programs with the u.s. dairy production. it asks the same way. it is competition -- a blocks competition in favor of existing producers and pushes up the price of milk and dairy products, which often hurts lower income americans. there is a lot the federal government does that help certain businesses, but it hurts consumers. >> thank you so much. gov. bush, i was in the state government the same time you were dealing with your medicaid issues. we were looking at your state as a model. i know was a successful program. i did not have the kind of support i needed to bring that same model to the state of tennessee. would you agree that block granting medicaid may be a more effective way for states to come up with their own ingenuity on how they can best provide for those who need that safety net? >> i think there ought to be a careful review of the rules that go along with the block grant. if you have to apply -- you do not get a waiver from some of the requirements, that would be a challenge. it is a far better approach to be forced to innovates because state budgets, i do not know if there is a single state that does not have a challenge with the medicaid budget. they are forced to either stop spending on other things. we have balanced budget requirements. or reform how medicare works. been given the freedom to reform and innovate in return for some fixed amount of money that would come, we were probably one-half of the growth projected. if we gave up half of the growth in turn for the ability to innovate, that is a good trade- off. >> thank you for that because i think we continue to think about taxing and bring more revenue from taxing to help subsidize these programs, and yet there are some innovative ways to do it using market competition. >> thank you, mr. chairman. if i have learned anything in my 45 years is that nothing is black and white. there are very few absolutes in this world. that is one of the reasons why i think the extreme tea party ideology is so divorced from reality. free enterprise and government are not either or propositions. thank goodness we have both. we celebrate capitalism and free markets in america. i hope that we recognize that after living through the worst economic collapse in our lifetimes, that reasonable oversight of wall street is important. when you talk about government in america, i view government as a way to secure opportunities for all. thomas jefferson wrote in the declaration of independence that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. jefferson said, to secure these rights, governments are instituted. people want good government. thank goodness in this experiment, it created the greatest nation in the world. we have successes to celebrate in government. other countries look at us, and they see the premier government funded medical research center, second to none. we can build bridges, airports, our commitment to taking care of our veterans is second to none. that is something that the government does a pretty darn good job of. our public schools and colleges and universities are the envy of the world. people want these institutions to succeed. i do not understand this extreme tea party ideology is dead says government has no role to play -- that says the government has no role to play. what drives citizens crazy or these impediments to free enterprise when these special interest achieved unfair advantage. they use campaign contributions or their political influence to gain an undue advantage when it comes to public policy. i have seen it in the state of florida. we have a fundamental disagreement in policy over education. governor, you are an outspoken advocate for school vouchers. i view vouchers as kind of a corporate welfare scheme or you are taking money from the public schools, undermining their mission, giving those funds to private for-profit centers. i think those vouchers, with no accountability for student success or fiscal responsibility for oversight. i fear what is happening with your pushed to take tax. dollars and give it to the -- tax payer dollars and give it to the digital classroom as a substitute for a good teacher and a good classroom. as a supplement, fine, but to drain public resources and hurts our public schools by focusing on a digital classroom, i think is questionable. here is the inconsistency. the vouchers, digital schools without classrooms, these are not free enterprise. it would be an independent, private school, not dependent on government funds. what we have here our government back to government funded businesses. what you call it when a private for-profit business uses its political contacts to get the government to direct money to a private business rather than public schools? you said honeypot. is that capitalism? or just effective lobbying? the national education policy center wrote in a recent report that these prescriptions are part of a corporate driven agenda to access public education funds. these folks talk about the free market, but they cannot exist without taxpayer dollars. >> since you used all of your time on the preamble to the governor, take time to respond. >> the voucher programs that exist are free in florida. you have a corporate tax scholarship program where companies voluntarily give a dollar for dollar credit to an organization that is not for profit that provides for low income floridians a chance to go to a private school. every one of those is a not-for- profit, not a for-profit. we have a scholarship program that says if a parent is not satisfied based on federal law with the individual education plans, they can take a dollar for dollar the money -- is not the government money. it is their money. for their child to go to a private auction. every one of those entities is a not-for-profit as well. to use the thomas jefferson analogy, i do not think president jefferson, if he knew we were spending at the level we were spending, if you saw the size and scope of the federal government, and he would be appalled. why not empower people that cannot have choices to be able to have choices to be able to go to another option? it has worked. public-school until the state of florida are better off base on the only measurement that matters which are out comes, based on this course, public schools are better. we have gone to 31 in the fourth grade reading to something like now we are 11th out of 56. >> the same accountability standards have not been applied -- >> the time has been expired. the time for the gentle lady has expired. he gets time to respond. >> on digital learning, the great majority of the courses will be done in the classroom. high-quality content. using the internet and the abilities for adaptive software to enhance the learning experience seems to be a 21st century solution that ought to be embraced by everyone. a great majority of people in the states are supporting this. thank you. >> thank you. governor, thank you for being here. you brought up a scholarship issue. that is a tremendous model for providing options for special needs children and their families. it has been a very successful program. i applaud your efforts on medicare reform. in kansas, we have tried to emulate and implement some of those. it is interesting that we put some proposals before the state that she wanted to do when she was governor so we look forward to her approval. one thing i want to talk about is the obama jobs deficit. based on the projections from the administration with their stimulus package that if nothing had passed in the stimulus package, they project it the unemployment rate today would be 6%. if nothing were done. it is sitting at 8.2%. this is a 13 million job failure. i will ask the governor, can you tell us why that stimulus plan failed? it will cost about $1 trillion. >> i think it's astounding. it is the slowest recovery of any of the recessions since world warii. what market economies do when they are left alone as they naturally adjusts. the economy starts growing again. when the government leaves it alone, it starts growing again. go back to 1921 carried -- 1921. congress at the time did not do anything in the u.s. economy quickly adjusted and started growing again. there has been lots of mistakes. the jobs problem is ultimately business investments problems. if you look at the national income accounts data, u.s. companies are not building new factories. they are not expanding. they are buying equipment but investment in new factories has not recovered. it plunged al levels today. when businesses invest, they need to hire new workers. we need to get the business investment first. there have been lots of mistakes. the unemployment insurance benefits artificially pushed up the unemployment rate. if you have unemployment benefits for the last two years, you have created national incentives for people not to make the tough decisions they need to to go out and find jobs. i do not believe that the keynesian spending stimulus idea works. we have had it trillion dollar deficit four years in a roll now -- a row now. that this stimulus yet look of the results. the results are still very high unemployment. i do not think this model works. when the government spend more money, it takes money away from the private sector. the private-sector is more efficient. the bigger the government gets, the more you put down gdp. >> i had an employer tell me i do not care how much they give me in tax breaks, i will not hire more people unless there is a demand. we see in europe and the idea of austerity has put england into a double-dip recession. people all over europe are under the yoke of this austerity notion. but we needed to do in this country was to work together on a bipartisan basis but everything president proposed, republicans opposed. i have not heard any jobs proposals from the republicans accepted give upper income people more tax breaks. >> i appreciate that. i do have a question for you. it would be great if you to defend the stimulus -- 30 million jobs short of what the president promised us. i was not here. i presume you voted for it. one thing that has bothered me on the regulatory side is the idea that -- constituents ask if i think washington politicians and regulators can make better decisions than businessmen and women? but there are things called market failures. and things called government failures. but there are market failures and that is what government -- when government needs to step in. if you do not regulate a solution -- the market provides no incentive for polluters to control pollution. it imposes social costs on everybody in terms of disease and death that outweigh the costs to clean up. the other area where there is a failure is insurance companies. >> could you answer the question? i am out of time. >> i am trying to answer your question. the market failure of insurance for health care. people cannot buy it with pre- existing medical conditions. if they have to provide insurance coverage for sick people, they have to raise the cost of insurance for everybody. the idea behind the rahm the plan in massachusetts and the obama plant here was to spread the cost out with the requirement that everybody participate. stimulus either by tax cuts or direct expenditure is what you need with a strong unemployment to get people back to work. that is what we needed to do. i wish there were some republicans who would have helped. there is not a single republican who voted to help. rex thank you, i think you did answer his question. mr. ryan >> thank you. we have covered a lot of ground. i want to go over a few things. with the auto bill out and the government involvement. the reason the government was involved was because there was no private sector money to help marshall them through this bankruptcy. in ohio, one in every eight jobs is tied directly to the auto industry. there are good manufacturing jobs. we would have lost a lot of those. it was my republican car dealer friends coming to washington, d.c, weekly telling us how we needed to do this. i will quote the vice-chairman of general motors who happens to be a republican talking about some of the other republicans letting the auto industry go belly up. he says, it is once again fiction that we did not need the government. this could have been a privately run bankruptcy but the normal tractor 11. but these people deliberately forget is there was no money. nobody had any money and that is what the government had to intervene. for those in ohio, we are very glad they did. also there was an issue of -- i think there is this balance between public-private partnerships. we talked about the indiana turnpike. it is important for those listening to know that the tolls on the indiana turned back have doubled in the last five years. you are not only maintaining the road, you also have to factor in profits. so the tolls that had been privatized have doubled in the last five years. what would the gentleman yield? >> sorry, i only have five minutes. those are the facts. the other thing you mentioned, governor bush, was the issue of canada. how canada solve their problem by the conservatives and liberals coming together. the issue in canada, though, is that the conservatives their would be moderate democrats in an american political system. there is no question about that. what we're trying to argue is that it will take a balance. it will take both parties. it has got to be a moderate approach. like i think he probably espouse and like your front -- father certainly espouses as well. >> structural reform is not really ideological but it did take out your entitlement and pension costs and modified them in a way that made it possible for them to reduce their size of their government as related to the size of the economy. i am not sure that is a -- that is not a ideological thing but it is reality checking. when you have structural problems, you have to pause and deal with them. many countries do that. i would disagree that conservatives are moderate democrats or moderate liberals or whatever. >> canada said let's do some things on a bipartisan basis that makes sense. here we have proposals to cut the safety net out of the poor, take away the guaranteed benefits for medicare so that millionaires and billionaires could have tax cuts. that makes no sense to me. the other bailout was a success. why are we fighting against what was a success? >> i agree. let me ask governor bush one question. the debate of investments and what the role of government is today i think is a very important question for us. in the florida but it's when you were governor went up significantly from $40 billion in 1999 to $74 billion in 2006. my question is what were the investments that were made, what were the priorities given and explain some of those increases. and has floored that yielded some of the benefits from those investments teammate? -- florida yielded some of the benefits from those investments? >> the medicaid budget, the federal government was our partner in increasing. it grew dramatically because we had no control over it. we did spend increased money in real terms on public education. we increased money on land conservation and things that we do the objective was to take one time moneys as best as possible and spend them on long-term things. we created a research focus of taking one time money to spend over the long haul and brought five or six prior research institutes from california -- private research institutes from california. our government grew slower than personal income growth. we had 22,000 fewer state workers in spite of the growth of the government. i think our job creation in the state -- there were good times. it grew faster than any -- created more jobs than any state in the united states. it was a different time than we are in right now. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. edwards, if you had -- let' tax code existing disappeared. would you tell me your top three principles that you would use as a guide in creating a new tax code? >> i would say economic efficiency, simplification and visibility and transparency. dickey is lowering marginal tax rates -- the key is lowering marginal tax rates. simplification -- the tax code is usually complex, especially for business and small business. that is a complaint tax on the overall economy that does not do any of us good. transparency and visibility -- i would take steps -- americans only see half of the social security medicare tax on their pay stubs every couple weeks. they do not know -- they only know half of the giant cost of social security and medicare. i would make them visible on pay stubs. that is the kind of thing i would do. the most important thing, economic efficiency, lowering the corporate tax rate is the single most important thing we can and should do. that has been a bipartisan reform of around the world. even the most socialist welfare states in europe have topped their corporate tax rates because they want their businesses to do well in the global economy. we should do the same. >> where does any corporation get the money to pay their taxes? >> corporate taxes are the ultimate burden on workers, consumers or workers for corporations. every economist left and right agrees with that. there is disagreement about where corporations pushed down the burden but in a global economy, the general rule is the bird and lands on the most evil will factor of production -- the most immobile factor of production. it ultimately lands on labor. american workers. there have been studies by scholars that find most of the corporate tax burden has the effect of lowering the wages of workers. >> thank you. governor, what would your principles? >> that sounds good to me to read a simple, transparent and at a place that creates the most of efficiency for economic growth and for the government to receive the revenues they need to do the basic things. time and again, d.c. examples of -- you see examples of higher rates not necessarily yielding higher revenues for the government. there is an efficiency where the rate will yield a greater amount and will create at the same time, economic activity which is -- which should be the objective. a growing economy creates far more revenue for government. >> if follow-up question on that. if we reform the tax code to eliminate the expenditures, take the savings and apply it to a lower rate that is essentially the effective rate, have really done anything to gain competitiveness or do we need to go below the effective rate? >> i think the first thing that happens when you do that is that your shipping power away from washington and the surrounding areas which is probably the place of greatest economic prosperity right now. back to the rest of the country where economic decisions are made by individuals that want to risk their capital and pursue their dreams. right now, it is fun to go to dulles airport and see these major companies with huge growth. but the construction. income levels here are the highest in the country. why is that? i'm sure maryland has a business climate but it is because this is a source of business now that is incredibly portent -- important for all sorts of businesses. i think he would have more economic activity to simplify the code that would generate more revenues for the government. >> thank you. one, to congressman waxman. he used the phrase -- robber barron. my take, a government that deals money from middle-class taxpayers and gives it to rich bond -- rich companies like solyndra. thank you. i yield back my time. >> i cannot think that was a question. -- i do not think that was a question. >> debbie wasserman sschultz. >> thank you. i want to ask my question from my standpoint as a mother raising three young children attending public schools. and also someone who served for six years in the legislature with you as governor. the onetime monies you just referenced that were created to research institutes from california. i do find some irony. you are under the guise of removing barriers to free enterprise. while in office, he spearheaded a deal to use more than $600 million in public money to build a facility in florida. i remember being called into special sessions so we could pass a one time $310 million gift to thescrips -- the scripps research institute. at the time, you said there was no better way to spend the one time stimulus money than by investing in a product that spurs targeted economic growth. i was on the appropriations committee and remembering questioning you about the importance of accountability with that investment. you insisted that was not necessary. i remember attempting through amendments that we could -- that scripss would have to pay some funds back to the state if jobs were not promise. despite our strong reservations about the script -- this gift, for thets anvoted bill. we tried it your way. let me describe the results. the operation is projected to inflate 545 people by 2014. estimates of the deal and the promises of massive job creation were massively overblown. depending on which proponent you are listening to, it would create 2800 direct jobs after 15 years but as the end of your 7, the employee just 377 people. estimated spin-off jobs were largely overblown. quoting -- the only supported the creation of a projected 615 full-time and part-time " lance. in 2003, there was a $40 million cut for state universities. given the employment numbers which are far lower than projected, was it a good decision to fund this ahead of education and health care ought to mark how many low-income health care -- how many low- income children could have had health care? florida has had one of the worst high school graduation rates in the country. half of the graduate require remediation in conflict. we are paying for companies dependent on importing highly educated employees to relocate rather than investing in --cation to read this year >> will the gentle lady give the gentleman's time to respond? >> i am trying to. but billions of dollars were given away. here is my question. is this -- you said your best advice is a reconsideration of many programs in the federal budget. he said the government critz on attending -- creats unintended consequences. how do you think if we apply your advice that a cost-benefit analysis of 1.3 $2 million would hold up? tens of thousands of low-income children cannot have affordable child care. how could you justify giving away millions of dollars with no accountability? >> again, welcome to the budget committee, governor bush. >> the scripss research institution is a premier, not- for-profit research institute that does world-class research. the accountability you voted for -- i am happy we had your boat. it was based on the money would go out based on the 575 jobs. this is an idea to spur innovation and additional activity. it gets hit by the downturn of the economy but there have been significantly higher numbers of jobs created because of scripps and other institutes. at least during my tenure. we increased funding for research for universities as well. florida has gone from being in the back of the pack to aspiring to top tier status. probably in terms of research spending, no. 5 or no. 4. 10 years ago, we were probably at 25 or higher. from that perspective, it ought to be reviewed. i completely agree with that. for something that isn't it work in progress, had been at this onetime money on these long-term things, the money would have been spent. it would have been spent creating huge recurring gaps that many other states had to deal with that would have ended up creating higher taxes for florida residents and hurt our economy and made our business climate worse. >> the time for the gentle lady has expired. >> i know. let me just say what it is. an article that shows that palm beach county -- should return to its farming roots because it was such a -- >> without objection to read the article will be included. -- without objection. the article will be included. >> it is amazing. thank you mr. chairman. i will not give a five minute campaign speech. mr. edwards, to what extent is it necessary for government to ride infrastructure and how much can the private-sector give? >> the governor touched on this. we are behind a lot of countries around the world in terms of privatizing our infrastructure or moving at the to a public- private partnership structure. the indiana toll road was mentioned but where i live in virginia, the capital beltway is being widened by $1 billion of private money. new tunnels and bridges are being built with private money. there is a lot the private sector can do in terms of infrastructure spending. i am on a monthly e-mail list by a consulting company that tallies the global total of private money going into infrastructure. united states is behind. of australia and canada are ahead of us on this. there is a lot we can do. canada privatizes their air- traffic control system back in 1996. people here think that is crazy. it is run by a self funded nonprofit corporation and has been a huge success. they have international awards for innovation. the private sector can do a lot if we open up some of these barriers to investment. >> mr. waxman earlier talk about market failures. do you have any general thoughts about market failures versus government failures? >> i think there are a lot of government failures that led to the crash in 2008. the federal reserve held interest rates too low. these housing subsidies that helped create the housing bubble. the idea of more regulation is problematic because some of the biggest scandals were not a result of lack of regulations. bernie madoff was the result because the sec was ignoring the evidence out there. the enron corp. debacle was outright fraud. i do not think regulation has been -- is going to solve our problems. >> change of topic. people are paying most taxes to the federal government rather than state or local. do you think that is the right balance? should we shift in the long term toward more taxes going to local governments? >> for a century, there has been a huge central -- pressure of centralization which is problematic. if you look at total government spending in the u.s., it is 70% federal and 30% state and local. it should be the other way around. the federal government should have basic functions we all agree with and we ought to leave a lot of stuff like infrastructure and education to the state and local governments. i believe in democracy. when state and local governments fund their own programs, there is a lot more innovation. the programs are leaner and better run. that is the direction we should move a in. >> as i talk to constituents, there seems to be a lot of anger about similar things. the bailouts, the subsidies, the revolving door between wall street and the treasury department. these are the kinds of things that seem to be a part of interventionism. do you think corruption waste is a natural byproduct of interventionism? is it inevitable that when you have a government is a new are going to get corruption waste? >> absolutely. we will always have lobbying. that will always be a problem. but we do not have to have all these subsidy programs. united states now has -- the federal government, 2000 different subsidy programs for medicare down to obscure programs most of us have never even heard of. all of those programs either get lobby groups that grab on to them and they lobby for more. that is the fundamental problem. we ought to find his corporate cornyn -- corporate crony programs and cut them. >> governor bush, any thoughts on that? >> the more complex, the bigger government debts, the more the interactions and unintended consequences to you will see more of this. the less clarity on what of rules of engagement are. a good example of that is dodd- frank. with 500 separate rule making processes that will take seven or eight years to implement, the unintended consequences of all this will play out. congress will have to adjust its but in the interim, it freezes job-creating activities and it is not a question of regulation. we have regulation in place. if the federal reserve chairman at the time said we did not apply the regulations that the law allowed, that is a separate subject then being the regulated or unregulated. >> agreed is not unique to government. -- greed is not unique to government. you need to establish restrictions so people cannot take advantage of others. that is what we have police, law. the rule of law needs to apply to government and individuals. but we have cronies deciding that salaries of ceos who have contracts who work for executives of those same companies, they will recommend an inflated amount of pay for the ceos. government has nothing to do with that. that is why i was pleased as a result of one of our hearings, the advisers for compensation realized they could not also be the consultants for the corporation. but they did not pay attention to that. there was an area where abuse, because of greed. >> mr. chairman, i will like consent to place certain articles in the record. >> without objection. >> thank you very much. along with the governors biography. welcome, governor, congressman waxman. thank you for being here. governor bush, i read your testimony. you stated, "i understand there may be political support for specific industries and companies and we know from recent experience that government is not good at picking winners and losers in the economy and it is not the job of government to pick winners and losers." i would like to learn more about your thoughts on the financial- services industry, one that i understand you have worked with. according to the wall street journal, shortly after you left the governor's office, you work for lehman brothers in what is described as the in-house investing arm of the company. with that correctly reported? >> i was on the private advisory council of the private equity arm. >> thank you. and you were working for or with lehman brothers when it collapsed? >> i was a consultant adviser. not an employee. >> the still work for and did you receive compensation for that engagement? >> sure. no. i do not still work for them. >> thousands lost their jobs when lehman brothers collapsed. what was your job exactly? >> i was an adviser to lehman brothers. had dealt with -- spent most of my time dealing with their customer base. providing insights on things like the man is in washington, d.c. sharing my experience with customers. it was not related to internal functions of the company but client interface. >> if you could provide any specificity for the record, it would be greatly appreciated. do you think the government picked winners and losers during the financial bailouts? >> i think government oversight was lax. not the rules that were created afterwards. >> might get some clarification on another small point. because of some reporting in a newspaper in england, for whom do you work now and you have any relationship to barkley's? >> idea. -- i do. i am a senior adviser. >> the proper reported that a u.s. -- grounds exist for a claim against top lehman bosses and the auditor for signing off misleading accounting statements in the run-up to the 2008 collapse. the newspaper said the forensic report -- >> does the gentle lady have a question about the subject? >> i do. it bought u.s. business out of bankrupt and got assets to which it was not entitled. are you aware of these allegations and you have a response? >> , no i am not. >> the chief executive officer saw to convince the prime minister to overrule britain's financial-services authority when it refused to fast-track -- >> does this have anything to do with him? >> if you could allow me to finish, according to the newspaper, during the bank's final hours in 2008, they try to strike a wreck -- rescue deal with berkeley's but thefsa would not allow an exemption. the chancellor declined to intervene. he appealed to contract -- contact the prime minister. paulson said he could not call the prime minister. soviet president bush to call -- so he asked president bush to call. they suggested getting jeb bush to get the white house to lean on down. to your knowledge, did your boss make such a suggestion? >> he was not my boss. i was a consultant, as i stated. and he did not ask me to do anything and i did not do anything. >> the gentle lady's time has expired. >> you are not asking him questions about the hearing. you are injecting innuendo. >> it is important for the american people to understand the witnesses before us and what their financial connections are. >> i will start off from testimony from the witnesses. congressman waxman, d made the comment -- you made the comment about consultants on the payroll for the company's and also the ones that are involved with the decision making of the salaries. certainly there is an appearance there. sometimes in politics you can see the same thing were people are making donations to politicians on the one hand and at the same time, those same politicians are making decisions with respect to those donors. is that not the same situation there? >> i think there is an appearance of unseemly ness. that is why i think the system we have for funding campaigns is one we have to change. >> i appreciate that. we have the same situation on financial matters in the situation of mf global. you have the same individual being investigated by the same administration. so there is at least an appearance of impropriety. >> you need to go beyond the parents and look at the facts. >> in your testimony when you make accusations that republicans want to return to an error with no restraints on wall street and the enriching themselves, i do not know how you could say that. you go on to say the problems of 2008 or demonstrated on the collapse of wall street caused by the absence of cops? really? aig were a regulated institution. lehman brothers as well. this gentleman that he was not sitting inside lehman brothers at the time but there were regulators sitting there on a daily basis and they failed to do their job. >> i would dispute that fact. there may be regulators for some things with their financial practices were not being regulated. it was shocking how- poorly the sec did its job. >> that is exactly my point. you had regulators for many institutions -- they have the authority and information to try to prevent the meltdown so we would not find ourselves in this situation today but the regulators failed to do the job. the testimony poults -- points the finger entirely at wall street and capitalism for failing but we can equally. the figure -- point the finger back at the regulators. >> the situation is not to -- >> i appreciate that. there is not a single republican who was ever said to end regulation but to reform it. let's turn to another issue -- education. you have k-12 education and we know what has been done in various states as far as reforming it. my question governor is -- do the states have enough flexibility to achieve what they need to achieve or is this one other area where the government -- federal government -- has intruded so we are providing for an impediment or barrier to free enterprise to be able to grow by allowing for a flourishing educational system? >> the federal government's role historically has been limited in education. it has grown in the last years. it is not similar to say health care were the federal role is now significantly both in regulation spending and the two major programs higher -- significantly higher. there should be flexibility. the objective ought to be years worth of knowledge in a year's time. affective measuring. states ought to try to apply different approaches. in our case, we had an accountability system based on grading schools based on to the learning to read and the social promotions. paid compensation for teachers that was different than just longevity of service. digital learning being an element now of the florida strategy. and low-income hispanic kids do better than the california average on the bloat -- fourth grade reading tests. even though we spend less than $7,000 per student. it is because we had a focused approach. washington is not equipped to provide that. and florida as different in california or other states. we ought to be given more freedom to do things. i think the title 1 money is as a place where there could be more innovation karim in lower performing schools, for example. you could trust governors and state legislators and the communities in states to be able to come up with the best solutions. >> a vote has been called. we have to dispatch lastluy, mr. mulvaney. >> these are reductions in tariffs on things that are not made here and generally available to the marketplace. we are debating whether or not those are earmarks' our tax subsidies. there are specific discussions as to whether miscellaneous tariff benefits are subsidies similar to a tax loophole. i would like your opinion. >> tariffs are taxes on international trade. we should move to international trade agreements, get rid of all tariffs. terrorists do not just hurt americans -- tariffs to not just hurt americans. you look at big corporations like gm, the import and more -- an enormous amount of parts. we may put tariffs on their production, it hurts american businesses. i'm not familiar with the particular bill in front of congress but terrorists are not a good idea in general. they distort the economy. >> with these reductions on tariffs -- would you consider that to be corporate welfare? >> no. i am for closing tax loopholes and getting rid of special deals on the tariff side. special deals for particular industries on tax and spending and terrorists are extortionary -- tariffs are distortion ary. >> the beneficiary is the consumers? >> absolutely. both consumers and american businesses that use those imported products. >> thank you. mr. waxman, one question for you. i have heard the auto bailouts mentioned several times. that chrysler went bankrupt anyway? >> i do know. >> the gm go bankrupt in june of 2009? >> i do not know. >> it did. it was the second largest bankruptcy in the history of the country. i'm surprised you have not heard about it. when chrysler went bankrupt, it did so in an extraordinary proceeding. that denied secured bondholders of the rights to which they were entitled. one of those secured bondholders was the indiana state teachers retirement fund. the police pension fund. those to pension funds of public employees lost several millions of dollars of their retirement money. my question to you is what would you like to tell them? >> i am not an expert in this area. when the airline industry goes into bankruptcy, they tell their workers you can continue the pay you a already negotiated from us. a way to take away benefits from them. people get hurt. when businesses go bankrupt, stockholders get hurt but in this country, the ceos come out on top >> to you understand the difference between a secured bondholder and it talks stockholder? >> id. >> what would you like to tell the secured bondholders -- the retired teachers and retired policeman of the state of indiana? >> would you like to tell the unemployed autoworkers and oil industries depended on them? >> do you understand the legal difference between a secure the bondholder and an employee and a supplier or an ordinary stockholder? >> the fact is people get hurt when we have a mismanagement of the economy so we have banks taking huge risks with other people's money on securities that do not make sense and then sell them abroad. the bubble fell. government should have been there to stop that from happening and they were not there. >> instead, the government stole money from retired teachers and policeman to give it to unions. with that, i yield back the balance. >> thank you. all time is yielded. washington is friendly and kind as it ever was before. congressman waxman, thank you for coming. chris edwards, you have testified in number of times. we appreciate your insights. governor bush, when these microphones are turned off, some of us actually do get along with one another. thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us. this hearing is adjourned. correct tonight, c-span brings you the second and final debate between candidates running in the june 5 wisconsin governor recall election. scott walker and democrats tom barrett face off in the debate hosted by wisn tv. it took place last night but you can see the debate tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] saturday, discussions from the annual convention hosted by the national cable and tele- communications association. we will hear about the future of film and music distribution as well as what is ahead for cable news and industry innovation. panelists include chris matthews, and don king. see those of us tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. earlier today, president obama traveled to minneapolis to speak about jobs and the u.s. economy. he urged congress to continue to strive to create jobs and provide financial relief for the middle class. this is 35 minutes. [applause] >> hello. it is good to be back in minnesota. it's good to see your governor here. on the way over, we talked about making sure the vikings were playing. that is a hard thing for a bears fan to do. but i was rooting for the vikings for sticking around here. the governor did a great job. prayer never huts. rts. you have to outstanding senators -- amy klobuchar and al franken. [applause] your mayor is here. outstanding congressional delegation in the house. give them a big round of applause. [applause] i thought ryan was really good him. give him a big round of applause. [applause] he is a natural. one of the last times i was here was last august. we took a bus tour around the state. stop for some ply -- pie. held a town hall. amy and daal were there. i think al are my pie, in fact. [laughter] -- ate my pie, in fact. i spent a lot of time talking with folks who has spent the past couple of years making their way through a tough economy. today we are still fighting our way back in the worst economic crisis since the great depression. the economy is growing again but not as fast as we want it to. our businesses have created almost 4.3 million new jobs over the last 27 months but as we learned in today's jobs report, we are still not creating them as fast as we want. just like at this time last year, our economy is still facing some serious head winds. we had high gas prices a month, two months ago and they are starting to come down. they are spiking but they are still hitting people's wallets pretty hard. that has an impact. most recently, we have had a crisis in europe's economy that is having an impact worldwide and is starting to cast a shadow on our own as well. so we have a lot of work to do before we get to where we need to be. all of these factors have made it even more challenging to not as full a recover but also lay the foundation for an economy built to last over the long term. but that is our job. from the moment we first took action to prevent another depression, we knew the road to recovery would not be easy. we knew it would take time to read we knew there would be ups and downs along the way but we also knew if we were willing to act wisely and boldly and acting together as americans, if we were willing to keep at it and roll up our sleeves and never quit, we would not just come back. we would come back stronger than ever. [applause] that was our belief. and that continues to be my valise. we will come back -- my belief. we will come back stronger. we had better days ahead and that is because of all of you. onave placed my baet american workers and businesses in the day of the week. [applause] you have been fighting to this tough economy with resilience and grit and innovation. honeywell is a company doing outstanding work. i want to a knowledge dave the west and serving on my jobs council and doing a lot of great work. -- dave who has been serving on my jobs council and doing a lot of great work. manufacturing is consistently at in jobs for the first time since the 1990's. [applause] all that is happening because the view. everybody here plays by the rules. you work hard, you do your responsibilities. and you deserve leaders who do the same. leaders who will stand shoulder to shoulder with you and do everything possible to strengthen the middle-class and move this economy forward. that is what you deserve. [applause] we cannot fully control everything that happens in other parts of the world. disturbances in the middle east, what is going on in europe. but there are plenty of things we can control here at home. there are plenty of steps we can take right now to help create jobs and growth this economy. but me give you some examples. i spent -- i sent congress a jobs bill last september full of the kind of bipartisan ideas that would have put our fellow americans back to work and help reinforce our economy against some of these outside shots. i sent them a plan that would have reduced the deficit by $4 trillion in a way that is balanced, that pays for the job- creating investments we need by cutting unnecessary spending but by also adding -- making the wealthiest americans pay more in taxes. [applause] i will give the credit. congress has passed a few parts of that jobs bill. what a tax cut that as allowing working americans to keep more of your paychecks every week. that was important. but congress has not acted on enough of the other ideas in that bill that would help make a difference and help create jobs right now. there is no excuse for it. not when there are so many people out there still looking for work. not one day -- when there are still folks out there struggling to pay their bills. it is not lost on anybody that it is an election year. i have noticed. [applause] crowd: [four more years]! >> but we have got responsibilities that are bigger than an election. we have got responsibilities to you. so my message to congress is, now is not the time to play politics. now is not the time to sit on your hands. the american people expect their leaders to work hard no matter what year itthe economy is not t needs to be. there are steps that can also serve as a buffer in case the situation in europe gets any worse. right now congress should pass a bill to stave off more layoffs, so we can put police officers and firefighters back on the job. layoffs at the state and local level at been a chronic problem for our recovery, but one that we can fix. congress should have pass a bill and long time ago to put thousands of construction workers back on the job rebuilding roads and bridges and our runways. since the bubble burst, and note sector has been hit harder than the construction industry. remember the bridge in minnesota. instead of talking about job creators, congress should give business owners a tax cut. we can get that done right now. let's not wait. right now congress should give every responsible home owners the opportunity to say she thousand dollars a year by refinancing their mortgage. we have historically low rates right now. i was with a family in nevada a couple weeks ago. they got a chance to refinance even though their home was under water, put that money back in their pockets, because we had taken steps to make that available for those who had mortgages held by government agencies, like the fha. i want everybody to have those same opportunities. i assume there are folks here who could use $3,000. let's get that done right now. that means there are -- if you have $3,000 a year extra, that helps you pay down your credit card, helps you go out and buy things her family eats, which is good for business. maybe somebody will replace something for their furnace. they had been putting that off. if they had it that extra money, they might just go out there and buy that thing. right? look, right now congress needs to extend the tax credits for clean energy manufacturers that are set to expire at the end of this year. the issue of energy efficiency and everything we need to do to shift away from dependence on foreign oil, where making huge progress. we're actually importing less oil than at any time in the last 15 years, but we can do more. these clean energy companies are hiring folks and help us break dependence on foreign oil. honeywell is doing a lot of work on this. almost 40,000 jobs are on the line if these tax credits expired. why would anybody in congress walk away from this? we need to pass those tax credits right now, right now. it is long past time. bringing jobs back to this country. some of them are coming to minnesota. the governor and i were talking about some companies coming back. red bull, right? let's give them more in sadness. it is time to end tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. that would make the difference right now. those are all steps we could be taking to strengthen the economy, to provide insurance that the situation overseas starts getting worse so we can control our own destiny, keep the recovery moving forward. which brings me to the last thing congress should do to help businesses create jobs. i believe that no one who fights for this country should ever have to fight for a job when they come home. and for congress, that means creating a veteran's job court so we can put our returning heroes back to work. cops, firefighters cannot relax that protect our resources, and they should do it right now. if we are on to serve our veterans as well as they have served us, we have got to do more. we have just observed memorial day, which makes us think about the sacrifices so many make. we have got to make sure we translate words into action. we cannot just be in a parade. we cannot just march. we also have to deliver. for our veterans traded over the past three decades, more than 3 million service members have transitioned to back to civilian life. now that the work end -- war in iraq is over and we're starting to wind down the war in afghanistan, over a million more of those outstanding heroes, they are going to be joining this process of transition back into civilian life over the next few years. just think about the skills these veterans have acquired at an incredibly young age. think about the leadership they have learned. leading platoons in an unbelievably dangerous situation, life or death situations. think about the cutting edge technologies they have mastered. their ability to adapt to change and unpredictable situations. you cannot get that stuff from the classroom. these kids, is men, these women, they have done incredible work, and that is exactly the kind of leadership and responsibility that every business in america should be wanting to attract. should be competing to attract. that is the kind of talent we need to compete for the jobs of the future. these are the kinds of americans that every company should want to hire. that is why here at honeywell you have made it a mission to hire more veterans. let me say, dave is incredibly patriotic. honeywell is doing is not just because it feels good. they are doing it because it is good for business, because veterans make outstanding workers. today i am taking executive action that will make it easier for a lot of companies to do the same thing. i told the story before of the soldier in the 82nd airborne who served as a combat medic in afghanistan. he saved lives and won a bronze star. he came here to minnesota. when he first came home, he could not get a job as a first responder. think about it. this guy is out there taking care of troops who were wounded in action, could not initially get a job, so he took classes that he could have talked -- talked -- taught. let me tell you something, if you can save a life on the battlefield, you can save a life in an ambulance. if you can oversee a convoy or millions of dollars of assets in iraq, you can help manage and supply chain or balance its books here at home. if you can maintain the most advanced weapons in the world, if you are an electrician on a navy ship, you can manufacture the next generation of the advanced technology in our factories like this o. if you are working on a complex machinery, you should be able to get those skills and find a manufacturing job right here, right here at home. unfortunately, a lot of returning heroes with advanced skills do not get hired because they did not have civilian licenses or certifications that a lot of companies require. at the same time i hear from business leaders of the type who say they cannot find enough workers with the skills necessary to fill open positions. 80% of manufacturers say this. we have all these openings and all these skilled veterans looking for work, and somehow they are missing each other. that does not make any sense. that is where executive action comes in. today i am proud to announce new partnerships between the military and manufacturing groups that will make it easier for companies to hire returning service members who prove they have earned the skills our country needs. soldiers, sailors, marines, air men, coastguardsman -- if they have skills in machining or weapons maintenance, you will have a faster track to good- paying manufacturing jobs. service members with experience in logistics' on the front lines, they will have a faster track to jobs in those fields here at home. i have directed the department of defense to establish a new task force charged with finding new opportunities to use the skills they've learned in the military to gain the relevant industry credentials that civilians need so it does not cost them and they do not have to go back to school for three years and take out a bunch of student loans when potentially they could do it quicker, more inexpensively, and get on the job faster. we are talking about jobs in manufacturing, health care, i.t., first responders, so that returning combat medic i spoke about this not have to prove himself over and over again. this task first -- this task help's first action will service members gained him the recognition or certification for manufacturing jobs like right here at this plant at honeywell. this builds on the skills we started last year to provide college kids with industry- recognized credentials. all of this bill to on the step we have taken to make sure our returning heroes come home, able to share in the opportunities that they have defended. when our men and women signed up to become a soldier or sailor, marine, they do not stop being a citizen. when they take off that you the form, their service to this nation does not stop. think about previous generations. today's veterans are the same. when they come home they are looking to continue to serve america however they can, and at a time when america needs all hands on deck, they have the skills and the strength to help lead the way. our government needs their patriotism and their sense of duty. that is why i have ordered the hiring of more veterans by the federal government. we have hired over 200,000 so far. our economy needs their outstanding talents. that is why i pushed hard last year for tax breaks for companies that hired with the warriors. i am proud to say both parties came together to get that done. that is why we launched free personalized job search services to the veterans gold card program, and an on-line veterans job bank to help veterans find jobs that meet their talents. if there are any veterans here who need those services, you can find that at white house.gov/vets. later this month that the eight will hold a job fair in detroit. that is also why i challenge business leaders to hire 100,000 post-9/11 veterans by the end of next year, because do not forget error of military families. harris -- they are serving alongside our veterans. michelle and jill biden -- just in case you were curious -- they are leading this effort with respect to military families, called joining forces, to mobilize all of us to support to de's families and veterans. the good news is participating businesses have hired more than 70,000 veterans and planned to hire 175,000 more in the coming years. i want to thank honeywell for not only been an active partner, but right here honeywell has hired 900 veterans of the past year and employs veterans here at golden valley, so give them a big round of applause. i am proud of them. i am proud of them. standing up for our veterans, this is not a democratic or responsibility -- or republican responsibility. it is an american responsibility, an obligation of every citizen who enjoys the freedom that these heroes defended. we got to meet our obligations to day like folks here at honeywell are doing, and as commander in chief of what all of our service members and veterans to know we are forever grateful for your service and your sacrifice. just like you fought for us, we will keep fighting for you. for more jobs, more security, for the opportunity to keep your family's strong, because you will help us keep america on top in the 21st century. [cheers] we're going to keep fighting just as you did, to show just what it is that the united states of america is the greatest nation on earth. god bless you. got bless america. thank you. -- god bless america. thank you. ["stars and stripes forever" plays] ♪ ["stars and stripes forever" plays] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ["the washington post" plays] ♪ >> tonight, the second and final debate between candidates for that wisconsin governor recall election. it took place last night, but you can see the debate tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. all this week on c-span2, it is booked tv in primetime. we wrap up tonight with programs on america's beach. bill bradley shares is idea of how americans can break the cycle of political cynicism. ben carson gives his opinions on what is good about america. then remarks from van jones. book tv, starting at 8:00 on c- span2. the house gavel and earlier today to work on 2013 spending for the energy department and water projects. the bill provides $32 billion while increasing funding for fossil fuel programs. members completed work on a minutes earlier, and next week they will take final votes. the house returns on tuesday at noon eastern. earlier today, house leaders eric cantor and steny hoyer came to the floor to speak about next week's agenda. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, for yealedi to me. mr. speaker, on monday the house is not in session. on tuesday the house will meet at noon for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislave business. votes wille postponed until 6:30 p.m. on wednesday and thursday the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business. on friday the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business. last votes of the week are expected no later than 3:00 p.m. mr. speaker, the house will consider a number of bills under suspension of the rules, a complete list of which will be announced by the close of business today. i expect the majority of these bills to come from the natural resources commtee and i want to thank chairman doc hastings and his staffor their tireless work in assisting members on both side of the aisle with their bill to responsibly remove federal red tape that stands in the way of local economic development. members are also advised that the house will resume consideration of h.r. 5325, the energy and water development appropriations act on tuesday, our first day back next week. those wishing to offer amendments tthe bill should be prepared to do so as soon as they return to washington. the house may also consider two additional apppriations bills next week. h.r. 5855, the department of homeland security appropriations act, sponsored by representative robert aderholt, and h.r. 5882, the legislative branch appropriations act sponsored by representative andrew crenshaw. chairman al rogers and the entire appropriations committee on both sides of the aisle should be congratulated for helping to restore the open process of allocating and prioritizing the nation's spending. finally, mr. speaker, the house will consider h.r. 436, the protect medical innovation act, a very important bill for jobs and innovation in the medical device industry and that representative erik paulsen has sponsored. the paulsen bill will be combined with h.r. 5842, the restoring access to medication act sponsored by representative lynn jenkins, and h.r. 1004, the medical f.s.a. improvement ac sponsored by representative charles boustany. and with that i thank the gentleman and yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that information, and i want to make a comment that the gentleman correctly congratulated the appropriations leadership on his side of the aisle, but i also want to observe on our side of the aisle, there has been cooperation and there has not been an effort to either delay or disassemble. that's how this should work. it has not always worked that way. i am pleased it is working. i think that is best for our institution. i think it's best for the country. so i'm pleased at that as well. i tell my friend, and he knows this, according to the schedule, the house is scheduled to be in session a total of 28 days until the august break and 41 days from now until november. in addition of those days available, of the 41, 10 are 6: days in which we come for an abbreviated evening session which takes half an hour to an hour to conclude afternoon debate on suspension bills. i express that concern, mr. speaker -- mr. speaker, the gallery is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. the house will be in order. mr. hoyer: with the limited time we have available, mr. leader, i am very concerned, as the gentleman knows of the extraordinarily large number of very big fiscal estions that will be coming to roost at the end of this year. my view is that we need to address those. hopefully we need to address them in a bipartisan way because if we do not address them, we will put the economy at continuing risk. the bush tax cuts, as you know, expire as of the 30th of december, 31st of december. the payroll tax cut expires the 31st of december. the sustainable growth rate which we affectionately refer to as the doc fix, the alternative minimum tax, the debt limit, all come to bear at the end of the year. in addition to that, the sequester, which think all of us believe is not the appropriate way to go, but is the way we set up to force us to take action on a comprehensive big, bold, balanced plan. unfortunately, the supercommittee was not able to reach agreement on that. i want to say to my friend, the majority leader, i would hope that you would be urging all of us -- i will join with you in that effort urging all of us to be ready to make some tough decisions, but decisions which ne to be made in order to stabilize our economy and stabilize the fiscal posture of the united states. i am hopeful that we can reach a credible, sustainable fiscal path for our country. the only way we are going to do that is if we work together in a bipartisan fashi. the gentleman and i were very successful in working on the export-import bank legislation in a bipartisan fashion in which we got over 300 votes on the floor of the house floo the ntleman was unable to make the signing but it was signed this week. i think a very positive step forward. i appreciated the gentleman's work on that piece of legislation, but i would like to urge the gentleman because of the extraordinarily short number of days that we have left to meet to focus on what i think some people call it a fiscal train wreck, some people call it a fiscal perfect storm, some people call it a fiscal cliff, whatever it is is will have a great impact, not only on the confidence that we can work and to make effective plans for meeting that challenge but also for getting our country on a fiscally sustainable path. i don't know if the gentleman has any comments on that but i'd be glad to yield to him. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman and agree with him that all of us should be very focused on the month ahead as we approach the day which this country will by operation of law experience the largest tax increase in its history, that the sequester will be imposed, that we perhaps will face another debt ceiling vote as well as many items that the gentleman mentioned. i think all of us understand the avity of those issues. i think, mr. speaker, we've also seen in operation around here, together with the white house, the difficulties that the two sides have had in coming together on two very important issues that run throughout all of the matters that the gentleman mentioned and those two issues are health care and taxes. and the geneman knows, we have put forward a solution to the health care entitlement issue which is the disproportionate cause of the unfunded liabilities of the federal budget and the gentleman and the president and his party have rejected our solution that has been validated by the congressional budget office as an actual fix to the deficit. but to date we've not seen any kind of proposal with the gentleman, his party, or the president coming to the table saying, this is how we could fix it. all we're hearing, mr. speaker, is we need to raise taxes and we need to raise taxes on people who have been successful. and the gentleman knows that those are the two issues, the taxes and the health care fix, that we've just had real difficulty in trying to come together. and so what i would say to the gentleman, we remain ready to work with him and his colleagues on the other side of the aisle to try and produce results to the american people so we can reinject some certainty back in the minds of the american people that the economy is going to get better. and, again, we tried to focus on issues having to do with combrothe in the private sector -- growth inhe private sect. how do we speak to that small business man or woman who's having difficulty now assessing what his or her taxes are going to be? how do we speak to that working mother there when she questions whether her health care will still be available given the up certainty around the obamacare -- given the uncertainty around the obamacare bill? these are things we have been trying to work together. the gulf is so wide and fill -- and philosophically dealing with health care. we share the concern about what lies ahead. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. i was not trying to make political points or rhetoric in raising the issues i did. i frankly think that this doesn't get us very far, i suggest to the majority leader, and we need to get someplace. america expects us to get someplace. many of you have indicated that revenues need to be on the table. the gentleman knows that every bipartisan commission that's dealt with this says revenues need to be on the table. they say entitlements need to be on the table neither are easy to deal with, but they must be dealt with if we are going to be responsible stewards of this nation's finances and this nation's future. and political rhetoric's not going to get us there. frankly points we all want to help small business. we believe we've helped small business very substantially and very frankly you get into the analysis, small businesses did very well during the clinton administration under policies that were in place at that point in time. but that aside, we need to deal with this, and i think a number of members on your side have indicated that they understand that everything needs to be on the table. and that is what i think as well. i think both sides have things they don't want to deal with but americans expect us to deal with tough things and make tough decisions on behalf of them and behalf of their children, behalf of their families which lea me on small business and economic growth the highway bill. we continue to be very concerned, mr. majority leader, that we have not reached agreement on the highway bill. the senate was able to reach an overwhelmingly bipartisan agreement on the highway bill, which is a jobs bill. i was disappointed. i hope the gentlen was disappointed that the jobs numbers that ce out today, 82,000 in the private sector, lost 13,000 in the public sector, net 69,000 jobs, that does not get us to where we want to be after losing millions and millions of jobs in the previous administration and losing a substantial number of jobs in this administration before over the last 26 months we've grown four million job but the hole was very deep and we're not out of it. if you don't have a job you know we're not out of it, but i would hope that we could at least, certainly our side believing, that the highway bill is a jobs bill. ray lahood, as i pointed out in the past, your former leader in your party, chairman of a subcommittee in the appropriations committee says that it's a jobs bill, but unfortunately concludes that unfortunately that bill is not passing he believes for largely political reasons. i hope that's not the case. do you have any idea of how -- of what kind of progress we're making on the highway bill so that that bill can come to the floor before the june 30 expiration of the highway bill? authorization. i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i say to the gentleman, as he knows the use s passed its bill, the senate has passed its. conference has been appointed, and obviously we're very mindful of the expiration the current authorizing language at law and we are prepared to make sure there is no stoppage of transportation programming and funding all the way desiring a much longer term solution to the problem. i think the problem remas, as the gentleman knows, just not enough money to address all the things that the country is experiencing in terms of the needs r roads and infrastructure repair as well as the need for expansion. as the gentleman knows, we all are mindful of the limited resources that are available to address these needs and just trying to prioritize, and i'm hopeful that the conference committecan come to a solution prior to the expiration of the authorizing language in place right now, but, again, very mindful we don't want to allow for any shutdown of any program at the end of this month. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman and i appreciate his observation. clearly we don't want to have the authority for the highway bill to expire without action, but i will reiterate my offer to my friend, the majority leader, and say given the birtisan, the overwhelming bipartisan support of the bill that was -- came from the other party that if we brought that bill to the floor, i will tell the gentleman that i think we will have the overwhelming, perhaps unanimous support which would be 190 votes on our side of the aisle for that bill because we believe it is a jobs bill. we believe it will grow the economy. it will put people back to work, and it will give confidence to the american people, as we did with the export-import bank, in my view, give confidence to the american people that we can come together and move forward through reaching agreement. obviously the senate was able to do that, and they did it overwhelmingly with over half of the republican conference - caucus voting for it. in the senate and 3/4 of the senate voting for it. i would say toy friend, i think that would be a real shot in the arm for the economy, and i agree with the gentleman. certainty is important. coidence building is important, and if we did that, in my view, and if you could bring half of your caucus to that vote, we would pass that bill overwhelmingly and i think it would be a very positive step for theconomy, very positive step for the confidence of the american peop and our economy and put people back to work. don't know whether the gentleman wants to comment on that further, but if he does i'll yield him. mr. cantor: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd say to the gentleman i have no furer comment. mr. hoyer: lastly, if i might, the student loan interest rate, as you know, will go up at the end of the this month from 3.4% to 6.8%. . that would add additional cost to nearly a million students, some $1,000 additional cost to most students. at a time where we want to make higher education so necessary for success in our country available to as many team people as we possibly can so we can be competitive worldwide. and from our perspective further a ma it in america agenda. growing our economy and getting jobs for our people. i know that there was opposition to that reduction when it was originally on the floor in 07. and i know there was some opposition to it earlier this year, but i also know that i think both you and the speaker have indicated now that they pport that. we passed legislation on this floor which brought that down. and there's obviously very substantial disagreement and controversy with reference to the funding source given the preventive health fund used to fund the student aid. can the gentleman tell me whether or not he believes there is a possibility for us to reach agreement on how to do this? i know the speak said this was a, quote, phony fight. but it is a real fight and it will have real consequence it is we don't resolve our differences. can the gentleman comment on what he believes to be the possibility of reaching agreement with the senate on the student loan bill? i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, mr. speaker. i would say to the gentleman that the speaker and i together with the republican leader whip in the senate have sent a letter to the president. perhaps the gentleman has seen it, suggesting a way forward on the issue of student loans so that there will not be an expiration of the subsidy provided to students. we suggested two options to allow for a continuation of a lower rate for students to be paid for by provisions which the president has suggested that he would agree to. the two options are to limit the length of in-school interest subsidy, and the other is to revise the medicare provider tax threshold and to phase it do so that we can actually achieve savings so that we can allow for the continuation of the subsidized rates for students who are struggling under tuition bills. these are two options that we suggest. they are bipartisan in nature. there shouldn't be any reason why we couldn't get this done prior to the expiration of the current law. yielback. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. just for his information i would be a very strong opponent of your first option which continues to want to reduce the take-home pay of federal employees. federal employees under the plans that you have passed through this house will have already been asked to pay $105 billion in reduction in pay and benefits, $105 billion over 10 years. $10 billion per year. your suggestion that our employees have pay reduced, effectively net take-home pay reduced. in addition, the additional proposal in your reconciliation bill which would add another $78 billion to that. $183 billion in total, or $18.3 billion per year reduction in pay and benefits for federal emplees. the gentleman in his state has a lot of those federal employees. they happen to be civilian employees. i know the gentleman supported the pay raise for the military personnel, which i supported as well. the gentleman's aware that largely through my tenure in the congress we have treated our civilian employees and our military employees with parity. i would hope that the gentlan would not think that continuing to go to the federal employee as we go to no other employees -- the gentleman is not interested in asking anybody else to participate more in paying for this in terms of revenues, but your side has been continuing to propose reducing the pay and benefits of the federal employees. my view is, and i have said this publicly, that if we can reach a g bold balance deal, it's balanced, but just going to one pocket, one group of people, who , studies show, depending upon what level you are working at, many are not paid comparable to their private sector. some others are. it's not a fair, balanced way to proceed. i would hope that that option would be not on the table. i know the administration put it on the table for a larger deal, but i'm going to urge that not be an option. i know that i talked to some of your side from your state who believe that's not an option that ought to be pursued. as a matter of fact wanted to vote against the milcon bill yesterday because of a provision dealing with further reducing the pay of federal employees, the net take-home pay of federal employees. i would hope that would not be an option. i would pe we could in fact reach an option so we could contain the cost of college for young people because that's no only good for them, it's good for the competitive statute of the united states of arica. with respect to the reconciliation bill that you mentioned and the -- you mentioned the fact that you were dealing with the deficit, in fact as the gentleman knows, in terms of your health care provisions, they do not within the next 20 years get the federal budget to balan in the ryan budget, so that although you are dealing with that in some respects, it goes to balance, and therefore does not, in my opinion, give the confidence and certainty that the american economy needs and that the american citizens need. i want to ask the gentleman lastly if he expects all 12 appropriation bills -- i know we are going to do the energy and water, we have alreadyone two of our bills, whether or not he expects all 12 appropriation bills to be on the floor, considered, and compted prior to the august break? i eld to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. if i could, mr. speaker, point the gentleman's attention back to the student loan issue. i specifically did not offer up the option of the federal employee pay for because i do know that we have a difference on that. so the gentleman went and explained the differences, we understand that. that's why we are trying to avoid differences and come together where we can agree, which is why i discussed the two other provisions which are bipartisan in naturend the president said he supports which could in a responsible fashion allow us to continue the lower rate. mr. hoyer: i don't want to interrupt other than to clarify. as i understand the two options, one was the option of makg additional -- in the letter i read, maybe i'm incorrect -- you can correct me. i yield back. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, there are two options. one was the federal employee pay for in and of itself would take care of -- the reduction in the size of the federal government would have taken care of the pay-for if you will for the student loan issue. the other option was composed of two different provisions. both of which are bipartisan in nature, the president says he supports. one of those is to limit the length of in-school interest subsidies. the other was to revise the medicaid provider tax threshold. it was those two components that comprise option two. that is my point. so there is -- mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his clarification. mr. cantor: to the point -- i'm not quite sure about the note he made about our budget not balancing within the budget window, and i would say to the gentleman, we understand that, but it is a plan that we could adopt that would provide a blueprint for getting us back on track as far as managing down the debt and deficit. and my point originally was, mr. speaker, there's been no such plan, there's been no such proffer from the president or the gentleman's side of the aisle. so in order for us to move forward, we need participation from both sides. we can't just have one side providing a solution without the ability to get that solution put into place because the gentleman's party is in control in the other body and the white house. so how do we go about trying to find commonality if there is no proper solution? that was my point, mr. speaker. there has been no solution. balanced or not, provided by the other side. i would say lastly to the gentleman inquiry about the propriations process, we certainly maintain the position we would like to see all of our bills brought to the floor, through regular order, consistent with the speaker's policy of an open debate that we have seen thus far in the appropriations bills. we had a successful completion yesterday and we are continuing in the energy and water appropriations measure today. and as we come back next week. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that information. i want to say to the gentleman i would disagree that there's no plan. mr. van hollen, the ranking member of the budget committee, did in fact have a plan. presented that plan. and was voted on this floor of the house. it did not prevail, by that is a plan which frankly was a more balanced plan from our perspeive, obviously the house did not agree with that, balanced plan that in fact would have reached balance, in fact, mo quickly, i believe th the ryan plan. so we do have a plan. we presented that plan. we offered it on the house floor. i voted for that plan. the overwhelming majority of party on this side of the aisle voted for that plan. so there is plan. i think the gentleman's not correct in saying we haven't offered a plan. we have. the plan has not passed. the gentleman is absolutely correct on that. senate and house have not agreed on a plan. i'm not sure they are going to be able to agree on a plan. i think that's unfortunate, but perhaps we can agree on the appropriation bills. we are hopeful that the appropriation bills will be agreed upon consistent with the agreement that we felt we had at the funding levels of $1.047 trillion for discretionary spending. the bills that have been offered are closer to that number than i think we will find as later bills come. we don't know at, but that's speculation, the senate has agreed that we ought to mark up that figure, but we haven't marked up to that figure in the appropriation bill. but if we do -- if we complete the appropriation bills, as the gentleman says he wants to do, i think would be good to do. it's the gentleman's perspective and we'll mark to 1.027 and 1.028. that's a substantial difference, the senate, republicans and democrats, have agreed to mark to the higher number. can the gentleman comment on whether or not at the end of the day we'll be able to get agreent on what the agreement we thought we had in the budget control act? i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i jt say to the gentleman, i have discussed this before in the colloquy, and i would suggest turning attention to the senate that hasn't even begun considering appropriationsills to even -- to suggest that we would come to an agreement with the senate. i think the senate's got to really start to do >> those comments took place earlier today. the chamber returns to the session on tuesday at noon for morning our speeches and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. tonight c-span brings you the second debate between candidates running in the june 5 wisconsin governor recall election. governor scott walker and tom barrett face off at the debate hosted by wisn in milwaukee. you can see the debate tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. next, maryland and virginia health secretaries hold a discussion on a key component of the health-care law, insurance exchanges. both states have implementation plans in place. this isy politico peroro, an hour. >> are pleased to have a discussion today on -- we are pleased today to have a discussion today on health exchanges. politico pro has become the leader on news on health care and energy and technology and transportation policy, and more to come. we are excited have this discussion today. let me tell you about who we have today. we have built hazel, virginia's health secretary, joshua sharfstein, maryland's health secretary, daniel durham, and ron pollack, executive director of families usa. before we get started, i would like to thank cbs caremark -- cvs caremakr. we are thankful to them for allowing these advance to be possible. i would like to bring out barry burton, the senior vice president of government affairs , governmentcvs. >> thank you having for this breakfast. this briefing will be fantastic. i am vice-president of the cvs caremark government relations team. we're looking at what will happen to health exchanges. despite the dialogue about it, there is confusion about what is out there in terms of choices. our own cvs research has shown 70% of consumers eligible for the new health care insurance coverage have never heard of the state-based exchanges, where they will need to start shopping for coverage in 2014. more than 60% said they need help in choosing health insurance. with this backdrop, the panelists today will provide us insight and information in terms of what the choices are and how government, advocacy groups, and enterprise get together in looking for solutions for the future. thank you very much. >> thank you. next week will bring out joanne kenen, the deputy health editor @ politico -- at politico pro. everyone is waiting on the supreme court. there is other stuff going on. the fda bill is to be zooming on through congress. there are issues that will have to be worked out between the house and senate. the house pass its version. we are not expecting that to take very long or get tripped up by big issues. there is another pretty big health-care vote that we are expecting on the house floor probably next week, and is a vote on repealing the medical device tax in the affordable care act. a safe bet that that will pass. the on the question at this point is whether there will be a lot of democratic support or not, and that depends on how it is paid for. if you want to say anything, joann, about that -- it will not go to the senate. in the meantime, yes, things are at a standstill waiting for the supreme court. there we are. >> we will want to see if the supreme court clarifies things. it may not be totally black and white. , yes, and to clarify, we are expecting the most likely week will be the last week in june, possibly either june 25, and monday, or june 28, a thursday. my daughter's birthday. that is the prediction. if we can, let's bring out our panel. we are pleased to have again dan durham, a state of vice president at american health insurance plan, bill is a, virginia's health secretary, ron pollack, founding as editor, families usa, joshua sharfstein, maryland's health secretary. thank you very much. i would like to start out with the state health secretaries, and, bill, we will start with you. give us kind of pay a summary of where virginia is right now, because the state has had more of a complicated history with the affordable care at than others. >> "complicated" is the understatement of the year. the government under -- the government was to prepare the general assembly, which said if there is an exchange, virginia will build and operate their own. under that authority, which continue to plan, even though it is of little unpopular, so it makes it very interesting. we clearly are waiting for the supreme court to decide what happens. we are challenged by things by the budget, but there are significant budget cuts to medicaid, affecting our match, and we have an influx of individuals in 2014 related to the medicaid match, and virginia will have to pick that up. across the potomac, it sounds like small numbers, but for a state like virginia, those are big numbers. what does that say long-term of the ability of the government to do the insurance premium support in an exchange? that is a tremendous challenge long term. exchanges do not work without support. whitaker called the virginia health department initiative, between the advisory council, which is about to meet for its eighth or ninth time, and the groups that have met 18 times, and we have a good plan in place. we have spent a lot of the technology infrastructure previously. we have upgraded the medicaid management information system. we have a consumer portal that will be rolled out officially in june which will allow individuals to apply for benefits, including medicate parent -- medicaid. we are taking that approach. the way we have done this, anything we have done technology weis we need it anyway, and if the health benefit exchange comes online, we are doing things that have made sense. that is how we get there. with the help of the exchange technology model, it is also part of this. we have basically zero in and will likely recommend to the general assembly and the essential benefit package based on the largest small-car packaged in virginia, and we have meetings set up to help wanted deal with the exchanges and so forth. we have done a lot of the planning, and in some ways we probably are ahead of states, even our more -- puts us in a weird position. suppose this thing falls apart, the technology from the feds is not there, what do you do? >> i was going to ask you about this. if the court comes back and the law as up out, and the elections coming up and the do not change anything, would it virginia be ready to run their own exchange complete in 2014? >> that is complex. if you saw the articles yesterday, you saw people are worried about the i.t., and everything has to go right. we are probably one of maybe a handful of states that could pull the i.t. piece off. is governmenance piece entirely different. we are very sensitive right now to issues related to our insurance plans. they need information so they can start doing their planning. the sooner we get clarity about things about the central benefit packages, we are worried because that has not gone through a regulatory process at the federal level, as called for. we do not know where that is going to end up exactly. there are lots of things out there that even if you are making a good faith effort like josh is doing to get this done, there are challenges ahead. >> let's hear from josh, because it sounds like maryland has been charging full speed ahead. how do you think sting's stand at the moment? do you feel confident that maryland will be ready? >> thank you for posting this event. amount of commentary out there is really high, and the number of articles and events, either in virginia or maryland, are not that high. it is great, this kind of advance, and i appreciate it. there are a lot of complicated details. immensely, maryland has looked at this as an issue of how to improve the health care system hundreds of thousands of marylanders who do not have the ability to get the care they need to pick those dark human stories i hear across the state. these are people who call in, telling us about what this is about, and it is also about the cost of health care. figuring out how we can turn the corner on cost. governor o'malley set up the planning process that has involved everyone in the state who has been interested, across provider, advocates, businesses, everybody. early on we saw the affordable care act as a great set of tools, not guaranteeing an outcome, but to help address the fundamental questions of access. there is an irony because i go to these panels with other states where they are against the affordable care act and they will end up with a federal exchange in their back yard. we see the an affordable care act as a great set of tools, but we would like to control our destiny, also. there have been a couple of loss of the passed general assembly. we have gone through extensive processes that have gone through a whole bunch of the important policy issues that the general assembly adopted. we are set on all different kinds of insurance rolls. people are very excited. we also see the i.t. part of it as a big challenge, and we have completed -- a team of contractors working on this trip, we have been doing weekly meetings since i have started on this job 18 months ago. it is important to realize what we're talking about, people having the ability to easily get affordable health care. that is a value across the medicaid and values exchanges. we're looking for in maryland to kate point where people can get health insurance at an affordable price, and as a result they are happier, healthier, and maryland really benefits. >> one of the dynamics of this debate, particularly to the concerns of states, the state controls as opposed to turning over control to the government. you are the handful of exceptions. this gives us some tools to look at the way -- to look the way we want it. at you -- you have been on enough panels, have you give examples of why maryland and virginia are doing this differently, because assuming we are exchanges -- as in the exchanges are opening up, does it make a difference because you're exercising local control? something the audience will understand as a difference? >> i do not know, but there is a group of individuals who believe the states should stop all work now, default into a federal plan, and assume that will get it done. that is not a pat i would recommend yet to the governor that he take, because there has been a tremendous amount of work at the federal level. there are decisions yet to be made that will impact whether this can actually be done or not. i would also want to say that like josh we are concerned about affordable health care and access to it. our concern is that this may not prove to be as affordable. one of the problems folks will have in 2014 is sticker shock when all this comes out, and i would be interested in your comments, because i have heard a concern about the plans, and the access depends on affordability. part of our work as the decree a center for health care innovation which lives in the chamber of commerce. we feel we have to align the private-sector to move toward delivery system or for any major way. maryland has done that differently because they do statewide rate setting and they have a more involved approach governmentally. your question specifically -- we would have a facilitator exchange. i would assume maryland would be more active in the dacia up prices, but i do not know that. we would likely have a single mechanism for both shop and the individual -- or policies. i do not know what decisions you have made in that regard. your benefit package may be different. those are places within the framework that we know will work and states can choose things that are different. josh, i did not know where you are in those. >> we decided not to merge individual and small-group markets. we have a non-guaranteed issue. >> we are running a single administrative structure. >> i am not sure we would look that different. one of the things we are doing on the small business side is partnering with the small agencies so they can integrate the exchange into their daily business. on the active purchasing side, the exchange has authority to add additional minimum requirements, but we have not made any decisions on whether we do at that. our sense is it is important to get this up and running with as robust prejudice patient -- participation as possible. we are very interested in ways to control costs, and i see the affordable care act as one piece of the puzzle, a relatively small piece of the puzzle, but an important one, because if you do not at people at the access to care, cannot get to the primary care doctors, it is hard to take the other parts of the system when people are stuck outside this is. there are a whole bunch of things. we have a system around hospital pricing that is unique, but there are a number of ways that have been very helpful and a whole bunch of other efforts we would like to get up and running. at a certain point it would make sense for the exchange to engage with those and be more of an active purchaser. if there is a great health care innovation that is low in cost, we want to encourage that. i would not be shy about using an exchange to encourage that. my guest is dr. hazel would do the same thing. if there is a tremendous innovation, that gets better results, you want to drive fort that innovation. >> our governors would be unhappy if we agreed about everything. i think the likelihood in virginia with politics being what they are and the prevailing thought is it is unlikely the government would want to directly tell -- or give the authority to make changes like that. what we're trying to do is the innovation center, changes in the medicaid policies we have, and we're looking at using the state employee health plan as a model for what we would like to buy. as he talked about things that are not as much on the forefront of the mandate decisions and coverage, you have the innovation center. we're not so sure there is a body of evidence that supports things that are top-down driven, because the building blocks in various areas of virginia, and in maryland, too, are different. he cannot do in weis, virginia, -- you cannot do in weis, virginia -- in wise, virginia, what you can do in tidewater or northern virginia. where try to build a delivery system that makes some sense, and we are not sure there is yet and evidence-based model that will worker and all places. we are spending a lot time and energy on that as well. >> i want to bring in our other panelists, but this is supposed to be an interactive conversation. you've should all have the cards by now that we have pass that at the beginning of the event, and we will get to questions. we are going to collect the note cards and pass them out. in a little bit you will have the chance to get your questions in as well. for anybody who is watching the live stream, you can follow the conversation. ron, i would like to ask you, as you listen to this and listen to the landscape of what the states are doing, what are your biggest priorities, concerns that you are looking out for right now, and are there states that you think might actually be better off with the federal exchange? >> i think there is an interesting example with respect to virginia in terms of the overall landscape. the story you hear -- >> i am not sure i want to be interesting, ron. >> you had your attorney general who is tripping all over himself, the first at the courthouse door. you have a governor who does not have nightmares about exchanges, but nightmares or dreams about being vice-president. he has not said the most wonderful things about the affordable care act. here you are doing great work, implementing the affordable care act -- >> please do not say that. retract all those statements. >> there is a lesson here that that take away from this discussion, and i have great admiration for what governor o'malley and josh are doing in maryland, but there is an important political lesson from what is happening in virginia. the story often these days is there are going to be very few states that are going to implement these exchanges. you only have 11 states that have enacted authority to set up an exchange. you have to states that have done this by executive order. yet massachusetts, which has been there before the starting line was created. you add those together, 14 states, and other states might pass something, and what i hear from reporters is, gosh, this is a tiny minority of states that are moving forward. i think a key take away is not only look at those states that have actually adopted legislation to set up an exchange, as those are the only state that will have exchanges ready. i think a better indication -- none of these are fail-safe, look at the state's that -- states applied for and received funding for the first stage of setting up an exchange. you have got 34 states that have done that, and there are some states that politically have refused, but they are still working to do so. you look at some of the very conservative state where the governors are pretty bombastic about the affordable care act, virginia as an example. the attorney general. and yet behind the scenes, there is work being done to set up the exchanges. i would suggest to you that there are going to be a lot more states that are going to be ready to set up their exchanges, come mid november when they submit the paper work to hhs. take governor christie of new jersey, not exactly a shy guy when it comes to anything, let alone the affordable care act, and he vetoed the legislation to set up an exchange. and yet, new jersey appeals they have taken enough preparatory steps, that if the supreme court moves forward and allows the affordable care act to be implemented, exchanges be implemented, they think they are going to be ready. i will say two other things. one is the fact that the federal government is now in effect providing greater flexibility about possible partnerships. that makes a significant difference, so that some states that have not done the full panoply, implement exchanges all by themselves, and there are some opportunities for partnerships, but it may not be the neatest way to do things, but it provides the open that will be ready to go, january 1, 2014, and the last thing i want to emphasize, the affordable care act did not do everything. josh is absolutely right. it is an enormously important foundation for the future of america's health care system. the one thing be affordable care act does makes my heart sing, we have 50 million people who are uninsured. this is going to allow tens of millions of people to gain health coverage, and that is an important thing to emphasize in terms of what the state need to do. it is one thing to have legislation with expansion of the medicaid program, increasing eligibility, particularly for the adult population, and then to have tax credit subsidies for people up to 400% of poverty, which is of the $5,000 for a family of three, $92,000 for a family of four. you still have to get these folks and rolled. we have got to have enrollment- friendly systems in place, and there is going to possibly be a greater challenge, but the partnership during the state doing medicaid, the fed's doing the exchanges -- which have to make sure some will application forms that you can apply online, that there is no closed -- every door you can get for application in and it is the right place, you're eligible for medicaid, a tax credit subsidies -- that is critically important, and that has got to be done absolutely right. >> we will get to audience questions, but, dan, i want to ask you, what your perspective is, and what are the biggest concerns that you are looking at with the exchanges, and do you have a sense whether enough insurers will be willing and able to participate in exchanges to make them viable market, or could we see a problem? >> as a matter if it is the state ready or the federal red ink for a couple of years? is it relevant? but could questions. from a health perspective, it is important we have a true marketplace, where the emphasis on maximizing competition and choice where consumers have the choices they need as well as employers and the marketplace. that has to be the focus. we believe the best place to do this is at the state level, because the state's no their marketplace is the best. they have the experience in, particularly with regulating health plans. they're glad to see states are moving forward, at different rates and pieces. we have heard a lot from josh and from bill this morning about where their states are, and i would like to complement both of them because they are very open and transparent. the plans want to compete and we have a lot of experience to work with states to make sure this happens at the state level. we're happy to see the federal government is bending over backwards to help states as well, where they say they do not want to duplicate efforts that are going at the state level. that is important so we have effective exchanges. they have a partnership program and that is important for state that may not be able to do the full-fledged state if changes right away. other key things i wanted to emphasize, and be heard about this first from bill. affordability is key here. these plants have to have le plans.l if we do not have affordable premiums that individuals and companies are not going to participate. the penalty for not purges patent is not all that extreme, particularly in the first year. we have to focus on what joshua say, which is on health care cost. the affordable cost -- can act takes important steps. more needs to be done. if we do not have a better handle on controlling the current cost of care in this nation, which will not have affordable premiums. other important provisions in the act, we have this premium tax that goes into effect in 2014. we did an analysis that shows again, upward pressure on premiums. depending on what states have the plans that are available. they might focus on affordability. it could have a significant bi up in premiums. that is another a important part as well. the vast majority do not have specific age bans. for younger cohorts forces and all their cohorts -- the number and help your premiums are spent. there is tremendous pressure on premiums. we need to pay attention to that on what the text could be. i will get back to the importance of having extreme changes that are low cost and do not duplicate efforts. what the states do and what they do best. the market knowledge and what works best for constituents and not have these high costs exchanges. >> could i add one additional piece to this that has not gotten a lot of attention? in virginia, we have over 900,000 in the medicaid program. the benefits in the medicaid -- is a benefit package in medicaid. it has been there a long time. the states can add extra benefits to it. mandatedon-ben benefit. it is an old one. one of the concerns that we have is that as you move from medicaid and people are at that incremental, we want people to be working and work their way off the public support. what we worry about is the effect went and did individuals go from medicaid i think they can get a job and go into the exchange and benefit package. there will be a barrier i think for individuals to go into the exchange. that is something that congress will have to help us address or we will have a different type of insurance lock. >> i think it is a good point. even having something for individuals as a lot better than where we are right now. we are at a cliff. it is a cliff. it may be a bit of a step down, but a comparison of where we are right now, we want that problem to get better. >> that is the point i was going to make. first of all, when somebody is above or their household is above 138% in poverty and not eligible for medicaid, at least now there will be tax subsidies that are provided on a sliding scale. by providing them on a sliding scale, it means those folks who are marginally above 138% of party will get a larger tax credit than those folks at 4 under% of poverty. -- 400% of poverty. the medicare program, which is the health care safety net program, any advance of the affordable health care act, we treated different groups very differently. we treat kids differently than their parents. we treat adults different. with respect to kids, due to the confluence of medicare and interested virtually, the eligibility goes up to do and% of poverty. for a family of four, $46,000. the parents of those kids, the medium income eligibility standards among the 50 states is 62% of poverty. we have a huge portion of parents whose kids are getting public coverage, but they cannot. then with respect to adults, singles and jobless couples, we do nothing. this is an enormous improvement. but he said before, the affordable health care act is not the be all and end all of what needs to happen with respect to health reform. but it is such an important foundation for changes. that is why it is important we get it right. we recognize that there are these issues with medicaid. that is not where i was going. as a long-term solution, there are things that need to be fixed. what may be the difference in virginia more than other states is that we do really pride ourselves on low tax rates and try to be business family. you will your the governor say it is the most business-friendly state in the u.s. when we see the human resource costs, which includes health care and taxes, the issue is, we are no competitive against other countries. think of asian countries like china. someone will say, who will pay for all of this over time? i think where we'd philosophically have our differences, how much, support and how fast? as opposed to is the system broken? we absolutely agree with you there. we want to see improvements in health care. no one argues about that. how much, afford and how fast? that is a question. there is always the perspective of what the economy is doing. it is still stagnant. we will get the jobs report any minute right now. it will show we are not bouncing back as fast as we need to. we do have to get resolution quickly. i think we can agree on that. the sooner we get a resolution, the sooner -- >> it will happen. >> i want to get to the questions from the audience. one is about a supreme court scenario. here is one to ponder -- the supreme court comes back and says, the individual mandate is unconstitutional. we will throw it out. but that is all we will do. we will leave the other things in place. the policy issue, that is not our job. our job is just to figure out what is constitutional and what is not. everything else is in still in place. what do you do then? is it workable? >> it is not workable. we made that clear in our brief to the supreme court. the rest is linked to the mandate. we have some real life experience. we have eight states that have tried to do the reforms without the required individual requirements in the 1990's. the market became quickly destabilized. premiums spiked. individuals lost toys. individuals -- th lost choice. in kentucky, they could not remain solvent in that. once you break the linkage, the market reacts. that is what we have argued to the supreme court. >> i agree. if you have a situation where the rules are set up that way, it will not work. that is one of the reasons that is kind of intimidating to read. people say, zero we will make sure that people with pre- existing conditions can get health care. how will you do that? it is not that easy. you need to have a policy. i think it is important to challenge people to realize this is important for people to get health insurance. >> i did i see it as a challenge. [laughter] >> it is pretty easy to say that i believe everyone to be able to get insurance. but i do not believe in any mechanisms to create a market -- see any mechanisms to create a market. we do what we have been doing all our lives. we have looked at all of the options. we make a decision. uance tot to add a new w this conversation. i think there is a nuance here. i support the individual responsibility provision. i think it is far preferable for people to purchase health insurance than to force the bills onto everyone else. it is a good, conservative principle. of course it was created by conservatives. the commentary has illustrated that. let's take a look at this states that have adopted the guarantee issue, but did not do what massachusetts did and did not have a mandate. the experience is that premiums did go up. the nuances are aas follows -- one, the affordable health care act, there is something different than the other states do. that would be kept under the scenario you are talking about. we are clearly trying to get younger and healthier people into the pool and keep them there. that is what the insurance industry is most concerned about and should be concerned about. one of the things affordable health care act does is not perfect, but it is different from what states have done. there are the tax credit subsidies on a sliding scale. i emphasize that again. what that means is that younger adults who are in entry-level jobs are do not have a job will get a disproportionate benefit from those tax credits subsidies. it does that mean that there is ool,amage in terms of the pul but it ameliorates the pool somewhat. i think everyone will want to ultimately protect people who have pre-existing conditions. they should not be denied coverage. the most prominent example that many in the audience remembers is that when medicare was created, we did not require seniors to get prescription drug coverage. the 2003 legislation essentially pay a surcharge. again, i do not think that argues against the individual responsibility, but there are ways that we can ameliorate them. >> let me answer two questions. your question first and then the one that everyone will ask after that. that is, what will happen in virginia? urbanists did the best projection of what will happen in massachusetts. they predict that without the mandate, everything will be premiums and they will go up. the message that we carry to the attorney general and the governor has been from a policy standpoint, these are definitely linked. if the mandate goes away, what we do is look at enrollment periods. but the penalties. we look at things to make insurance affordable for those who are being irresponsible as opposed to free riding. i think we would agree that would be the next series of challenges. if you believe that, why are you suing? i knew you would ask that. [laughter] we do see the policy. there are levels of priorities in a public policy. our basic organizing principle in this country has centered around the u.s. constitution. we agree it is the federal responsibility, what we agree to a state responsibility, and what we agree is individual responsibility. this is our basic organizing policy. we have george washington, alexander hamilton, and thomas jefferson. we do this internally. we have done this for a couple of centuries. call it whatever, we do believe that there are limits to what the federal government should be able to do. that takes priority over the policy decision that can be made. if you talk to the attorney general, which we have, he will say, the federal government does not have the constitutional power, but the state could. he would say it does have the ability to do these things at the federal government doesn't comment and nor shall we allow them to. i can hear his head shaking without looking. [laughter] that really is a fundamental thing. what we do at the state level is different. the argument made for the first time the government will coerce an individual to engage in the commerce, that way, is to be regulated. i think that is possible. we can disagree. i think it is something that needs to be worked through. hopefully the supreme court will work through this. we need to get on with doing what we need to do to improve health care coverage for individuals. >> can i join in? >> you started it. >> one of the audience's question was the high-risk people. it is divided into categories by the state. the people in these pools -- some states do not have many people in them. how do you figure out what the next that the coverage is? what about the ones who existed before? >> i will tell you my first response to that question is that i have gotten e-mails. one said, i have a surgery in july. should i move it up? i call everyone who e-mails me and i talk to them about it. i tell them, i am not sure what will happen. if this is an abstract question, there is the abstraction of the individual mandate and all of the legal arguments that are out there. i am not able your. -- i am not a lawyer. but i do care about e-mails i get from people who care about their rights and what happens to them. this provision can be extremely challenging. it directly impacts the 50,000 people who cannot buy insurance in the private market. the my dad suddenly cut off. -- they are suddenly cut off. the question of the transition and exchanges is certainly an interesting one. the federal refunded pull right now, that is not an overwhelming number. we had 20,000 in maryland. we consider that part -- the insurance and other mechanisms and helpingding economists on the exchange board. we're looking at their options. how we handle that will be thought through for the overall goal. >> same thing. we would have to do an adjustment, risk adjusent. that is how it will be handled. >> this is a very expensive population. how do you want them handled? >> we would leave that up to the states. the states know the local markets the best. they are in the best decision to decide and how to coordinate. each state will handle it differently depending on their population and what the risk looks like. it is important to go back to the affordability point. if you have a population jumping into exchange, particularly in the individual market, that could drive up premiums. it could help with the press and adjustments. -- risk adjustments. it is important that the states do their homework. it it would need to work with consultants to find out how to deal with the transition. >> the states greeted their own funds in 1985 until now. created their own funds in 1985 until now. you cannot totally generalize. what happens to the pre-existing population? the ones with the pre-existing illnesses? >> this is an important decision that the states need to look at individually and the impact would be in terms of affordable premiums in the exchange. >> we are not exactly the same, but we had about 9000 or 10,000 more. that was maintained. then we decided to interfere in the federal poll. -- pool. we did not want to put virginia taxpayers on the hook, knowing we would run out of money before that time period was up. that is still in the question for us right now. >> quick perspective. these polls are essential. when you have pools, the have to be insured for diamonds or 10 months prior? -- nine months or 10 months prior? it causes issues because it makes the pool so much sicker and older. we do need to have balance. there are things we will need to do to make sure that there is a balance. i hope we will not need risk pools in the future. we should not be segregating that group and creating r ules. this group is very expensive. >> could i add to that? the ideal thing that would happen is that an individual who comes into an insurance creates a relationship with the pay your that would last for a lifetime. -- with a payer that would last for a lifetime. if you get sick, or if you are disabled, or if you hit 65, then you become the government's responsibility. where is the emphasis for the market to ensure health? you always have that risk that you can put into another p ool, which is of the taxpayers. we need to try to find a way to maintain coverage as people go in and out of exchanges. that is a fundamental relationship change that i think needs to happen. >> we have time for one more. >> i think we are down to two minutes. june 29, we will have a ruling. let's assume it is either all or part. we have a year and a half to resolve it. all the states get to work the next day? or will it become, i will think about it after november? >> i will not speculate. obviously they are planning for the various scenarios. the states are planning. we will have more to say on that once the supreme court rules. >> indeed think it will be another waiting game? -- do you think it will be another waiting game? >> i think it'll be different from one state to another. will things change after the supreme court rules? probably not. will the states change if the scenario you mentioned occurs? i think so. we need to wait to find out if this law is unconstitutional. it is only the individuals responsibility that is an issue. i think he will see an acceleration occurred if the supreme court says we can move forward with most of the statute. that does not mean every single state. as governors who want to make political statements because of the republican party and the aspirations -- >> if i am a governor -- >> we already have a process in place. the decision will be made above my level. the assembly is expecting that we will leave it up to the states. at some way, we will have a general assembly way in. -- weigh in. i would say that is a real iffy proposition. we have the challenge of proceeding -- not sure if it makes a lot of difference in terms of what may be in the exchange are not -- but we will be moving forward. i think what happens in congress and the election, everyone is about the optimistic. what congress does is a huge issue that we cannot control. >> i promised my mom who is calling me on twitter that i will update her. [laughter] i think our intent is to figure out to make this work. >> ok. with that, we are out of time. thank you very much to our panelists for joining us today. thank you for joining us as well. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

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