that five years from now because they have an adjustable-rate mortgage that they could not afford it and they lose their home. the regulators are trying to get the balance right. there are certain communities with high foreclosure rates where we are trying to help state and local governments take over some of these homes and convert them and provide favorable terms to first-time home buyers. frankly, i think we have to understand that the days when i was really easy to buy a house without any money down is probably over. what i am really concerned about is making sure that the housing market recovers over all and it is not such a huge drag on the economy. if it is not, people will have more confidence and spend more and more people will get hired and overall, the economy will improve. i recognize that for many folks who want to be first-time home buyers, it is still tough out there. it is getting better in certain areas but in some places, particularly where there was a big housing bubble, it is not. >> the next question is from a facebook employee in the room today. lauren hill has a question. where are you? >> i am here. thank you for joining us today. i'm originally from detroit, michigan. my question builds on what we were just talking about. at the beginning of your term, you spent a lot of time talking about job creation and the road to economic recovery. one way to do that would be to substantially increase federal investment in various areas as a way to fill the void left from consumer spending. since then, we have seen the conversation shipped from job creation and economic recovery to spending cuts and the deficit. i would love to know your thoughts on how you balance these two going forward or shift the conversation back. >> you are exactly right that when i first came into office, our number one job was prevented us from getting into another great depression. that was what the recovery act was all about. we helped states make sure that they could minimize some of the layoffs and some of the difficult budget choices that they faced. we made sure that we have the infrastructure spending all around the country. in fact, we made the biggest investment in infrastructure sets quite as in our build the interstate highway system. -- since dwight eisenhower build the interstate highway system. when i come into office, we have about 2% of the battery manufacturing here in america. as everybody here knows, what is really holding us back from my goal of 1 million electric vehicles on the roads is that battery technology is still tough. it is heavy and expensive. if we can make significant improvements in that technology, i think the opportunities for electric vehicles, alternative vehicles that are much cheaper, our opportunities are limitless. those investments we made in the first two years -- the economy is now growing. it is not growing as fast as we would like because separate financial crisis, typically, there is a bigger drag on the economy for a longer period of time. over last year and a half, we have seen almost 2 million jobs created in the private sector. because this recession came at a time when we were already deeply in debt and is made the debt worse, if we don't have a serious plan to tackle the deficit, that could actually end up being a bigger drag on the economy than anything else. if the markets start feeling we are not serious about the problem. did you start seeing investors -- and if you start seeing investors feel uncertain about the future and they could pull back when the economy is just taking off. folks around here are used to the hills of san francisco. do you have a clutch car? [laughter] you have to tap -- that is sort of what we faced in terms of the economy. we have to hit the xcel river but we have to make sure -- we have to hit the accelerator, but we have to make sure we don't gun it and let the car slipped backwards. we are trying to put together a debt and deficit plan that does not slash spending so drastically that we cannot still make investments in education, infrastructure which would help the economy grow. in december, we passed a targeted tax cut for business investment and a payroll tax that as a stimulus of fact to help grow the economy. we can do those things and still grow the economy while having a plan in price to reduce the deficit by 2015 and the long term. i think we can do both. it requires a balanced approach i am talking about. if all we are doing is spending cuts and we are not discriminating about it, if we are using a machete instead of a scalpel, and cut out things that create jobs, than the deficit could get worse because we could slip back into another recession. for folks in detroit where you are from, they know our investments can make a difference. we essentially say to the u.s. auto industry. we now have three automobile companies in america that are turning a profit. gm announced it is hiring back all the workers it was planning to lay off. we did so at the same time we were able to increase fuel efficiency standards on cars for the first time in 30 years. it can be done. it takes a balanced approach. [applause] >> we have a question from the university of florida. in february, lost the initiative -- you launched the initiative for young people to have round tables across the country. two women are participating. in your deficit reduction speech last week, you spoke of the need to not only reduce government spending but to also increase federal revenue. in light of our nation's budget challenges, will your administration consider this a policy like the dream act which will reduce the deficit by $1.4 billion and increase government revenue by $3.4 billion over the next two years. ? [applause] >> let me talk about immigration policy in general. half we had a discussion yesterday bring together business -- we had a discussion which they bring into the business leaders and a broad cross-section of americans together to talk about how we finally fix an immigration system that is fundamentally broken? the dream act deals with a particular portion of the population. kids who were brought here when they were young by their parents, their parents might have come here illegally, the kids did not do anything. they were doing what kids do which is to follow their parents. they have cropp as americans. they went to school with us or with their kids. they think of their kids as americans but many of them still don't have legal status. we have said, especially for these young people who are our neighbors and friends and children's friends, if they are of good character and going to school for joining our military, they want to be part of the american family. why wouldn't we want to embrace them? [applause] why wouldn't we want to make sure that --they are contributing to our future? that is the dream act. that is just a small part of a broader challenge that we have. immigration in this country has always been complicated. the truth of the matter is that we are both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. sometimes laws have not been fair. sometimes laws have been restricted to certain ethnic groups. quotas.ave been "t sometimes all laws are arbitrary. some businesses of want to bring in workers on the cheap. america is a nation of immigrants. that is our history and that is what makes us stronger. we've got ambitious people from all around the world who come here because they have a new idea. they want to create the next big thing or they just won a better future for their kids and family and that dynamism is part of what has propelled our progress and kept us young. now, i think most americans understand that most americans agree with that. at the same time, i think most americans think there should be an orderly process to do it. people should not just be coming here and cutting in front of the line, essentially, and staying without having gone for the proper channels. we have said let's fix the whole system. let's make the legal immigration system more fair than it is and are efficient than it is. and that includes something i know that is of great concern here in silicon valley -- if we have smart people that want to come here and start businesses in math andph.d.'s science, why don't we want them to stay? [applause] why do we want to send them someplace else? those are potential job creators. those are job generators. i think about andy grove of intel. we want more of him here in the united states. we don't want them starting intel in china or friends. we want them started here. there is a lot we can do for making sure that high-skilled immigrants who come here, study, we paid for their college degrees and given them scholarships and given them this training. let's make sure that if they want to reinvest and make their future here in america they can. point number two is you have on skilled workers here who are living in the shadows. they are contributing to our economy and all sorts of ways. they are working in the agricultural sector. they are in restaurants. they are in communities across the country looking after children and helping to build america. they are scared. they feel as if they are locked out of their surroundings. they did brickle law. they have to take responsibility for that. they should pay a fine. they should learn english. they should go to the back of the lines of a don't automatically get citizenship, but there should be a pathway for them to get legalized in our society so they don't fear for themselves or their families, so that families are not separated. at the same time, let's make sure we have a secure border so folks are not wandering through the desert to get here. let's make illegal immigration system more efficient and more effective so there aren't huge backlogs. this is all part of what we call comprehensive immigration reform. there is no reason why we should not be able to achieve a system that is fair, equitable, an economic engine for america that helps the people will already here acculturated and make sure our laws are not being broken but we are still true to our traditions. as i mentioned yesterday, i cannot solve this problem by myself. nancy pelosi is a big champion of this. the democratic caucus in the house is prepared to advance comprehensive immigration reform but we will have to have bipartisan support in order to make it happen. all of you have to make sure your voices are heard, saying this is a priority and this is something important. if politicians do not hear from you, then it probably won't happen. i cannot do it by myself. we will have to change laws in congress but i am confident we will make it happen. [applause] >> got it. the next one is from a facebook employee. where are you from? >> hey, leo. >> i'm originally from san jose, california. the 2012 budget plan proposed by paul ryan has been praised by many in the media as bold or brave. do you see this as a time that calls for boldness and do you think your plan that you outlined last week demonstrates sufficient baldness or is it a media creation? >> that is a great question. the republican budget that was put forward, i would say is fairly radical. i would not call a particularly courageous. i think mr. ryan is sincere. i think he is a patriot and wants to sell their real problem which is our long-term deficit. but i think that what he and the other republicans in the house of representatives also want to do is change our social compact in a fundamental way. their basic view is, no matter how successful i am, no matter how much i have taken from this country -- i was not born wealthy. i was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. i went to college on scholarships. there was a time when my mother was trying to get her phd and she had to take food stamps for a short time. my grandparents relied on medicare and social security to help supplement their income when they got old. so, their notion is that despite i have benefited from all these things, grandfather benefited from the g.i. bill after he fought in world war two, that somehow i now have no obligation to people who are less fortunate than me. i have no real obligation for future generations to make investments so they have a better future. what his budget proposal does is, not only hold income tax flat, he actually wants to further reduce taxes for the wealthy, further reduce taxes for corporations, not pay for those, and in order to make his numbers work, cut 70% out of our clean energy budget, cut 25% out of our education budget, cut transportation budget by 1/3. you could call the ball. i would call it shortsighted. [applause] there is a fundamental difference between how the republicans and i think about medicare and medicaid and the health-care system. their basic theory is that if we just turn medicare into a voucher program and turn medicaid into a block grant program, now but medicare recipients will go out and shop for the best insurance you've got, that you can find and you will control costs because you will say to the insurance company this is all i can afford. that will control costs except if you get sick and the policy you bought this not cover what you've got. then either you will mortgage your house or go to the emergency room in which case i do have insurance will pay for indirectly because the hospital will have uncompensated care. to make't really want the health care system more efficient and cheaper. they want to push the cost of health care inflation on to you and then you will be honored on trying to figure out in the marketplace how to make health care cheaper. you are just one person. you work at facebook and they are a big enough co. and facebook could negotiate with insurance companies and providers to get you a good deal. if you are a startup company, if you are an entrepreneur in the back of your garage, good luck trying to get insurance on your own. you cannot do it. if you are somebody who is older and as a pre-existing condition, insurance companies won't take you. we have said let's make sure instead of just pushing the cost on to the people who individually are not going to have an negotiating power or ability to change how providers operate or how hospitals or doctors operate or how insurance companies operate, let's make sure that we have a system both for medicare but also for people who currently don't have health insurance where they can be part of a big pool and negotiate for changes in how the health care system works so that it is more efficient. so it's more effective so you get better care, fewer infection rates in hospitals, so there are fewer readmission rates, so we are caring for the chronically ill more effectively, so that there are fewer unnecessary tests. that is how you save money. the government will save money but you will also save money. we think that is a better way of doing it. they will say that that will never work because it is government-imposed and it is bureaucracy and it is government tech "-- is a government takeover and their death panels. i still don't entirely understand the entire death panel concept. they are saying that some remote bureaucrats will be deciding your health care for you. we are just saying that if we got health care experts, doctors, nurses, consumers, who are helping design the medicare works more intelligently, we don't have to radically change medicare. yes, i think it is fair to say that their vision is radical. it isdon't think particularly courageous. nothing is easier than selling a problem on the backs of people who are poor or people who are powerless or don't have lobbyists or clout. [applause] i don't think that is particularly courageous. >> the next one is from the web. we have a question from orlando, florida. i strongly believe that education is the greatest equalizer. with so many problems plaguing our current system, is it possible to examine a complete overhaul of the system so that addresses the needs of modern students. i just wanted to say as someone who has spent at carriage a bunch of time researching education, i think the race to the top is one of the most underappreciated and important things your administration has done. [applause] >> i appreciate that. this is an area where i think you have seen the parties come together. there are some good bipartisan work being done. it used to be that the argument around education always revolved around the left saying that we need more money and the right saying that we should just blow up the system. because public schools are not doing a good job. what we are now seeing is people recognizing that we need both money and reform. it is not either/or. it is a both/and proposition. race to the top is a simple concept. most federal dollars are allocated through a formula. if you got a certain number of poor kids or you got a certain number of disabled kids in your school district, there's a formula and you get a certain amount of money and every state and school district gets that money according to the formula. we took about 1% of the total spending on education and to get this one%, shows that you are reforming the system. it is like a competition model. every state, every school district could apply and you had to show us that you had a good plan to retrain teachers and recruit and do good professional development so we get the best teachers possible. you had to have accountability. you had to show as you are actually making progress in the schools. and that you were measuring through data the improvements that were being made. that you are reaching into the schools that were hardest to reach because there are about 2000 schools are run the country that account for the majority of drop out of our country. they are drop of factories. show is a plan to go into those schools and make a big difference. what has happened is that over 40 states in the process of competing for this extra money, ended up doing the most meaningful reforms that we have seen a generation. it has made a huge difference, even the states that did not end up winning the competition, improve. that is the concrete approach you have seen some democrats and republicans embrace. our hope is that we can build on that. a couple of things we know work -- the most important thing to a good education is making sure we have good teachers. in from about classroom. they provide -- providing more support for teachers and making sure they are compensated but also making sure they are performing -- that is acutely important for the other thing is good data so there's a constant feedback not just standardized tests that go into a drawer or the people -- or that people do so not to get penalized. real good data that you can present to the teacher while they are still teaching that the child is falling behind and here are some ways to improve them. their performance. we are starting to see real progress on the ground. i'm optimistic that we can actually -- before the 2012 election -- potentially, have a federal education law that will embody some of the best information we have about how to initiate a good school reform. government alone cannot do it. every time i come to silicon valley, i am inspired and frustrated by how many smart people are here but also frustrated that i also hear stories about how we cannot find enough engineers or enough computer programmer. you know what? that means our education system is not working the way it should. that has to start early and that's what we are emphasizing math and science. that's why we are emphasizing teaching girls math and science. [applause] that's why we are emphasizing making sure black and hispanic kids are getting math and science and [applause] . we've got to do such a better job when it comes to stem education. that is one of the reasons why we had our first signs fair at the white house in a long time because we want to start making science school. cool. [applause] i want people to feel the same the next big energy breakthrough or internet break. i want people to feel the same way they felt about the moon launch, that is why these investments in education are important. government alone cannot do it. there has to be a shift in american culture were once again we buckle down and say this is important that is why the work you are doing in newark, mark, the work that folks like the gates foundation is doing in philanthropic investments and best practice in education especially around math and science training will be so important. we have to lift our gaze up when it comes to technology and math and science. that is one of the most important legacies i can have as president of the united states. [applause] >> the next one is from another facebook employee. >> the biggest threat we have is the rise in health-care costs. unfortunately, a lot of the solutions we here to medicare and medicaid don't involve slowing down the rise in health- care costs. they involve shifting costs to beneficiaries. can you talk a bit more about what provisions of the affordable health care act are designed to slow down the rise of health care costs and what policies you would like to see enacted in the future to continue to slow down the costs? >> let me give you a couple of examples you are exactly right and how you describe it. i don't want to just shift the health care costs on to the american people. i want to reduce health-care costs. of health the example i >.t. i will try to sound like i know what i am talking about here in silicon valley. the health-care system is one of the few aspects of our society or a lot of stuff is still done on paper. last time you guys went to a doctor's office or maybe to your dentist office, how many people still had to fill out a form on a clipboard? the reason for that is because the large chunk of our providers' systems is not automated. what ends up happening is you may go to your primary care physician. he does some basic tests and he sees something of concern and refers to two specialists. you go to the specialist, he will do another test. your insurance company is getting charged for both those tests. as a post to the test that was taken by your primary physician being e-mailed to the specialist. or better yet, if it turns out that there may be three or four specialists involved, because it is a difficult diagnosis -- this is hypothetical -- you look very healthy. let's say there were a bunch of specialists, what would be ideal is if you get all the specialists together with the primary care physicians the first time you are seeing so you are not paying for multiple visits as well as multiple tests. that is not how it works right now. part of this technology. what we did in the affordable care act is try to provide incentives to providers to start getting integrated automated systems. it is tough because the individual doctor may say that they don't want to put the initial capital out leg even though it may make my system efficient later on. getting some help for the front- end investment for a community hospital or for individual providers so we can slowly get this system more effective, that his priority number one. we know it can be done, by the way. surprisingly enough, the health- care system that does the best job on this of anybody is actually the veterans administration. it is a fully integrated system. everybody is working for the va. they have been able to achieve huge cost savings because everybody is on a single system. it is also how we reimburse doctors and how we reimburse hospitals. right now, when you have taken those two tests, if you're old enough to qualify for medicare, each doctor sends their bill to medicare and medicare pays both bills. you end up getting an operation. they will send the bill for that. medicare pays that. let's say they did not do a very good job or you got sick in the hospital and you are readmitted and you have to be treated again and do the operation all over again. medicare that gets billed for the second operation. imagine that that is how it worked when you bought a car. you go and buy your car, a week later the car does not work, you go back to the dealer and they charge you to fix the batch up date in the first place. that is what medicare does all the time. we don't provide incentives for performance. we just provide -- which is pay for the number of qualified items, procedures or tests that were performed by the provider. we want to start changing how folks are reimbursed. let's take a hospital -- we want to -- this is like race to the top. we want to be able to say to a hospital that if you do a really good job reducing infection rates in the hospital, which kill tens of thousands of people across america every year and is a huge cost for readmission rates and we know that hospitals can drastically reduce those three infection rates by simple protocols like al employees are washing their hands are moving from room to room. there are possible to have done it. if we can say to a hospital that you get a bonus for that and medicare will reimburse you for instituting the simple procedures, that saves the whole system money. that is what we try to do in the affordable care act. we want to institutionalized these new systems but it takes time. we have a private sector system that is not likely va. they are a bunch of individual doctors and hospitals spread out across the country with private insurers. it is not something we can do overnight. our hope is that over the next five years, we can see significant savings through these mechanisms. that will save everybody, not just people on medicare or medicaid. it will save everybody money including folks at facebook. i'm sure you guys provide health insurance. if you look to your health insurance bills, they don't make you happy. ok? >> with time for one more question. [applause] this is a question from terry atwater from houston tx. if you have to do something different in your first four years, what would you do? >> it has only been two years so i am sure i will make more mistakes. there are all sorts of day to day issues where i say i did not say that right or i did not explain is clearly enough or maybe if i had sequenced this plan first as opposed to that one, maybe it would've gotten done quicker. health care, obviously, was a huge battle. it had not been for nancy pelosi enter leadership in the house and the great work [applause] that others did, we would not have gotten it done if it had not been for the great work in congress. i think it was so complicated that at a certain point, people started saying this was typical washington with bickering. i have asked myself sometimes, is there a way we could've gotten it done more quickly and in a way that the american people would not have been so frustrated. i am not sure i could have. there's a reason why it had not gotten done in 100 years. it is hard to fix a system as big as health care and as complicated as our health care system. i can tell you that i think the best way to answer the question is what to i feel i have to get done still. we're still feel a huge sense of urgency is in a couple places. getting our deficit and debt as it -- getting our debt and deficit under control in a big way it needs to happen while i am president. i don't want to leave it to the next president. immigration, something i mentioned, we have not gotten done and it is something i care deeply about which is the right thing for the country. i want to get that done while i am president. energy, we have not talked a lot about energy today but first of all, $4 per gallon gas really hurts a lot of people around this country. does not because they are wasteful but if you are driving 50 miles to work and that is the only job you can find and you can't afford some hybrid so you are stuck with the old beater you're driving around beckett's a maround and get 8 miles per gallon, these gas prices are killing you. this is the reason why i have said it is so important for us to invest in new approaches to energy. we've got to have a long-term plan. it means investing in things like solar and wind, investing in biofuels, investing in clean car technology, it means converting the federal fleet 100% to fuel efficient vehicles because we are a huge market maker. it turns out that i have a lot of cars as president. if we are out there purchasing electric cars and hybrids, that can help boost demand and drive down prices. continuing to increase fuel efficiency standards on cars, increasing oil production but in an intelligent way -- those are all the hugely important. by the way, we can pay for it. the treasury loses $4 billion per year on subsidies to oil companies. think about this. the top five oil companies have made somewhere between somewhere75 billionand $125 billion every year for the last five years. nobody is doing better than exxon. nobody is doing better than shel or these other companies. they are doing great and making money hand over fist. maybe facebook is doing better. [laughter] you get the idea. they are doing really well. they don't need special tax breaks that cost us $4 billion. why can we eliminate the tax breaks for the oil companies who are doing great and invest that in new energy sources that can help us save the planet? [applause] when it comes to energy and immigration and getting our deficit under control in a balanced and smart way, when it comes to improving our math and science education, when it comes to reinvesting in our infrastructure, we just have more work to do. my closing comment would be that i hope everybody here, i hope you don't get frustrated and cynical about our democracy. it is frustrating. lord knows, it is frustrating. [laughter] some of you might of been involved in the campaign or have been energized back in 2008, you are frustrated and it did not get done fast enough and it seems like everybody is bickered all the time. just remember that we have been through tougher times before and we have always come out on top because we've still got the best universities in the world, the most productive workers in the world, this is still the most dynamic entrepreneurial culture in the world. if we come together, we can solve all these problems but i cannot do it by myself. the only way it happens is that all of you still get involved, still get engaged. it has not been that long since election day and we have gone through some very, very tough times and we've still gotten a lot done. gete still been able to this economy recovering and we have still been able to get health care passed and invest and clean energy and unable to make sure that we overturn don't ask don't tell. [applause] we've got two women on the supreme court. we've made progress. rather than be discouraged, i hope everybody is willing to double down and work even harder. regardless of your political affiliation, you have to be involved, especially your generation. if you don't give the system may push, it will not change. you will be the ones who end up suffering the consequences. if you are behind it and put the same energy and imagination that you put into facebook into the political process, i guarantee there is nothing we cannot solve. thank you, marc. [applause] >> i want to thank you again. it is such an honor to have you here. >> we had a great time them as a small token of our appreciation, for some reason you want to dress like me. [laughter] [applause] >> this is a high fashion statement right here. this is beautiful, thank you very much, everybody. [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> a couple of live events to tell you about this morning. the haitian president elect hold a news conference at 9:00 a.m. eastern. that is on our companion network, cspan 2. here on c-span, the center for american progress host a forum on the occupational safety and health administration ahead of the agency and a panel of workers. that is the 10:00 a.m. eastern. >> here are some of the programs featured on c-span this holiday weekend. friday, three former secretaries of state talk about american diplomacy, a revisit of the starr vs clinton case. on easter sunday, president ford's son stephen talked about public officials handling of the ethical issues and jenna bush hager on our memories of her father and grandfather and tom brokaw and vice president joe biden on our former presidential candidate, bob dole. on monday, political strategists on same-sex marriage in america. for a complete list, go on line at c-span.org. >> this year's studentcam competition asked students from across the country to consider washington, d.c. through their lens. the second prize winner addressed an issue that better help them understand the role of the federal government. ♪ >> december 31, 2010 was an important date for the federal government and the people of our country. major changes in the tax policy would be made. these changes could possibly increase the amount of money paid by the citizens to the federal government. the bush tax cuts were set to expire on december 31, 2010 and congress have to decide if there were going to extend them or let them expire. not ♪ what the bush tax cuts? they are the reduction of taxes cut by president george w. bush as part of the economic growth and tax relief reconciliation act -- reconciliation act of 2001. in 1999 and 2000, our economy was running a budget surplus. president bush thought the tax cuts would be a good idea because we could stop increasing the surplus and give more back to the consumer. >> up by ensuring that americans have more to spend, to say, and invest, this legislation is adding fuel to an economic recovery. >> law was passed with an expiration date, an artificial sunset at the end of this calendar year, at the end of 2010 them unfortunately, congress was divided on the topic. . >> president barack obama devised a compromise. >> which it probably expire the back? bush cuts for families making less than $250,000 per year. that is 90% of the people in the country. >> republicans firmly believe that extending all the bush tax cuts for the entire population was the way to go. john boehner was the leader of the republican effort to convince congress to extend all the bush tax cuts. >> think extending all the current tax rates and making them permanent will reduce the uncertainty in america and help small businesses begin to create jobs again. >> however, democrats were at a stalemate. some sided with president obama and others endorsed republican ideas. one thing everyone in congress was concerned about was middle- class families, 98% of the population. if the republican plan have been realized, middle-class families would have gotten fiscal relief now that after several years, the deficit would skyrocket to $3.30 trillion. the obama compromise provided relief for middle-class families but let's the cuts at speier 42% of the population. >> think about the percentage of income that is earned by the top small percent of the population. it is a large number. the top bracket is responsible for the vast majority of taxable income. >> they talk about saving $700 billion over 10 years. it is not really saving that money. >> republicans argued that a full sunset of the tax cuts would hurt small businesses. >> it has been challenging for many small-business owners. he then larger companies, to determine how to map out their spending for 2011 if they don't have the certainty about the tax rate. >> small business decisions when it comes to hiring. [unintelligible] >> i don't think small businesses would be very hurt if the top brackets expired. i don't think they are going to. >> peter orszag, the former congressional budget office director, had an idea for a possible compromise. he wants -- he wanted to extend the tax cuts for two years and then have a sunset. on december 2, 2010, the house of representatives passed a house resolution number 4853, the middle-class tax relief act of 2010. this partly includes the present obama idea of extending them for families earning under $250,000 per year. however, [unintelligible] the white house and senate republicans try to create a compromise between house and senate trade on december 6, 2010, president obama announced that a tentative deal had been made with congressional republicans to extend the bush- year tax cuts and -- at all income levels for two years as part of the tax bill package. on december 9, 2010, senator harry reid propose the senate amendment numbered 4753. this amendment include an extension of the bush tax cuts for all income levels for two years. on december 15, the senate passed the tax bill with its amendment with an 81-19 vote for it on the same day, the house received be amended tax bill to vote on. after two days of debate, on december 17, the house voted on the senate changes to the tax bill. it passed with a high majority, to its 77-148. from december 17, 2010, president obama signed the tax bill into law, effectively extending the bush tax cuts for all citizens by two years. [applause] >> how will the economy and citizens be affected by the new tax bill? >> i think we will say a boost. >> what could be an alternative to a tax cut in the future? >> consumption is generally smaller than income. >> if we could combine climate change policy with tax policy, maybe we could put in place a carbon tax. it is not a great idea in terms of politicians. politicians don't like it because it sounds like a tax that will raise energy costs to consumers and in fact, that is probably true. >> what should be our long-term goal? steady at lethold the ship get out of this economic storm. let's not spend the wheel. we don't need any more policy changes at this point until we can get on firmer ground. >> compromised, by definition, means taking some things you don't like. the overall package was the right one to insure that this economy has the best possible chance to grow and create jobs. , something that has been the great strength of america's a thriving and booming middle- class. everybody has a shot at the american dream and that to be our goal. >> . go to >org -- go to studentcam.org >> in a few mom's headlines and your phone calls. live on "washington journal." then we will be live with the center for american progress discussion of the occupational safety and health administration. >> 2/3 of the american people depended on the network news of those three networks as their primary source of news information of the united -- about the president of united states. all were hostile to richard nixon. >> coincide pivotal moments of american history on line at the c-span video -- go inside pivotal moments of american history online at the c-span video library. it is washington, your way. >> in about 45 minutes, we will be joined our robert nichols, president and ceo of the financial services forum, to talk about the debt ceiling, financial regulation, trade and