Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20131021

The third step that the u. S. Could help with is the finalization of the provisional constitution. Which deeply ambiguous contradictory in many ways. I think the three steps can be a strong starting point. Its unrealistic to expect that. Well have a clearer picture three years from now. Thank you. Well, i mean, as we know here in the United States federalism remains extremely contentious issue even in the halt halls. In places far away especially when they dont have formal links with these local administrations or they are in very hostile relationships with them as they have been with juba land. The important point that people need to recognize is that alshabaab benefits from these types of agreements and benefits from these tensions and one of the biggest problems we have in the juba land is well juba land is somewhat or stable and it is arguably less of a safe haven for alshabaab the fact that juba land is being dominated by a single allows alshabaab to recruit from minority clans who feel they are not being represented by local administrations and to some degree alshabaab is waiting a game in other areas as well waiting to see those political tensions comes to the floor and using that as an effect if recruiting tool to rebuild their ranks. Thank you for your answers to that question. Senator flake thank you for your patience. No problem. There a lot of questions i have particularly on federalism and mr. Aynte you addressed it just now in your remarks provisional constitution is deeply flawed deeply flawed document that contradicts itself. You referring mostly to the federalism aspects of that . Senator its all across but federalism is the most important element where it really contributes and puts Member States on a collision course with the federal government in that it gives the division of power between them is not clear in the document as it stands at the moment. Its only provisional when it can be proved. You mentioned four things that you think are expected of people and what they expect out of a central government. Do those implied to the folks in somaliland and other lands as well . It sounds to me as if speaking with some of their representatives they dont want to share in the countrys resources. They have their own and they want nothing to do with the rest of the country. Am i off base there or is that their assessment . Senator i think they are seeking an outright suspension from somalia for the last 20 years. It has done a remarkable job of stabilizing itself and really laying the foundation for Democratic Institutions and democratic processes of course with some flaws. Punta is not seeking secession from the rest of the country but it does lend other regions in somalia over theory under the federal government and in practice very much like somaliland carrying out its business entirely independently from the federal government. Again this is because of the vacuum that exists within the federal government. I do though think that given if a concerted effort is made to clarify the institution and began this National Dialogue on federalism i think there is a real opportunity for engagement with ponsa land and federal Member States. The last panel was talking about the government and at one point referred to it as a democratically elected government. Its not quite that simple. How is it viewed in the rest of the country . I know going back to 98 or so with the first attempts to appoint traditional elders who would appoint a constituent assembly of some type of the last iteration of this experience and it didnt take hold. What makes this different here . Why is this government going to be viewed as anything different than the last attempt . Or is it . I mean i think or i would agree with everyone or most the significant flaws with the Selection Process. That said i think there was a greater attempts to ensure that at least the majority of the elders who were at this constituent assembly who then selected the president were at least somewhat more representative than they have been in the past. It certainly wasnt a perfect process and there were lots of allegations of vote buying and fod rigging and extortion and so on and so forth. I think people focus mostly on the fact that the Prime Minister and the president who were selected or at least a president who was elected and the Prime Minister who was selected for were both notably not involved in the civil war in any major way and so this was kind of scene is a bit of a break from the past and to be perfectly honest president especially with someone who came from Civil Society who we ended up working with in the past and many had worked with in the past and we are quite excited about that possibility. That certainly doesnt mean that the government is perfect but we certainly see it as an improvement on past regimes. How realistic is the 2016 timeframe for elections and we seem to have backed a horse with this government if it doesnt take place. What is our position . What do we do . Mr. Aynte do you have any thoughts there . As i said i think elections are not impossible but highly improbable to take place in 2016 as we understand elections. We might look at another a talk or see as called by some people. It could be that we might have elections in parts that are little more stable than others but considering the slow pace of progress in the last year and the work that needs to be done i would be pleasantly surprised if elections take place in 2016. What are the options after that . I think it will depend on what the stakeholders and small you want to do the way forward. Of course not many people are looking forward to the idea of an extension. The e. Word is seen as and no one wants to hear that and i think there has to be some sort of a Selection Process that then brings the country to the next level. I should finally say though that the reason why this government is possibly seen as a little bit more hopeful than the previous ones is people are seeing this as one step toward the greater goal of consolidating the gains that have been made over the years. Its part of an incremental process. Mr. Lesage with regard to the failed raid last week the last panel didnt want to go there. What are the implications for the future . Does this embolden the elements we dont want to embolden and what happens and what are the practical effects of this . And did it surprise you that one we launched a raid and it ended as it did . I think the most important recent development in terms of strengthening alshabaab and exacerbating the threat that the movement poses to the region is the west gate attacks and we shouldnt let this essay sensationalism of the events over over the weekend overshot of that and the president that attacks that for jihadists both within the east africa region but potentially on a global scale. Not to undertake a suicide bombing operation that is highly complicated but to launch a commando raid against civilian targets and kill such a large number of people at a small time. I do believe that this has sent a signal to al qaeda senior leadership. Whether or not he was the actual author of this operation it sends a signal that alshabaab is al qaeda affiliate that needs to be taken seriously and his leadership at this point is not in question. They can launch these sorts of attacks and so preventing their affiliates and preventing their external Operations Group and the Larger National insurgency movement that gives space for those extremist to operate preventing them from continuing to hold such a base in somalia is a critical element here. Something like the operation that is reported to have taken place targeting a specific individual alshabaab leader or connected to alshabaab that could do temporary damage to the groups contest set back an immediate Operational Plan but only by removing this groups safe haven and establishing a functioning National Federal government and addressing many of the clan tensions in the underlining the clan support and religious support for splintering is going to be the actually the only way to reduce the threat long term. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you senator flake for your engagement and your interests. I have many more questions i would like to ask but given the lateness of the hour i may ask one or two briefly. Doctors lesage the last line of questioning suggests that we now face time pressure to support an expansion to move its operation a reach, its numeric strength but that we are at the same time running against a clock to transition to a legitimate Somali Security force because the longer security across the country is made possible by an external Multinational Force that is not in somali the more that creates the opportunity for recruitment and for alshabaab to simply cast this as an Occupation Army rather than a liberation force. Would you agree with that . What you think is the amount of time we have and how pressing is this for Regional Security . Senator given the length of time it is going to take to build up a professional and selfsustaining Somali National Security Force including its Army Component its intelligence component in its policing component it is urgent that we begin work on this today. It is same time i think its going to the urgent for the next several years at least five to continue their significant support of the African Union mission in somalia and tell the Somali National army forces actually come on line and can take over some of the static security positions currently held. It if they were to leave today the Somali Federal government would very likely fall very quickly. That is because the Somali National army today is an amalgamation of different clan relations that used to report to warlords warlords and if you look at the various brigades of mogadishu that make up the army today is pretty quick to identify which warlord and faction a sub along too. Their loyalty and interoperability between various sub plans just in the city of mogadishu is markedly low and frankly the Somali National army that is being funded by the United States and European Partners and mogadishu is crafted from one plan. To the concern of all other clans in the regions of South Central somali and somaliland. For this reason we actually need quickly to expand Somali National Army Recruitment and take the clan militias from most other areas that either are part of independent administrations or proxy forces for ethiopia and kenya and use salary to integrate them into National Force overtime and train and equip them and develop something professional but that is going to take several years. Thank you. The issue of remittances which you mentioned in passing has been a real concern of mine. Describe that he would please the role of remittances for the United States and how the somali economy and the growing capacity in mogadishu nationally would be affected if the mechanisms for transferring remittances were to be blocked and what do you think we can and should do to try and sustain a pathway for a legitimate vetted senator somalia is larger than all National Aids combined. Its about 1. 5 billion a year coming from somali diaspora in the u. S. Europe australia the middle east and africa. There are about 2 million somali scattered around the world sending money back to relative so its essentially the most important lifeline the Somali People have. I think the banks and other Financial Institutions have legitimate concerns about the rules and regulations both here in the United States but also in the u. K. Where the east bank is blocking or about to block remingtons companies to open up Bank Accounts within barclays. I think with the u. S. Government can do is to work with partners in the u. K. To try and create a framework whereby remingtons companies can continue to send remingtons legally to the Somali People. The alternative is if our quays goes ahead with its now promised to shut down the hole while a companies in the u. K. The alternative is many people will go underground and our ability to see the activities of monies transferred from the west to somalia will become more constrained. So i think this is an urgent matter and one that has serious implications both humanitarian as well as security both here for the United States but also for the Somali People. Thank you and a last question for me. The Previous Panel spoke some about the model of an african led indirect action by the United States financing african led all two lateral force as being a possible role model foam moral trees lead role regional securities. If we are at this point it inflection where it amazon succeeds or fails and if actions like the attack in nairobi put significant pressure on regional partners like kenya djibouti and ethiopia how vital is it for our interests in the continent and globally, how important is it for somalis is it that the regional partners continue to get bilateral support from United States to stay engaged in this fight and to not withdraw . Well as i mentioned in my testimony i believe as dr. Andre lesage mentioned absent amazon the small a National Government would collapse. And i think amazon is done a remarkable job over the last three or four years to push alshabaab back at enormous cost in blood and treasure to the troop of the countries. The largest challenge really to some degree is that while this has been a very effective military operation va you at the moment still lacks the capacity to kind of make this both an integrated political and military operation which is why we have created this kind of unwieldy hybrid between the u. N. Which is a political mandate and au which has a military mandate and it has always been very difficult to try to meld those two organizations together since they have different cultures and they oftentimes have different leaders who sometimes dont get along and sometimes they do get along. Currently the u. N. Has transition to a new mission with a new secretary special representative for the secretarygeneral. That mission was just established in june so its very early for us to be able to see how that will work. He does have instructions from the u. N. Security council to cooperate with the au. Those instructions are not very clear as i mentioned in my testimony and they think it remains kind of a work in progress. Unfortunately as i think all of my colleagues would agree ultimately the solution in somalia needs to be a political one and amazon needs to work within a political framework to achieve that goal and kind of melding those two organizations and then have them working towards the same goal has continued to be a challenge. Thank you. Senator thank you. Just one question. Mr. Aynte with regard to the diaspora is very in both obviously with 1. 5 billion a year in terms of remittances . What is the feeling that the diaspora generally about the National Government and the situation there . Can you give some sense of feeling . Well i used to be part of the diaspora myself back home and i know its i know know its not monolithic and im not trying to suggest that the can you give us some sense . Some people in the somalis diaspora has welcomed it in huge numbers. I think a year into it many people have realized that they probably had Higher Expectations than realistic and are understandably disappointed with very slow progress that has happened over the past year. But i think many somalis continue to be optimistic and engaging in whats going on in somalia not only in a limited sense but the diaspora that do dominate the political structure across the country to the federal government where spending is 50 of the entire parliament is made up of the diaspora and Something Like 60 or 70 of the cabinet any given cabinet is the diaspora. The diaspora vital to what is happening politically socially and economically. Sometimes theyre engaged in sometimes holding the government accountable to its national vision. Thank you. Thank you senator flake and thank you to our Witnesses Today the first and second panel i will remind all of us where we began which was the impact of the Government Shutdown on the capacity of different agencies and departments to continue to carry out our development our diplomacy intelligence and Security Missions and im grateful that all of our witnesses were able to come and testify today and appreciate senator flakes cooperaticooperati on in this hearing which is part of our ongoing discussion about a role in somalia and the region in the world. I will keep the hearing record open until friday of this week october 11 so that members of the committee who were not able to join us might submit written questions for the record and with that this hearing is hereby adjourned. Jamie lisa mark and matt for that terrific discussion. I am with lisa on the central value of automation and simplicity. Of course the conundrum is if the effort and energy and complexity that go into creating automation and simplicity which is why the daily struggle of life i feel. We are going to continue on the financial aspect of this and i want to introduce kevin murphy and robert topel who will present findings from their paper the value of health and longevity. This is a legendary paper that one be award for the best Research Paper on health, and economics. The Research Develops a framework for economically valuing improvements in health and longevity and begins to answer the question how much is health worth . Kevin murphy is the george days stigler distinguished Service Professor of economics at the university of chicagos school of business and robert topel is that Isidore Brown and gladys brown distinguished Service Professor in urban and labor economics also at the university of chicagos booth school of business. Welcome gentlemen. [applause] thanks for having us. We werent quite sure of the organization of the venue so this is going to be a little bit like a grateful dead concert. I have reached the age where i am leaving body parts behind. Its a symbolic of the kinds of things that we are talking about. I figured as long as im coming to washington d. C. And i need a hit replacement it turns out the guy who does them the best minimally invasive surgeries here in d. C. With just two weeks notice i called them up and said i would like to come and see you so yesterday afternoon i went to see him and now here i am to talk about. We are lucky we live in an age where we can replace parts as we go and if i reach 150 them while being any of them left. [laughter] feel free to jump in. Dont worry, i will. This is what we are going to talk about is something we began back in 2000, a project and the president of the university came to us and asked what is medical Research Worth . We were not by Training Health economist so we said well we dont know but we will think about it. And we did and then the story grew in the telling and here today we heard that her papers legendary. I have never had a legendary paper so i want to thank you for that. The problem we approached is well, on the benefit side not just medical research. What do health gains in longevity gains been worth and what would it be worth prospectively . The answer is that they are very valuable and we approached the problem the way economists do because we are economists at the value that people get from increased Health Longevity and we will talk about that here today isnt because they are more productive or it doesnt make gdp bigger or it doesnt create jobs in some congressmans congressional district. I remember when we first did the stuff i senator who was a great professor but how many jobs with this created my state . Its not about that. Understand that point that the way we think of economist is how much are people willing to pay for these increases in longevity because that is what economists do. To conceptualize and think about the fact that in recent times most of the gains in longevity have come at older ages. Its not like early on in the 20 century where it came from. Reducing infant mortality and childhood diseases and other Public Health measures. It has come from older ages. Reductions in Heart Disease and reductions in mortality from cancer. Most 65 or older on average a lot of those people ever type 80 dont want to say those life years that they have gained are not worth anything. Worse than that people would say its bad because they require additional pension benefits and more strain on the Health Health care and Social Security system. You really want to say the evidence is people value living longer and they value it a lot. If you look at the places where people have to make a choice about how much they value their lives and how much they value longevity the empirical evidence is people value life. Its very important to them and one way to look at it is that we have often done this in terms of kind of a choice. Think about if i offered you the following choice. I take you back in eliminating the last 113 years of progress. Im going to take you back to the 1900s. Ill take you 113 years in the past but im going to be nice to you and let you take something with you. You have got a choice. You can either take todays longevity or give up all that wealth increase and income increase that we had so youll go back to 1900s and income but you will keep todays longevity or we are going to take you back in time and you can keep the income but you will lose the longevity. That is really your choice. Do you want the material side or the longevity side . Lets give them a number. The longevitys side is the following. In 1900, 18 of new mom newborn males died before their first birthday and by 2000, it wasnt until age 62 or 18 of the males have been taken out of the game. So it expected life Life Expectancy of worth increase by 30 years between 1,902,000. We are also a lot wealthier. Full wealthier than we were in 1900 we use evidence on what people are willing to pay to live longer in terms of what theyre willing to pay to reduce their risk of onthejob injury and the like. Let me first ask you guys. Which one would you choose . Would you take the money or take a longevity . You can still have your cell phone in everything but you have to have your health from 1900. By Life Expectancy of 47 years. Real income. Its the real deal. You still have your flatscreen tv, your cell phone and all that stuff and you are going to go back to 1900 but your Life Expectancy is 43 years or whatever and you are going to die with 18 chance of dying before your first birthday. You have to take all of that so you either get the health or you get the money. I want to take my cell phone but i dont want to take my twitter account or something. Right, exactly. First how many people would take the money . How many of you would take the health . Our numbers are kind of consistent. Our numbers come out that over the century for both men and women it came out to be worth about 1. 2 million per person which is to say that if i offered you the 1. 2 million would you take 1900 health . If you think its a close call than you probably think our numbers are pretty good measure of what people gained in terms of life years over that century. But that at some real perspective on things because we often think about economics in terms of how much better off we are in terms of wealth and all these other things. We ignore the fact that we have probably got at least as much value from longevity. What that means is longevity is on the table there with Everything Else in the economy. That is all the improvements and you know, computers and communications and Everything Else but roughly the same or even smaller than what we have gotten from increased longevity. So i think that makes the discussion we are having today really important because all the economic evidence is longevity is really important to people. These numbers dont tell for the changes in the quality of life that have gone along with Health Improvement so the fact that i can get a hip replacement or any replacement or whatever and with those years i might have lived otherwise but lib dem any more comfortable way. We are not counting those numbers. If you just look at the changes in longevity from 1972 to the end of the century those were worth in total just in the United States alone to men and women about 95 trillion comes out to be about 3 trillion year. Keep in mind that gdp is about 15 trillion dollars so we we are talking about a pretty large unaccounted flow of value. We value. The College Health capital in our work that is not counted in the traditional welfare or percapita income statistics and it changes your perspective on certain periods of time as well. The 1970s were often considered in terms of gdp growth a period of low growth whereas the 1960s were thought of as the high growth period. If you look at the changes in the flow Health Capital every versus your perspective because we didnt make all that much progress healthwise in the 1960s but after 1970 we did. That is one especially for men, men started catching up a little bit to women. Both men and women gained but men started gaining more relative to women after 1970. There have been a long slow down and mail progress from 1940 to 1970. Yeah so of the whole period men and women gained about the same. Women pulled ahead in the early part of the 20 century and men have been catching up ever since in terms of the cumulative games that they receive. That is really one element of good news. The good news that a big increase in longevity and not only is it quantitatively significant but economically significant in terms of improving peoples lives. Its as important as the rest of the economy put together. That is a piece of good news. The second piece of good news is we have a lot of perspective games out there to be had as well. We estimate for example a 10 reduction in cardiovascular disease and in fact a 10 reduction in death rates from cancer as a present value that is a cumulative future value of about five chilean dollars. Thats in the United States. Thats just the u. S. If you think of the technologies that would cause that kind of thing we have done these conversations with panels of doctors and asked them could you reduce mortality from cancer by 10 in the city of it was the research money. But those numbers we didnt say that it was good. Those numbers, but those are big numbers but one thing to keep in mind is there is purely a benefit side of the calculus. We will talk a little bit about the cost side. It matters what it costs you to achieve those gains so the way typically phrased it is looking to get those 5000 in present value in the u. S. Alone, i would poke everyone of you up to your own personal nuclear reactor. It might not be a good costeffective gain whereas if somebody can come up with the technology that can give you those gains by just taking a pill every day then its got a lot to an economist in the cost and the fed announces that has a lot of value. That comes back to a broader point that we make which is the value of these gains depends on the cost of achieving them. Some health gains may be worth achieving is medical resources are allocated efficiently down the road where as if medical resources arent allocated efficiently down the road say because of Third Party Payer systems and things like that were sometimes we call it building and enabling it to use it like the movie build it and they will, that may not be worth investing in those gains because we are going to waste a lot of resources and how we allocate the medical resources in the future. To be a good way think about it is in this really changes your view on whats important. You go to talk to people in washington and you talk to them about medical research and you talk to the researchers and say look at all the great rings we could do if we had more medical research. And then you go talk to people who have to pay for it and they are terrified of all the things you can do with it. In some sense they are both right because think about cancer. He said 5 trillion for a 10 reduction in cancer and our experience historically in cardiovascular disease that kind of progress is possible. Its not pieinthesky stuff to say we could reduce death rates by 10 . That is worth 5 trillion so lets say somebody proposes a 200 William Dollar war on cancer , a big increase in cancer funding. A 200 and dollar war on cancer with the goal to get 5 trillion in improved longevity. They say we are not sure whether its going to be successful or not so but the 200 billion dollars even if it has a one in 10 chance is clearly going to be worth it if the only thing you get is the benefit. We have slides on this. The important question though is what is that treatment going to cost . And if the treatment caused 10 trillion to give it to everybody its not worth it. If it costs 3 trillion its clearly worth it and whats not important in the calculation is the 200 million. That number is so small compared to the other two key elements. The key elements in this debate are about what is the value of the longevity and thats a huge number and what is the cost of treatment . And that is the other potentially huge number. The cost of the research itself is around off in this calculation. It really doesnt matter very much whether the war on cancer cost 200 billion, 300 billion or 100 billion in the game we are playing. In the game of raising longevity its all about the increased value which we know is there. The key remaining question is the cost of care. That is why we like to say look if we can get the same south Health System that spends money when its worthwhile and doesnt spend money when its not worth while that unlocks the benefits of research. Because it eliminates the key downside of research. The key downside of a 200 billiondollar war on cancer is not that it wont come up with anything. Its that it will, for something that costs so much that we end up bankrupting ourselves in the process of trying to implement it. We like to say its unaffordable success is really the greatest risk. If you could take unaffordable success off the Table Research becomes much more valuable as an input and we really cant say we can continue this train of increased longevity rolling. And the big worry is if you look over the 20th century we have this progress in longevity and we kept making and chabot the longer. The big difference is the cost of that increase of longevity has been going upandup as we have had more and more expenditures on more and more expensive treatments. You need to balance that cost is more important today than it has been in the past. Kevin makes it sound depressing. Can you give a slightly brighter spin on it . If we just compare the gains in longevity between 1970 and early 2002 the increase in medical expenditures the one thing we as talk about is how fast medical expenditures have increased in the u. S. And how big of a share of gdp it is compared to other places but given longevity we are worth about three times the increase in medical expenditures. I have to say the medical expenditure cause the other. All im telling you is that what we gained in terms of total health was much more valuable than what we spend over that period read the increase in spending over that period of time. Yeah in the key is to keep that going. We have found in some areas and for some groups of the population we do find that the increasing cost is approaching and in a few cases exceeding the increase in longevity. But the point is the point is you dont want to give up the increased value of longevity just because there is a potential cost. Then you might ask yourself why do we have this problem of unaffordable success . We dont worry about it in other areas traded we dont worry about people inventing really expensive tv sets that people will that cost more than people value. Why . Because people wont item. People arent going to invest in things that they wont develop things that people wont buy it but if you created a system that said if you invent a really big expensive flatscreen tv and you have to give it to everybody who wants one speier Insurance Company will pay for it. It. That might not be such a great idea and the notion that is very difficult in the kinds of allocation mechanisms that we have too to deny a technology and to people once its invented or to use it appropriately. To use it in cases where it is costeffective and not use it in others. We are going to turn it over to q a. The bottomline of all youre saying is if youre trying to say how do you get the most out of research one of the answers is improve the Delivery System because of better Delivery System is going to feed back and lead to a Better Research system and really allows us to open the spigot on research. They asked us to ask for questions. Are you going to hand the microphone around or just let them go . I think you need the microphone. Otherwise we can hear but nobody else. Hi. I am William Angel again. You mentioned at the end of your speech that the issue of allocating valuable technologies like this, given how expensive extreme longevity is likely to be in the near future do you have any ideas of how that might be implemented without leading to increased social economic disparities of lifespan and overall income . Thank you. Yeah. Its a complex question. One of the things that i was struck by some of the earlier conversations when i looked back at our earlier estimates. There has been a lot of discussion of income inequality in the United States but if you actually look at the data the gains in value the way we calculate them over the last third of the 20th century africanamericans were convergent. They gained more in terms of the value of additional life years than whites did. In addition if you look at it worldwide you talk about inequality there has been convergence there so there is a spillover of technology into other places. I dont know what the issues of allocation would occur if we all start looking at it. One of the scenarios is we live up to 150 in terms of the metaphor that was up there before. I already feel like i am on my shoes. [laughter] i guess i dont view that is a great prospect but how will we allocate medical care . Its an important question i mentioned last night what is called the dependency ratio. If youre going to have social Insurance Programs that pay for Public Pensions and pay for a lot of health care there is a transfer from those who work to those who are no longer working and at current levels of benefits in a lot of these systems and extension of a life year the expected lifetime is probably one year and implies if you want to keep tax rates fixed on the working population then you will have to increase working lives by about. 7 years for every additional year. It isnt happening and a lot of the welfare states of europe. Its the one thing i would say, i think actually disparities have been increasing probably the most is an education and that is really an artifact. You get into a world where there are more things you can do to affect your own health than education is going to play a bigger and bigger role. For example as you move to more Outpatient Care versus the hospital if you are anesthetized on an operating table doesnt matter whether you have a ph. D. Or quit in kindergarten. You are not really doing anything. The doctor is really doing the work but if you are required to monitor your Blood Pressure and monitor your diet and doing all these other things which we have increasingly done than education plays a bigger role. One place we do see differences in longevity emerging is on the education front. Educated people are more skilled and a lot of those things and a lot of it is being skilled in being more healthy. As you expand the number of things you can do to live longer you know and being eaten i lie line it doesnt matter how educated you were. What it really is, these increasing things you can do for yourself. I think that is frankly going to continue to increase and its not just in help traded traits in Financial Planning and raising your kids and tons of dimensions in which education has become a really important question. Yeah, right here. Thank you. In very simple terms could you please walk me through an analysis of Alzheimers Research and in what . Alzheimers. Yeah. I will do an aspect of it that i think is really important. Progress on different elements of health are interrelated and have what we call in economics at complementary relationship. That is the more progress you make on one dimension the more important is to make progress on the other. So for example we made tremendous progress in cardiovascular disease which has allowed a lot of people to live beyond age 65 or 72 live into their 80s and beyond which is where alzheimers is a much bigger issue. So the value of progress against alzheimers so much higher now because we have made progress against these other diseases. It wasnt even on your radar screen. At that point everyone keeled over from appreciation of age 55. Now it also goes the other way. If we are going to make progress on longevity in other fronts making progress in alzheimers is more important for the same reason because now we are going to have more and more People Living into the years were a alzheimers is a risk, more and more gain. I think alzheimers has risen importance precisely because of all the other progress we have made an progress against alzheimers is going to increase the value we receive from progress elsewhere. Now if by no im not going to have alzheimers being alive is a little bit better thing. Lets make more progress against Heart Disease and so on. Its not just alzheimers that kevin was talking about. It was all these agerelated diseases. Truckers against one agerelated disease raises the value progress against other agerelated diseases because you will be around to experience them. The right here in the middle. Thank you. I am dan perry and i have an organization town in town called the alliance for aging research. As you might imagine we have been fans of murphy and topel ever since that paper came out. Going back to joes scenarios which i thought were very useful, it seems that by pursuing scenario a map which is where the washington do things as they have always been done is going to get us to scenario be map which is probably the most distasteful and scenario c which is what i think you get most votes for is going to suffer and quite frankly scenario b works against c the cassette gets people out i cant remember all the scenarios. Speedy is immortality. If what we want is an extension of the healthy vital years of life and realize the economic and if its at that going to have to change in fundamental ways and a is do the same old same old. You guys have really been out in front from the course that generally says another dollar spent on it is a bad things so you you have seen past that and i salute for that. One last inning. The big change coming in medical research and aging is going to be highlighted a very important conference at the nih were where new concept is emerging called gerald science which is getting us past the silos of Heart Research Cancer Research Alzheimers Research all separate and the underlying biological mechanisms that come with aging that all they go to all of those different diseases so whether you are aarp or prudential or slaves Pay Attention to this big summit conference at the nih the 30th and the 31st of this month created thank you. That is good because i think the complementary that we talked about earlier points to the value of that balanced approach. Complements are like Peanut Butter and jelly. You dont want to end up where you have a sandwich but you only have the Peanut Butter and you only have the jelly. You need to have them both to get the most value out of it and i think thats an important side of all of this or that sounds good. The other side of thing that has been encouraging is the same that we have been talking about which is thinking about costEffective Solutions that andy and ties in with everybody being able to access them. Broad access to costs Effective Solutions with more emphasis on the research side. Not just is this treatment going to be better than the last one . Is it going to be more costeffective in both circles which i think is great. I think it really is a key part of evaluating potential research directions. How are we doing on time . I dont want to run over too much. We are done. Okay. Okay, one more. Im a freelance writer. My grassroots statistics is not what it should be and i want to make sure i understand the 5 trillion from 10 reduction in Heart Disease and 10 reduction in death. Does that mean you apply a Million Dollars to each year longevity . You are getting complicated. We used theres a Scientific Panel at the Environmental Protection agency and other governmental agencies. These a concept called a valuable value of statistical life or costbenefit analysis. Its going to cost us this much by improving road safety to save one life per year. If the costs 47 million to improve the safety of the road and essays 1 million a year the statistical life is not worth it on a statistical balance. We use value of statistical life which is the sum of the life years over an entire lifecycle expressed in present value as 6 million then we factor out how that varies over peoples lives as they aging it closer to the end of life and so on so we are valuing life years at different rates. You can admire it at your leisure when you look at the paper. If thats the basic approach. We tried to make an adjustment for variation of the value of life years at different points in the lifecycle. That was one of the innovations we thought we had in our research. Thanks. [applause] taking a look now at the federal Governments Health care exchanges. Today president obama spoke at the white house about the problems with the web site. He said there was no excuse for the computer problems that have been happening on the healthcare. Gov web site but he is confident the administration would be able to fix the problems. Here is some old what he had to say. I recognize the Republican Party has made blocking the affordable could care act of signature policy idea. Sometimes it seems to be the one thing that unifies the party these days. In fact they were willing to shut down the government and potentially harm the Global Economy to try to get it repealed. I am sure the problems with the web site so far are going to be looking to go after it even harder. And lets admit it, with the web site not work as well as it needs to work, that makes a lot of supporters nervous because they know how it has been subject to so much attack. The Affordable Care act generally. But i just want to remind everybody we did not wage this long and contentious battle just around a web site. That is not what this was about. [applause] we wage this battle to make sure that millions of americans in the wealthiest nation on earth finally have the same chance to get the same security of Affordable Quality Health care as anybody else. [applause] that is what this is about. And the Affordable Care act is is people can now get good insurance. You can all of the presence remarks at cspans video library. Sitting in the audience was health and Human Services secretary kathleen sebelius. She is going to be testifying on capitol hill about the palms with the web site. She will testify possibly next week before the house energy and commerce committee. The date has not yet in set. The committee is a hearing planned for thursday to talk about the Health Care Law issues. We will have live coverage when that begins at 9 00 in the morning. The secretary spokesman said she cannot testify that hearing because she has commitment in phoenix that day. Let us know what you think about the Health Care Law law start could we have a survey underway at on cspans facebook page. One thing that is interesting. The certifications of mobile devices. How to operate the government. The effect of the government shut down on the fcc. To be the on tonight on the communicators at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. The Supreme Court heard a Campaign Finance case last week that challenges the limit on theet total a. Money one individual can contribute in each election cycle. Urge the the the court to strike down them. The contribution limit were created after the watergate scandal era in the 1970. Currently they can contribute up to 123,000 every twoyear election cycle. Well hear argument first this morning in 12536 mc are an inpermissible attempt to equalize the for the politicals. By prohibiting contributions within the modest late to combat the reality or appearance of corruption these limits simply seek to prevent individuals from engaging in too much First Amendment activity. These limits cannot be justified on circumvention ground because the concern the government hypothesize are addressed by a multitude of direct anticircumvention. How of the time. And i guess the court thought something could happen like the following; candidates miss only 26 00. He has a lot of supporters. Each of them 40 get a brainstorm. Each of the puts on internet a little sign that says sam smith pac. This money goes to people like sam smith. Great people. Now, we can give each of those 45,000. They arent coordinated or established by a Single Person. Each is independently run. We know pretty well of that total 5,000 times 40 will go to sam smith. What does it violate . Theres a couple of problems hypothetically, your horn honor. 5,000. An on what a pac can give to a candidate. 5,000. So what we have is my 5,000 going to have pac and there has been to be 400 pacs. 5,000 times 40. Five times 400. How much is that . Im too good at math. Without doing the math ill tell you theres earmarking and proliferation. There is no earmarking. It requires write on a check or in a company letter. Actually it does not. If yo have a pac contributing the only to one candidate. Theyll droibt several. Theyll get more than one contribution. That the point you dont have the kind of traceability youre talking about. Theres more money coming to the pac than can find the way to any one particular candidate. I would think if you name the pac after a particular candidate, as the hypothetical asiewmented. Thats the point. Lets say this one. You have 100 pacs an each of them thats not right. Saying theyre willing to support the five candidates in the most contested senate races. There are really only five consider contested senate races and 100 pacs say i theyre going support the five candidates. So donor give 5,000 to each 100 pacs which support the candidates. The pac divides up the money. 1,000 goes to each candidate. The total for those pacs 100,000 goes to each of the Senate Candidates and the five most contested raceses. 20 times what the individual contribution limits allow. A couple of responses to that, area. First of all, were talking about scenario where there isnt coordination at all between the first person who makes the contribution and the candidate later on receiving it. Nobody knows all of his 100,000 donor. Theyre not all that many much them. You can keep them all in the head in a mental roll decks. Theyre actually not donor to him at the point. Theyre contributing to a pac in the hypothetical is contributing to multiple different candidates. Five of the most contested senate races. A person gives 100,000 to each five candidates. If they win, become the five senator most attuned to donors. And he knows who has given him 100,000 each of those five senators who gets in on the strength of these contributions that are 20 times what the individual limits allow. I dont think it work in these limits. Because the park is limited i. T. In how much it can contribute. You have to its hard to do in oral argument. What were trying to do in both, i think our cases. Is we look up the rules and my law clerk did. And what she discovered it may be wrong. Ill look again. Theres no significant change in the earmarking rules of any of the rules youre talking about, but for one. It change. One change. The one change is the change that all contributions made by political committees establish by or finance or maintain or controlled by a Single Person will count as one. So what youre seeing in these hypotheticals is simply construction of precisely the same situation that existed in buck lee. While being careful to have not one person control the 4,000 pacs. Which is pretty easy to do. If you want to say is it a reality, turn on your Television Set or internet. Because we found instances without naming names. Where it certainly is a real fip two responses, there are changes in earmarking more than what youve suggested because the restriction that the fcc has got in regulation are they cover more than the statute itself. And specifically they cover the instances of a pac that is only going to be contributing one candidate, which is where a lot of concern comes from. I want to be clear what your answer to Justice Kagan was. The hypothetical. Is part of the answer the hypothetical she gives contravene earmarking . Thats it can pose earmarking concern and proliferation concerns if were talking about something. If were talking about a pac. Is part of your answer to her. That the hypothetical isnt real or isnt going happen . Or cant happen under the existing if that is your answer. Thats part of the answer. I dont think its a particularly realistic scenario under existing regulations. Would the other side concede its true . I doubt they would concede but its true. And i think that if you look at it. If you have a bunch of pacs that are getting contribution from the same group of individuals you are going to run to earmarking and proliferation restrictions. The other thing i would say is you have a pac which says were going give money to smith. Thats bad. But if you have a pac that says were going give all the money that you contribute to us to smith and jones that is okay. Or smith, jones, and three others. It seems to me thats earmarking. It is exactly. Earmarking if you know if you think t earmarking to have a pac that gives money to the five most candidates in the contested senate races, i just dont think any fcc would say thats earmarking. Well, i think an overly suspicious mind. I dont know. If i saw 100 pacs rise up and all of them said exactly the same thing. Were going to make contributions to the five most contested senate the candidate in the five most contested senate races. I would be us suspicious. Maybe the f cc would be suspicious. They didnt spring up independent. I think thats absolutely right. Suppose a number of pacs i forget the number save were going to congressional and Senate Candidates who want to cut down on governmental spending. And we know theres only about four people like that. [laughter] at that point i think, you know, not saying any certainty what theyre going go. Its not clear you something to target there. It may be spending money in different ways that are not operating as a con due wit for circumvenges. I think it doesnt have the coordination you need. There are 150 house candidates with completely safe seats. All right. There are maybe, you know, 240 30or 40 or Something Like that this their party who dont have safe seats. The 150 gets together and they say were going run a joint fundraiser, and anybody can contribute 2600 to each of these candidates. 150 of them; right . So that makes about 400,000. And then these 150 candidates would completely say seats transfer all the money to the one person who doesnt have a safe seat. So that is about 400,000. Double it for a primary and a general election. Thats about 800,000 that all goes to one candidate from one donor because of the ability for candidates to transfer money to each other. That is not legal, Justice Kagan. The candidates dont have ability to transfer money to each other. A max money of 26 00 to other candidate. They can transfer 2,000 to a candidate per lek. And thats a contribution. Thats a hard contribution limit on how much they can contribute, but i think all of this gets to another problem which is theres an overbreadth problem here. If youre talking about the scenario, in your scenario, theres only one person who can even make contribution. That the point after the first 26 00. That is right. Youre exactly right, miss murphy. One person can make an 8 00,000 con fry biewtion to a house race where 8 00,000 goes a long way. What the 150 candidates can do is they can do it for every single other candidates in a contested seat. So take your 30 or 40 house contested seat. It becomes a continue wit 0 for a Single Person to make an 8 00,000 contribution to a candidate in a contested district. Even if you accept the scenario where all the candidates are independently deciding to give all their money to one candidate. You cant have a law designed to one person from circumvention we prohibiting everybody else from engaging in contributions that dont miss murphy, everyone else can you give us an idea of whose expression is at stake . Most people 0 couldnt come near the limit. What percentage is there any information on what percentage of all contributors are able to contribute over thing a gray gait. A donor percentage on how many are able. Were not talking about a large number of individuals. Were talking about more individual than First Amendment amendment rights imply imcomplaitded. A law that only prohibits the speech of 2 of the countrys okay. Absolutely not. And few people miss murphy, we havent talked about yet the effect of the limits on the ability of donors to give the minimum amount to as many candidates they want. The effect of the aggravate limits to limit someones contribution of a maximum amount to nine candidates. Thats right. If youre talking about is there a way to eliminate that aspect while retain some of the limits is that a necessary consequence of any way you have limits or are there alternative ways of enforcing the limitation that dont have that consequence . Well, its certainly a necessary consequence of the scheme which distinct limits on candidates alone. I think though the limits in general are always going have the effect of prohibiting people from giving contributions that dont themselves give rise to quid pro quo concerns and thats why if the government is really concerned about the things its talking about, there are narrow avenues to get at them. If the concern is joint Fundraising Committee. Im now a little confused, okay. Im confused because were talking in the abstract. This decision was based on a motion to dismiss. And there is a huge colloquy about what happens and doesnt happen. Were going have a record low i can go the news as Justice Breyer suggested. It is its very hard to think that any candidate doesnt nope the contributor who has enough money to give not only to himself or herself but to any of his or her affiliates supporting him or her. Its nearly common sense. Hard to dispute. So youre saying it cant happen, but i dont see charges of coordination going on that much. I guess im not sure what youre talking about happening. It youre talking about knowing some individuals are making contributions to other candidates or to state parties who are not going to share those con try contributions with a particular candidate. I dont see how that gets the actual ad. I wont name the candidate. You see a picture of the candidate. There is a sign that says; smith app. Okay. Thats what it says. And then it says; make a codonation to help smith pac support republican or democratic candidates. Then they have an address. All right, it doesnt take a gene yous to figure out what theyre going do with the money and maybe smith will get a pretty good share of it. If smith has 400 people who figure this out, he will have 400 times 5,000 time one person. You say that really couldnt happen because of the designation. We havent found a designation rule that stop it. Then Justice Sotomayor is saying why won, and i dont either. Because theres no hearing. Theres been no evidence presented. Theres nothing but two points. The case was on cross motion for injunctive relief. If the government had an opportunity to make a record and interest to treat it as a legal case not in one in which do we need record to figure out issues of law. Thats my second point i agree that this Campaign Finance law is so i want candidate to figure it out. It might be nice to have the lower court tell me the law. But we you shouldnt need one here either. The limits are over and under inclusionive inclusive. Youre taking a position that the law stops corruption. An youre suggesting that the government is incapable of showing fact if the law doesnt work. Im suggesting dont you need fact to prove or disprove that . Even if the government can prove the proposition there i would like to reserve the remain of my time. Thank you, counsel. The senator mcconnell believes that all restrictions of this nature should be reviewed under strict scrutiny. To begin with, in it a severe restriction on political speech. Mr. I would like you to address this question about the restrictions on speech. Its been argued that these limits promote expressions, promote democratic participation because what they by having the limit you are promoting democratic participation and the Little People will count. And you wont have the super affluent as the speakers that will control elections. Your honor, i disagree with that for this reason first of all, the limit on Political Parties places likeminded Political Parties in the position of competing against each other rather than collaborating against each other. All the national Political Parties on the republican side in the state Political Parties compete against each other for an artificially limited pool of money from each contributor. The same is true on the candidates side. They compete against other for the same artificially limited pool of money. Even though each individual contribution to the candidate or party is limit bid the base limits. The federal election regulation and, Justice Breyer, i propose you look at section 110. 18 which specifically prohibits a pac of the nature you described if a person contributes to a pac but acknowledges contribution is going a particular candidate, that isen earmark under the precedence of the federal election commission. Counsel, is it correct that the consequence of this provision has been very severe with respect to national Political Parties . It is, your honor. Particularly in the current environment with the national Political Parties are being as much money that needs to go them now goes to pacs; isnt that what has happened . Exactly right. This is really, you know, tushing the dials on regulating elections. I ask myself why would members of Congress Want to hurt their Political Parties . Can i answer . I answer to myself. [laughter] well, ordinarily the national Political Parties will devote their money to elections in those states where the incumbent has a good chance of losing. So in fact, if youre an incumbent, who cares about Political Parties . I dont want money to go to my opponents. And if you turn down the amount of money that the national Political Parties have, that is much less money that can be devoted against you if youre challenged in a close race. Isnt that the consequence of this . Let me see and raise you one. There are separate limits for candidates and Political Parties. The effect of this is to insulate the incum went from competing with the Political Party for the dollars. And by imposing a cap on the candidate on the amount candidates can raise, the incumbent realize theyre the favorite class apa among candidates who are getting contributions. What a surprise. It hasnt worked out that in practice . There was one brief of me saying thats wrong. In fact, its a challenges who are aided. Well, your northern, i think it is tr a hard cap on the number of any contributor can give to all candidates and a separate cap that on the amount that contributors so i read in one summer before i spent several weeks reading the record before the District Court in the lengthy case on this. It was still with testimony by senators and congressman that a handful of people can give hundreds of thousand of dollars. They know who the people are and who they have undue influence. Which means in independent terms the individual who has wonderful ideas and can convinces others even by paying 3 cents to bite internet or something, habit a shot. Because it will influence people not ideas. But the money. Now, there was a record on that. Here there is no record showing whether this aspect does or does not have the same tendency. That is why i ask how can i decide this on the basis of theory when the record previously showed the contrary of what has been argued and in fact at least might show that even in respect to these limits . Well, your honor, this case comes to the court as applied challenge. Mr. Mcmccutcheon doesnt he wants to write checks to directly to the candidates and committee. Hes con strait strain by the limit. He can write checks to everyone that he wants to write checks to. Just he cant give his special number of 1776. If he wanted to give a contribution to every candidate running for a federal congressional seat, Congressional Senate he would be limited to 86 or Something Like that. Something because he identified 12 her candidates that he would like to give 1776 to. But he could give each of them over 1,000. Your honor, he could, but again, youre diminishing his right to associate and the intensity of his association by applying this limit. The limit people will be allowed put together the National Committees and the state committees and all the candidates in the house and senate. It comes to over 3. 5 million. I can write checks totaling 3. 5 million to the Republican Party committee and all the candidates or to the democratic Party Committee and the candidates even before i write checks tone dependent pacs. Now, having written the check for 3. 5 million or so to a single party to a candidates are you suggesting that party and the member of that party are not going owe me anything. I wont get any special treatment in because i thought that was exactly what we said in mcconnell. That when we talked about soft money restrictions, we understood that you give 3. 5 million, you get a very, very special place at the table. So this is effectively to reintroduce the soft money scheme of mcconnell. Isnt it . No, its absolutely not. Mcconnell dealt with a situation you were not considering the base limit. The soft money by definition was not subject to the base limit. To take your example of the joint Fundraising Committee. The jointed fundraising regulation which consumes more than three pages in the federal code of regulations. Its 101012. 17c. It reaffirm the base limit and specifically reaffirm the antiearmarking restriction and said that the joint Fundraising Committee must inform all contributors of the restrictions. Again, its a situation with the money leaves the hands he loses control over it and the but the money goeses to a single party. Indeed, i could make it even worse. I could say lets say the speaker of the house or the majority leader of the house solicits this money from particular people. So solicits somebody to ante up the 3. 6 million then, you know, just kennedy said in mcconnell the make of the solicited gift is a kid to the recipient of the money and the one who solicits the payment. The speaker, the majority leader can solicit 3. 6 million to all the party mens and youre telling me theres no special influence that goes along with that . Ask we know from the Citizens United decision that gratitude and influence are not considered to limits combat crouping. Let me start by explaining exactly how. The limits combat corruption both by blocking circumvenges of individual contribution limits and equally fundamentally by serving as a against the Campaign Finance system dominated by massive individual contributions. In which the danger of quid pro quo corruption will be obvious and inherit and the cro rosessive appearance of corruption would be overwhelming. Now the appellate in the case tried to present the case the issue or whether there were some corrupting potential in giving to the 19th cat after someone contributed to the maximum to the 18th. Thats not what the case is about. The appellate are not arguing that the limit is drawn in one place. Theyre arguing that can be no limit because the base contribution limits do all the work. What it means youre taking a lid off the limit and Justice Kagen and her question earlier indicated that means that an individual can contribute every two years up to 3. 6 million to candidates or Party National committee, state because they can transfer the funds amongs themselves in the particular candidate. Interested in gun control. The Current System with the system works is hes got choose. Is he going express his belief in environmental regulation by donating to more than the people or is he going change the gun control issue . I want to make two different restricting tran for would have a bear on the circumvention. What is programwork for analyzing that. Give the transfer and appearance there. But it does have that other consequence on something weve recognized as a significant right. So let me make a specific point. The specific point is this the limit would have the effect of restricting the ability of a contributor to make the maximum contribution to more than certain number of candidate. Thats true. We cant help but acknowledge that. Its math. But that doesnt mean that individual cannot spend as much of the individual wants on independent expenditures that try advance the interest of those candidates or the interest of the causes of those candidates stand for. Mr. Mccustomen can spend as much as he wants on independent expenditure advocating the election of these candidates and that does not evoke any grad constitute on the part of the people. If gratitude is corruption, you know, dont those independent expenditures evoke gratitude . And is not the evil of big money 3. 2 million . An individual could give that to an independent pac and spend it; right . The foundation. Its not that were stopping people from spending big money on politic the. The foundation of this juries priewbs in the area is a careful line dpeend which court held repeatedly do not create a sufficient risk of quid pro quo corruption that justify the regulation. And contributions which do and that line eliminate some of the arguments that have been made here. This which are arguments against big money in politicses. There is big money can be in politics. And the thing is you cant give it to the Republican Party or the democratic party. But you can start your own pac. Thats good. Im not sure its a benefit to our political system. Well, i think we have limits on contributions to Political Parties notion limit on contribution to candidates. Ting helps the point here which is that the candidates are not sealed off from each other. And parties are not sealed off from candidates that theyre all in the same team. And we limit the amount that individual can contribute to a Political Party as well as the amount that individual can contribute thats actually as i understand it. The reason its no doubt the campaign limits take an ordinary person and they say you cannot give such an such an amount. There are from the internet 200 people in the united who would like to give 117,000 or more. Were telling them you cant. You cant support your belief. Thats a First Amendment. But that tends to be justified on the other side by the First Amendment its the average person thinks that what he says exercise his First Amendment rights. Just cant have the impact through Public Opinion upon the representative. He said what is the point of the First Amendment . Thats a First Amendment point. So thats basic, i think. Once that is so, congress has leeway, and youre saying ive seen all over the place that is why we dont want those 200 people to spend more than 117 or 120 ,000. The average person thinks that the election is after the election all the actions are effective by the pocketbook enough by the merit of the First Amendment argument. Okay. And now you say the person can do the same thing anyway. Just call it independent. And what independent does he can spend 40 million. He can spend 50 million. All of does is mix up the messages. The party can control. Thats, i think, the question being asked. And i think that is a very serious question and i would like tow no moe what flow theres it. Is it . Riew what so. What are we supposed to do . What is your opinion about it . I the same question. You have two persons. One person give an amount to the candidate that is limited. The other takes out ads uncoordinated just on his own. Costing 500 ,000. Dont you think that is second person has more access to the candidate who is the candidate successful than the first . I think that was of the Justice Scalias question. And let me try to answer this with an analogy, if i could, justice kennedy. I think the right way to think about it is this, if somebody thinks the secretary of defense is doing a great job. They can take out an ad in the Washington Post and spend 9 00,000 and they would have an undoubted First Amendment right do that. No one could think theres its hard to i mean, you know. Theres no problem it would be an independent expression. Instead somebody wanted to express symbolically that the secretary of defense has done a great job by giving theme mas rat i did nobody would think its a First Amendment ground that could be in were talking about campaign contribution. Its illegal for a candidate to take Campaign Contributions and use it to buy maserati . I dont see how ic it does if i may, justice, because i think that the point is that the rule against gifts that conflict of interest rules they exist to advance a content neutral government interest of the highest importance. [inaudible conversations] thats your argument. And about the District Court opinion. What i see are wild candidates m another state. The other part that seems dubious on the face is that all of the party all the candidates for the house and the senate of a particular party are going get together and transfer money to one candidate. Really you cited in the brief the best example, i take it, of contributions from some candidates and other candidates. They are very small. Isnt that true . Yes. I think there are two justice alito. I think the point youre making confuses two different ways in which the laws combat the risk of corruption. The first one is that the handing over of a large check in which its a 3. 6 million check for everyone, or 2. 2 million check for the house candidates or 1 million check for the state committee. The very justice as the court found in mcconnell with respect to soft money contribution and the inherit risk of corruption there. Theres an inherit risk of corruption. We have limit on how much we can dpribt a Political Party. Thanes apart unless the money is transferred to you have to get it from the person whopts to corrupt to the person who is going to be corrupting. And unless the money can make it to a to b i dont see where the quid pro quo argument is. Thing the i think that the wait joint Fundraising Committee work you hand over a single check to a candidate that solicits it. It could be any dhaid sets up joint Fundraising Committee. That is the handing over the check to the candidate is seems to e many creates a significant risk of in the part of the candidate even though a lot of money is falling throw others. In addition the Party Leaders are going to be the one who solicit the contribution and have a particular indebtness to candidates. Of course, their power, their authority depends on the party retaining or gaining a majority in the legislature. Theyre going feel a particular sense of indebtness. Im sorry. If i make a quick point. And the third point, every candidate in the party is going to be affected by this because every candidate is going get a slice of the money. Every candidate is going that the person that wrote the multimillion dollar checked help not only the candidate but the whole team. That creates a particular sense. And every member of the party is likely every is likely to be orleansed on by the Party Leadership that deliver legislation to the people these limits might not all fall together. Lets take the example, if you take a minute and walk me through it. You have somebody who wants to corrupt the member of the house and the persons strategy is to make contribution to multiple hods candidates with the hope, the expectations, the plan those candidates are going transfer. Transfer the money to the member that the person wants to corrupt. How is that person going accomplish that given the earmarking regulation and the limit on how much one member can contribute to another . So, you know, i think that is possible but i think if somebody who had that goal that circumvention goal by far before ways of achieving it would be giving significant and you have taken the making significant cob try biewtions the state party and National Party who are free to transfer money among themselves without restriction. And by making contributions to pacs. Well, if youre not going defend the application of the limits in that situation, doesnt it follow that apply to the situation . No, i think it, you know, first of all, i think it scrolled in that situation. I think its likely to happen explain to me how its going done. The person gives to member a with the hope that member a is going give it to member b. If the person even implies when make the contribution to a that the person wants to go b thats earmarked. Somehow it going to be done . In mcconnell and colorado republican to this court said that earmarking is not outer limit of the Governments Authority to regulate. The reason the court said that. A lot can be done with winks and nods and subtly. I dont think its a case of earmarking would work to prohibit that. But i also think that the when were talking about limits theyre part of an overall system of regulation. I think they work to keep the circumvention risk in check and they work to make sure that you dont have the kind of problem you identify what would you think just listening to your dialogue and you heard this is pretty tough try construct some hypothetical. And the counsel said ive got that part wrong or the ore one. They may be right. And we cant do this figuring out all the factual things in an hour, frankly. Im not sure. There hasnt been a it seems to me there are things to explore in with respect to the circumvention who is right to change the hypothetical slightly or what. There are things to explore in with respect to the question of whether being able to write a 3. 6 million check to a lot of people leads the average person to think that my First Amendment speech in term of influencing my representative meaning nothing. There are things to explore in term of the relationship between what is permissible spend 40 million independently and what isnt permissible. Mainly spending more than 1 17,000. None of these are concerned. They would seem relevant bhap did you think about going in to these matters in a District Court where the evident aspect can be explored at some point . Well, i think, Justice Breyer, the statute can be upheld under the current state of the record. Indian and take your honors point. I think you have a substantial record in buckley and mcconnell. It bears directly on the question of whether massive contributions pose the inherit danger of corruption and the 0 cro rosive appearance of corruption and the case be decided on the basis. The government [inaudible] in response to the to the at an hearing was as a matter disposed without a hearing; is that right . Well, we take the constitutional First Amendment framework in this courts decisions as a given. The court has determined that independent expenditures do not present a risk of quit probe of that allows their regulation that contributions direct contributions to candidates and two parties can pose that risk area of. That is the law but the question says what the question is direct it at is given that is the law isnt the consequence of this particular provision to sap the vitality of Political Parties and to encourage what should i say, driveby attacks for each election . Isnt that the consequence . I think the answer is we dont know one way or another whether thats the consequence. With all due respect the party still raise and spend substantial amounts of money so i dont think that we know but beyond that congress has made a determination that there is a real risk of quid pro quo corruption as regulated with respect to that risk and congress is of course free to take this into consideration. You saves 3. 5 million if you assume somebody gives the maximum to every possible candidate and party he can contribute to throughout the United States 3. 5 million. Just to put that in perspective how much money is spent by Political Parties and pacs in all elections throughout the country . In one election cycle . I think thats a good point justice. Your chief of staff during the last shut down in 9596. What was that like . It was really tough. It was very hard and required us to do a lot of planning prior to to the shutdown and a lot of cleanup. I thank my favorite story if i could tell you a story there was a group of indonesians who came to visit reed hundt and die. They had to walk up eight flights of stairs because the elevators for some reason werent working and i get up there and they are out of breath and they say what the heck is going on . Reid says the legislative branch decided to shut down the executive branch. They started laughing and one of them said in our country its exactly the opposite. There actually is a message there which is i think the world thinks we are crazy when we do things like this and i think the markets think we are crazy and this is a longterm effect not just on the fcc but the more profound effect on the country which is very negative. Host harold furchtgottroth, 38 members were considered essential for this past shutdown. What was the work that got lost in the 16 days . Guest there are several types of activities that the commission does that werent done. Obviously the other 700 or two thousand or however many employees were doing things whether its enforcing the rules of the Commission Engineers who are working on cell tower placements working on special temporary authorities for people to move their antennas, working on consumer complaints, working on license transfers so a lot of activities were put on hold for a period of time. I guess they are starting back up today. Host was anything really lost in the 16 days . Was anything vital lost . Guest i think there are a couple of things. One thing thats interesting that was not that important and 95 but really critical now was the certifications of mobile devices decodes all these devices that literally hundreds of millions of americans have and everyone can see that fcc stamp on it because we have to ensure that they dont interfere with each other. Back in 95 there werent that many mobile phones going through the process. But now its really important so again you have a huge battle between apple and samsung and motorola and others. They need that certification. They made these plans and have literally billions of dollars in advertising in all suddenly whatever the plans where they get delayed by a number of days so that is a real cost and its difficult to measure in real costs. Another thing is a spectrum auctions. We havent had an option in six years. The fcc has pursued the plan and this is going to put those auctions back and thats very bad for the economy. Every day the spectrum isnt being used its a drag on economy so those are things you never get those back. Other stuff you do get back but i have to tell you this kind of stop start stop start psychology and we are going to go through it again because my guess is in january there will be parts of this shutdown again. Its no way to run a row wrote in no way to run a business and certainly no way to run a government. Host commissioners furchtgottroth the from same question. Guest i would agree this is no way to run a government. The longterm effects i think the economy will get through it. The question is 10 years from now will people look back and say it this has done irreparable harm to the economy and im not quite sure we are there yet. But where is exactly right. There were the product certifications that upheld a lot of license transfers on deals that needed to close by the end of the year and it puts them in little bit more peril. But the commission, i think this staff are back at work today and hopefully they will be a will to make up for lost time. Host also joining our roundtable is lynn stanton Senior Editor at communications report. Guest how does the commission of prioritizing all the various things on their plate. They have lost two weeks. As everything can currently get the same amount of attention or do equipment authorizations get more resources dedicated to them because they have these outside impacts as you set on companies . I think as a practical matter thats anything to ask the interim chair to cause its what she decides them by the way i think shes doing a terrific job of not just keeping the trains running on time but getting a number of things done. The problem is she is the interim and you really need to get the new chair tom wheeler there soonest possible because there is a lot of activity that you really cant deal until he is is there. Their key decisions to be made particularly regarding the auctions that if he gets delayed further it will just put that auction backs of the chair really has the principle responsibility for privatization of Staff Resources but its even more complicated now because of the interim chairmanship. Guest land thats a very good question. I dont know the answer as to who makes that judgment. Different agencies have made dramatically different judgments. For example the securities and Exchange Commission have a lot of staff who has been working and has continued to work throughout the shutdown. The fcc pulled back dramatically in its putting its skeleton staff in place. Those are judgments of guest in response to that if it is a Government Shutdown then how do you decide who is essential or activities are essential . If everybodys essential it seems there is no point to a shutdown. Guest yes. I dont know who makes those decisions and it seems like its an agency by agency basis. Guest one way in which the agency differed with with the total shutdown of its web site which put a lot of lawyers and difficulty. Does that seem to be what cause discomfort and made a point . To the Government Shutdown have an affect . Guest Government Shutdowns have a huge effect in way in washington i am one of those lawyers who was trying to get on the web site to look at certain things related to some work i am doing but the pain it caused me saul was so much less than the pain it causes lots of other families but who werent given certain kinds of support that they need are people who had made vacations to National Parks etc. I dont want to secondguess or monday morning quarterback that decision. I just think again this fundamental lesson i hope we learn ishe budget and control act of 1974 this occurs almost every year. There is some crisis that goes on and get after 40 years of this we still arent there to get it to gearing out how to operate the government. As blair said this is no way to run the government and this is no way to run a railroad and its not a good situation. Guest if i could just add in 95 i dont think anyone cared of our web site was up or not because they were accessing via dialup and it didnt really matter. Guest i was going to come back to that. I didnt know if it was a functional part of everyday life even if you have some kind of sketchy thing there so in some ways does the lateralization make life more complicated than all these new things that we have. We can get in touch with people over the internet and it seems odd that you cant in a way that you understand that the building is closed you can get into it just because the government isnt there that web site seems like a sort of separate entity that doesnt require necessarily loving tender care from minute to minute. I can understand not be able to fire some things but not to see some things that are up there. Guest you still need operations and maintenance. It is an interesting question but that show you how the way we do government has changed very dramatically as a result of the internet. Host blair levin i want to go back to lynns question about the process of the shutdown. In 95 he worries chief of staff of the fcc. What did you do . How did you let people know in what was the process . Guest look, its very boring. It takes a lot of work. You have to kind of go win and bring in every borough chief and say what are we working on . What do we do . Who are the phonecalls and who is allowed to be working and who is allowed not to . At that point in time we were