Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160503

And by the way, youll get a pretty good b. S. Monitor as you watch this more and more, who really means what they say. The key is does the person who is running for office saying what theyre going to do, if they get elected, do they actually do it . Thats really what matters. Is it just fluff . Is it just bluster, or are they actually pushing the cause, fighting for the idea . And the last point i would say is get beyond emotion. Dont base your decisions on emotions or make your arguments based on emotion. Go deeper than that. Go to reason. Rita quinas here at georgetown, base your decisions based on reason, logic, principle, and find out if a person actually has that. If theyre taking their decisions and filtering through a set of principles that offer solutions so that theyre going in a consistent direction, so theyre not pandering or being simply a populist or simply running in circles. That, to me, is what i found is helpful when youre trying to judge whether or not a person has earned your support. Lifter 6789 all right, lets go to the students. Our first question from up here on the riser. As to all students, when you begin, please begin by telling us your name, your school, your class year, your major, where youre from. Can you keep all that straight . [laughter] youre georgetown students, you can do that. And our first one will come from the riser, a question from megan. Megan . Hi, im a second Year Graduate student in the mccourt school. Im originally from south jersey outside of philadelphia. Hi thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah. Secretary clinton and senator sanders have spent a lot of time on the campaign trail discussing student debt and College Affordability which is undoubtedly a pressing issue for many here today and you mentioned in your speech. Both of them seem to have specific proposals on how to prevent this problem from perpetuating yeah. But im not sure weve heard the same level of detail and commitment from republicans. So what are republicans going to do to seriously and in a timely manner address this problem . First, id be leery of empty promises that arent paid for. [laughter] [applause] just saying. [laughter] i havent made any promises. [laughter] honestly, look at inflation in tuition. No offense, georgetown, but [laughter] look at inflation. Its like this in health care too. What we have is a Third Party Payment system where were insulating the consumer from the price. And by the way, were just racking you up with debt. Is so how do we get at this problem . Richard vetters done some really good studies of this at ohio state university. When the government pumps money into the system, the college ends up cranking up the price and sticking you with the debt. Number one, we need more transparency. Am i getting value for my education . Do people who get this education at this institution actually get the jobs and the careers in their field . Whats the success rate of that . What do i earn after getting this . And lets have a real competition based on choice, on quality, on price and outcome. We need to do this in health care too. And those kinds of metrics we do not now have in higher education. The second point id make is we should not have nationalized the student loan industry in 2010. It has been nationalized, and now were on the hook as taxpayers for about a trillion dollars of debt. Default rates are through the roof. Look, after college i worked three jobs. I waited table, i was a fitness trainer on the weekends so i could get a little extra cash and get a free membership. They would adjust it for me to work with me to i could meet my loans. They were able to work it out with me. We have the d. Of education giving you the onesizefitsall, cookie cutter, you know, loan, and the default rates are through the roof, and taxpayers are on the hook. So get more competition in every sense of the world. More competition in student lending, more Competition Among colleges so we know theyre books, are we getting value for how tuition credit dollars, and lets break up the cartel so you can take credits from other places and apply it. Can i bring some credits from high school with a. C. T. S, can i bring a twoyear degree in, are there online alternatives, can i put together a competitive form of getting a College Tuition that isnt as costly. Look, this is i lo this college. Love this college. Its a great school. Youve had some awesome basketball teams [laughter] and its top, world class, but not everybody can afford a place like this. So how do we get this kind of an education within reach of people who have no chance of affording it . That means more competition, not less. Lets take an audience question. [applause] and ill remind you, please state your name, class, your school major, hometown and also, please, questions not comments. Thank you. My name is stevan, i am a second year mccourt student from up incorporated lake county, florida. Recently, speaker ryan, your colleague, candice miller, from michigan, had all state flags removed. This is a result of the fact that many of the Southern States have confederate symbols in them. Could you please comment on this renewed northern republican reconstruction and the aspects of the e raise your of southern symbols as well as toes thattization of southern voters by the gop . I never looked at it that way. By the way. [laughter] thats interesting. Yeah, im from wisconsin, so guilty as a northerner. [laughter] for the record, i supported her decision, and we discussed it, and i thought it was the right thing to do. Mississippi is still going to be represented because were putting the commemorative coins up for each of the states. Heres the issue, and i think nikki haley did the right thing. And we may not agree, but this symbol does insult, this symbol, i think, does more to divide this country than to unify this country. As a statements rights person states rights person, it is up to the states, but ive got to tell you if in the capitol were going to have symbols, were going to have symbols that dont divide people, and thats just the way we think. [applause] all right. Our next question comes from twitter. Georgetown student is it up there . Rachel hersh who is a firstyear student from chicago, illinois [cheers and applause] packers there she is. Say hi. [laughter] rachel asks, mr. Speaker, what prompted you to reconsider your previous statements on poor people as takers . I was just wrong. [laughter] [applause] i didnt mean offense. Its, you know, obviously, im a conservative. I have a libertarian streak in me. I believe in limited government and upward mobility and opportunity. But there are people, look, my own family went through this. There are people who get knocked down in life, and they need help, and thats what communities are for. And government has a really Important Role to play in that. And to lump an entire category of people suffering into one broad brush, category, kind of like the last question we had, is wrong, i think. And and so if you do something that is wrong that misimplies, that is hurtful, instead of just trying to spin yourself out of it, just own up to it and just fess up and fix it. And thats just the way i saw it x thats why i did it and thats why i did it. [applause] just that simple. We have another question from the stage. Connor . Mr. Speaker, thank you again for being with us today. My name is congress, no im a junior in the college majoring in government, originally from barrington, illinois. Not far from janesville. So my question to you is that identify been very displayed by this years election thus far. Ill never support donald trump why is that . [laughter] in case you havent heard. But ill never support donald trump, and ted cruz does very little to appeal to me as a young voter. And so i ask you what advice or reasons for optimism could you offer to young republicans such as myself who find it very difficult to support either of the two leading candidates for our partys nomination . Well, unfortunately, this is not the first time ive had this question. [laughter] let me [laughter] all right. So as you know, im chair of the convention. I learned about this, because the speaker of the house by the way, i didnt learn about this until after i had had become speaker of the house. [laughter] im very neutral on this, i would look at the ideas. Look at the platform thats being advanced. Look at the agenda process which, by the way, we decided in the house before the election got started when we had 17 candidates. Look at what were presenting to the country before cleveland and that were going to offer to the country. Five things in our agenda. And, look, where theres Common Ground and we can get things done, do it. Thats why we did education reform, transportation reform, rewrite our customs laws. Were passing a bill this week that says the government cant just take your emails without a warrant. So were fixing things where we can find Common Ground, but there are a lot of things we dont. Look at the five things were talking about, and look at the policies, not the person necessarily. Its the policies that matter so much. How do you grow the economy . Reform the tax code . Open up energy, Regulatory Reform . What does patientcentered Health Care Look like . We dont think the Affordable Care act is working. We have to show a what we would do differently. And by the way, if we do not fix our entitlement programs from the current path to bankruptcy we are on, you will receive an inferior future. You will receive a mountain of debt that no american generation has ever received. It will guarantee your Living Standards are lower. And so our generation better fix this problem now. We helped create it. So that your generation can be free and prosperous, and you better support this is my opinion, this is in your interests support us getting on top of our budget problems. So we think we have better ideas for fighting poverty, we think we should compete in the battle of ideas and move people from welfare to work. We have welfare programs that are work replacement programs, we need them to be work encouragement programs. We think our National Security is a mess. We have to have a military that is capable of fixing that. And the last point i would say which i really believe transcends party labels is we need to restore the constitution and the article i of the constitution. What that means is the laws that we live under should be written by we through our elected representatives. Right now we dont really dont have that. This isnt just Barack Obamas fault, although hes taken this to a whole new level. Weve got this Fourth Branch of government, unelected bureaucrats writing our rules and regulations that govern our society and determine how our businesses run, how our schools work. It governs almost everything we do and, guess what . I as your member of congress have no say so over this. So our laws arent being written by us through our elected representatives. So one of the forming foundational principles of this country is that we are a selfgoverning people, we believe in selfdetermination, we believe in government by consent of the governorred. We are losing that. We have a lot of ideas for restoring that so we have a government that is accountable to us, the people. These five things Economic Growth, Entitlement Health care reform, upward mobility, welfare reform, National Security and restoring selfgovernment are ideas that i think are animating, that are necessary for saving this country and, by the way, we think it gets us on a better track. So in front of you is not just a vote for a person, a political, you know, personality. In front of you, if we do our jobs the right way, will be a choice of two paths that you will have to take. Do you want to stay on the status quo, go down the same path were on, or do you want to go in this different direction . We owe you that choice. And so thats the choice youll have far more than a personality. Republicans lose personality contests anyway, we always do. [laughter] weve learned that lesson the hard way. But we win ideas contests, and this is what we want to have as an ideas contest. Raise your gaze and look at the horizon that were trying to paint and look at the agenda that were offering you so that the people of this country get to choose which path we take. [applause] lets go to the next question from the audience. Hello, speaker ryan. My name is michael. Im a junior at the college studying government and economics much like you did, and im from just outside of phoenix, arizona. Actually building off your answer to connors question about choosing between two paths and seeing what consent of the governed looks like, that happens a lot at the state level. In my state of arizona where republicans control the governorship and both houses and many other states across the country, probably most infamously kansas, weve seen some of your ideas put to the test, where government is getting off the peoples backs. Yet teachers are leaving arizona in droves, kansas republicans arent seeing the economy grown, in fact, theyre almost in open revolt against their governor. How can you ask me to support some of these ideas nationally when i look back at my state or many other states where you have the political will and opportunity to enact this path, and it doesnt seem to be working . [applause] well, you know, i know Sam Brownback well, and i know that theyve had a pretty impressive Business Development growth, but let me tell you the answer to your question from our perspective at the federal level. Lets just take taxes, for example. We are taxing ourselveses, our businesses at a much, much higher rate than our foreign competitors are taxing theirs. Overseas which where i come from means Lake Superior [laughter] the canadians are taxing all their businesses 159 . Company 15 . Companies are taxed at 35 . Successful Small Businesses are taxed as high as 44. 6 . We are killing ourselves. This is why all these businesses are leaving and going overseas or Foreign Companies are buying u. S. Businesses. So, yes, we have to get our tax rates down. Its so important for american competitiveness, for jobs, for capital to stay here, for businesses to stay headquartered here that we get our tax rates down. I think we can make a very successful case for this philosophy, but the point i would say is because we believe in limited government doesnt mean we believe in no government. We want government to be effective at what it does. We dont want government to stretch itself beyond where it should be, and that means we in our communities, in our school, in our businesses, we make more decisions for ourselves and we solve problems ourselves organically, from the bottom up in an open economy instead of government making these command and control decisions. We have learned that command and control economies, as well intended as they may be, leads to cronyism, lethargy, bureaucracy, it slows things down, it stopped upward mobility. And so that is why i would argue for a very limited government that helps our american workers, our businesses be more competitive. And so, yes, i think we need to lower tax rates. And by the way, with the kind of deficits and debt we have, you better hope to we get our spending under control, because youre going to get hit with a debt thats just crazy. One more point. We have run the federal government for the last 60 years im rounding here we have run the federal government for 60 year at about 20 of gdp. 20 cents out of every dollar made in america goes to the federal government. Around the time my kids are my age, well take 40 cents out of every dollar made in america just to run this government at that time. I asked the Congressional Budget Office a number of years ago what will the income tax rates have to be on that next generation when my kids are having my grandkids, their children . They said the lowest tax rate for lower income people which is right now 15 , its got to go to 25 . Middle income tax rates goes to 66 , and the top tax rate, the one that all those successful Small Businesses pay would have to go to 88 . And then they said this could have some negative effects on the economy at that time. [laughter] the point im trying to make is its not as if were standing still here. We are heading in the wrong direction. Were on the wrong path. Making american businesses and our economy less and less and less competitive which means fewer jobs, slower Economic Growth, less takehome pay, less economic security. So we do have to limit our government so we can focus it on what its supposed to do and do it well and, yes, these theories do work. When we lower tax rates, especially in this global competition, it helps. It works. It is successful. Maybe its the difference between federal and state government, but we are in a Global Economy whether we like it or not, and we better be globally competitive, and i would argue on a lot of fronts that were not. [applause] lets take another question from the stage. Will . Hi. Im will sigh mobs, im simons, im a senior at the college, and im from briar cliff, new york. Westchester county. My question is many young people worry about Climate Change and its potential negative impacts, yet Many Americans especially those in the fossil fuel industry also worry about the negative economic consequences right, right. From Climate Changerelated policies. So how do politicians decide whether to prioritize the worries of a middleaged worker at a coal plant who may lose his job or the worries of individuals like us and our children who will have to deal with the negative consequences of Climate Change much more severely . I think you set the question up well. So do we have to, do we have to be forced into a tradeoff between the two . I would like to think we dont have to do that. We dont have to trade one for the other. We dont have to trade our prosperity today or the economic anxiety of a middleaged worker for a better environment. Why dont we try and work with both of these together. So to that point, take coal, for example. The old way of burning coal was pretty darn dirty, so we have clean coal technologies. Theyve working on sequestration. Lets make sure its cleaner. Oh, and by the way, why dont we invest in basic Scientific Research to innovate our way into a cleaner economy . This is why i dont support the various ideas like cap and trade or carbon taxes because what they basically do is they harm our economy. I come from manufacturing part of the country. They make our manufacturers so much less competitive, and those jobs go to other countries, say china or india, who arent doing anything to fix this generally speaking. And theyll just pump more dirty air in the atmosphere and take our jobs. I hate to say it so starkly. So lets not do that. Lets not unilaterally disarm our economy. Why dont we focus on getting faster Economic Growth, cleaning up our act. Natural gas is an incredible bridge fuel, weve got a lot of it now that we have this new technology. And lets invest in research. This is one of the things people dont realize about us is in the last budget agreement we did our big interest was saving our military from another round of sequestration, but the domestic spending equation is we put more money into research, basic health research, more money into Scientific Research to find out research on fusion, how do we get Nuclear Energy so that we have renewable and no waste . These are the kinds of things we should do instead of forcing bad ideas on an economy that this dislocates that coal miner in eastern ohio who is trying to feed his family and have a future for himself. We dont have to trade these things off with one another, and that is why im not supportive of the ideas that end up doing that rather than taking the innovation approach. [applause]. You set me up. Sorry. I came back to georgetown. Lets declare about that. 2013 qb autopsy demanded outreach to latino voters. Why did you promise not to work of immigration before . I think the president poisoned the well. I know that sounds like a fingerpointing exercise. This is a broken system that has to be fixed. This is a nation of immigrants. My name is ryan. Im here because potato stopped growing in ireland. Our family made in each generation of more opportunities. Thats the beautiful story of this country, a beautiful story that needs to continue in this country. We have an opportunity in the last session that we lost to get Immigration Reform. We asked the president dont do this decisive executive order. We call the executive amnesty. Work with us. What did the president do . Before we started the new session with a new congress he did this executive order which to us into court battle which which is set oral arguments the other day. As soon as he made the movie to us into a court battle over constitutional the of executive branch going it alone and writing laws without congress writing those laws. We knew the well would be poisoned, and just perhaps a political advantage is being had but it was an opportunity that has been lost because of this. This will have to wait for the next president because when you have a tent relationship where a president is going around congress and trying to unilaterally write laws, violating the constitution, does it make for the working relationship to me. The last point i would say that this is, those of us who are in congress been a long time with her constituency. I was doing a telephone town hall last night. I cant understate how concerned people are about National Security, how concerned people are about the fact the borders are not being concerned. This is about heroin and opioids, about isis. Its not about a demographic. Its not about latinos. One of my longestserving employees helps me with my plan to average. I do my bilingual town Hall Meetings with her. It is not about that. It is about the rule of law. It is about this country knowing who is coming into his going, and then getting these laws right so that they work. The last point i would make, we need to have reforms that are lasting we tried fixing this in 1996. That didnt work. We started with 1986. Then we went in 1996. Basically since 2006 george bush made really good try. I supported the effort. We have to come together and figure this out but i dont think this year is going to happen because of executive amnesty and to run around Congress Another poisoned the well and sent us into court battle. We had a lawyer in court a week ago are doing not based on immigration but based on the rule of law. At the end of the day we need to fix this problem. Its broken. Dont forget the rule of law and security is paramount to at the first as a confidence Building Measure to make sure that people really believe the loss of reinforce so when we do reform its lasting. It doesnt last five or 10 years like the last three times. It works for a long time to co come. Let me exercise moderation program. Were talking millennials, and people. There are a lot of young people out there who are worried about a Family Member being deported. They may have just heard your answer and heard about the process about executive orders and the president. Speak to the person. Dreamers. Speak to that person. The way to solve the problem is not treat the symptoms. The way to solve a problem is to solve the root cause of the problem. The root cause is a fundamentally broken system. Its a system that we dont know whos coming and going to the country and canada of heroin and isis and drug cartels, its a real threat to our National Security. We are in the middle of running all this opioids legislation because of this problem coming from our borders. The if we can fix the root cause of fixing our immigration laws, and im the person who believes for the undocumented we have to come up with a solution that involves getting people, to come and earn a legal status while we fix the rest of Legal Immigration which i think is broken. Takes forever to get a visa. There are industries that cant find people. And also lets make sure people who cant find jobs or americans get those jobs first so got to make sure we get these details right. Its not quick and easy. If we created the root cause than the symptoms like a dreamers and the fear of her family being broken up will be solved if we get through cost of these things. [applause] lets take another question from the audience. Thank you for being there. Im a freshman in college studying government and chinese and im from san francisco. A lot of republicans, you mentioned this earlier, i talk d about such want to repeal obamacare. And that not what you want to do that but yo it is something that comes after that. You just cant get rid of something and not have something proposed a. This plan has to be specific and have to give reasonable alternative to the Current System. One of the things that obamacare has given a special too much of an of the people has been that you can no longer discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. If you get rid of obamacare come with a new republican policy specifically have a stipulation that continues this, or will people in the republican alternative have to get rid of their health care because they have a preexisting condition . You speak fast like me which is a benefit and a curse. I think we can do a better job of getting at this problem, which is people with preexisting conditions not been able to buy affordable coverage or when they get sick they go bankrupt. We can and should and must fix that. The solution that is in this law did not work. The reason i think it didnt work is because its making other people needlessly pay for Health Insurance that is far too expensive and making people buy insurance that they dont need or want. The smarter way in my opinion and where the task force that is working on this is just right now, the smarter way in my opinion is that we as a society make a decision at the government level that we will buck up and subsidize those people with preexisting conditions. Let me give you an actuarial view of the. For the under 65, i sound like a geek when i say stuff like that, for the under 65 population, less than 10 of the people under 65 are in the legal people with preexisting conditions who are really uninsurable. Lets fund risk pools at the state level to subsidize their coverage so they can get affordable coverage so that if you get Breast Cancer when youre 45, thos though subsidies taken to protect you from bankruptcy. So you keep good insurance and do know what it does for the other 90 of americans . The pools covering them dont have to go and cover the event of a catastrophically expensive Health Insurance bill for somebody and to dramatically lower the price for everybody else. Judnick Health Insurance so much more affordable, so much more competitive. And open up the competition. Right now at a obamacare im 46, i stand she. I dont smoke. I have a couple millerites now and then but i stay healthy. At dad died of heart attack when he was 55 it. I think jesus would. My nextdoor neighbor could be same age, he could drink a case of beer each night, two steaks, not run can be one of those overweight and come under the law, you cant report a person for better behavior. You cant have incentives to be healthier. That makes no sense. We are taking the Insurance Industry and turned it into a government corporation. Its cronyism. We are going down to just a few Insurance Companies like Public Utilities and giving people choices. We are taking away competition and its not working. I met with actuaries who tell us that obamacare is failing to years ahead of schedule. What it meant when they said that is all thats happening now are people who are sick or are buying the insurance, cranking up the price and people who are young, low and middle income who need insurance cant afford it so theyre just not going insured. We can fix this. That to me is on your point, open of underwriting, have more Insurance Companies, have more competition and just pay for the person with the preexisting condition to make sure they get affordable coverage when that moment happens, and make it much more competitive. Thats the smarter way to do economically and give people more freedom, more choices. Then we have more of a patient centered health care system, not some crony government run top down bureaucratic unaffordable system like we are having today. [applause] i really would like you to address with the mullahs in the audience the question of millennial m why tax reform should matter to this generation. Speaking your language. It is. First of all, i used to chair the ways and Means Committee victims between job i always wanted to get and then after like less than a year. Then i became coming this jobs i think about ways and means a lot. The reason i took this job and i want to get his job is i have always believed that one of the worst manifestations of the federal government of political influence. This is a right and left thing is the tax code. Right now the tax code is full of different provisions that are put there by the wellconnected, by Interest Groups. What that means is lets say you have a base of income in america thats this big, and she put all these loopholes in the tax code that mirrors the tax base to this much. Then you have to tax rates that much are to raise the equivalent amount of money for the government. But if we take loopholes out of the code and we can lower rates for everybody, we accomplish a couple of things. We make workers, families, and businesses are often and more competitive, especially in the Global Economy, but more to the point is the point of china make earlier, a philosophical point, its your money can you should make a decision which want to do with it. Instead of sending your money to washington and then some Interest Group and a member of congress both sides do this and you choose group put some loophole in there and then they will let you keep some of your money back if engage in behavior that they approve of. Thats what we got today. That means we have a really complicated system with an agency that is not a great agency my opinion of messing up peoples lives, and making our economy much less competitive. So if we can get the cronyism out, Police Provisions out, lower all right, that you keep more of your own money and you decide what to do because its your money. And it makes our economy more competitive, it helps american businesses. We are losing the biggest publicly traded company in wisconsin because theyre buying a company in tyco which is headquartered in ireland and they therefore become an irish company. The loyalties end up going. The allegiances go. The headquarters for. And there goes the philanthropy. There goes the foundations. There goes the great jobs. Thats happening across this economy because we have this really uncompetitive tax system. Ireland taxes their businesses at 1225 . We are between 35 and as high as 44. 6 . China is a 25. 12. 5. If you want to be competitive, have good jobs and faster growing economy, more control over our lives and isnt what we want to do with our money and more headquarters in america so we can get good jobs at the headquarters whether you want to be a ceo or a researcher or an account or council, whatever that is, or just a manufacturer, weve got to get tax reform. It is really a big deal. The last point i will say is the way we tax our system internationally is killing us. All the other countries i if you make money overseas can you patent overseas country tax rate and bring your money held in there you go. We dont do it that way. Take harleydavidson in milwaukee. You sell in france, they the french attacks when you sell but hardly but then if you want to bring that money act to milwaukee to reinvest, youve got to take the american tax on top of it, the additional american tax. What happens . They dont take the money hope it stays overseas. No other country does that. Weve got to fix these things so we can take the 2 trillion of capital that is sitting overseas that could come back home and be redeployed in our economy to give you good jobs, but because of our tax laws we are not doing that and thats why we need to tax reform. [applause] lets take another question from the riser. Mr. Speaker, thanks for coming and welcome back to georgetown. I am a sophomore in the school of Foreign Service majoring in International Economics and im from north canton, ohio. Just a month ago you gave a speech to top go entered such as myself, and ended you touched on the growing political divisions in our society. Seems that nowadays everybody on both sides of the aisle tinges each other as more as enemies than as people with whom to cooperate. What i wanted to know was what did you see back on the ground in your district in wisconsin rather than here in d. C. That you believe is the root cause of these divisions . More importantly what can we young people do to fix this problem . Thank you. I worry about this a lot. I know i look really young. Just kidding, but it is my 18th year in congress and ive never seen the well poisoned as much as it is a these days. Ive not seen the kind of vitriol and the kind of bitterness in our politics like we have today. Ive got just i think its both sides. I would love this is just democrats but its not, its both. I think one of the sources of this problem, one of them is what is referred to as identity politics. It has become viewed as a successful political strategy to prey on and put on a persons identity and speak to them in a way that divides them from another person. So that you can get enough of your groups that youre speaking to to be 50 plus one and win an election. Unfortunately, both sides are playing this game. All it ends up doing is dividing us as a country. So we are speaking to each other in ways that divide us. I see this as in wisconsin. I see this were ever you go. Having neighbors lose friendships. Were having the kinds of political discussions in America Today what people are losing friendships over these things and it doesnt have to be that way. So how do you fix that . I think leaders fix this. We havent had that kind of leadership lately. Leaders need to say here is my principal, heres my solution, and lets try and do anyway that is inclusive, thats optimistic, thats aspirational, thats focusing on solutions. So whats going on right now, i think you see this because we are in primaries, both sides of the Democratic Party is in a big primary and the Republican Party isnt a big primary. Speaking to each others voters and those a lot of anger. Why . 45 Million People in poverty. Wages are stagnant. National security is a mess. People are really anxious. And so this anxiety has got to be channeled and dealt with with solutions instead of amplified and accelerated and exacerbated. Right now in the primaries its being accelerated and exacerbated gas is being poured on the fiber in my own view, look, theres a guy who taught me, got me basically into doing this, a guy named jack kemp, my mentor, i got to work for. He had a different view of these things that i was so infectious, his enthusiasm, that i was taught and brought into politics that way, which is speak to our common humanity. Fight for ideas, pfeiffer principles can debate the merits, dont insult the integrity of the other person get into your point, i didnt always get it right myself. We all have to work to improve ourselves on these things, but i think leaders need to lead with aspirational politics that are inclusive, focus on principles, apply them to the problems of the day and give People Solutions and then let voters decide. That to me as a clarifying election we are to have and that is not exactly where we are right now. But im hoping a few months we can get there. [applause] i can see our time, we have time for one more question from the audience. My name is nick simon. Im a junior and i majoring in government and history and im from new orleans. So my question for you is what i first started getting into politics i was a freshman in high school. The big issue that everyone was talking about, and you are one of the leading voices on this, was the National Debt. The National Debt is down 19 trillion, and ive had to explain a bunch of liberal friends even at georgetown the repercussions of that. Why is the National Debt no longer like a buzzword in the election . Im surprised you didnt even mention it here. What do we need to do to like let people know how big of a deal that is going to be for our generation speak with im pretty sure i mentioned. Thats what ive talked about the second plank in a plan. Nations that health care is also entitlement. The drivers of our debt. Please know that that is a high priority. My own view on this is the person who wrote most of our budgets that we pass or offered, this is your generations big fight. Prior generations, boomers, im and x. Generation have racked up a debt that if we dont do this under control you going to get, you have a lower quote of life. Thats what anyone to talk about the debt. The point i would make is the subject of is the better off everybody does. The sooner we tackled the drivers of our debt, which are these entitlement programs, medicare, medicaid, obamacare your Social Security does have as big a number as the other ones but those are what we call mandatory spending, entitlement programs. Thats the autopilot part of our government spending, which is about, its getting to be twothirds. Its about 6040 right now. And a handful just a becomes 100 of our government spending. All revenue will go to the. The problem we have is theres no way the government would be able to sustain these programs. If that happens and they and the debt get too big, they will have to cut these programs. Is now then we go public on our terms of the country to do it doesnt affect people in ordinary. My mom is 80, has been living on those of duty for a while but why should we pull the rug out from her after she prepared her retirement for this . Lets keep that intact but for those of us, for your generation, the millennial generation, the next generation, okay, thank you, lets fix these problems prospectively so that we have these benefits for us when we retire but will have to change the programs can make a more efficient and more 21st century, were open, more competitive so they are there for us when we retire and we get the debt under control so we can keep the promise who are already retired. We can do it on our terms if we go soon. If we blow another presidency, and i tried for a long time to get a budget deal, just wouldnt do it. I just dont think progressives are interested in the kind of Budget Solutions you have to have in order to fix this problem but im not saying this is just republican democrat. To great friends of mine, democrats agree with the kind of solutions on talking about. Alice rivlin and i had an amendment that wouldve fix this helped a problem. I believe theres a coalition of republicans and what i would call moderate conservative democrats that can fix it is a debt problem on our terms of the country and makes these programs work better for the future, keeps the promise to people in retirement and we have to do it soon otherwise the debt is going to get out of control and we will be doing surgery or the bond market and its going to rip up the socialization and idiotic. Thats the point i keep making. You are right, it hasnt been talked about, its been glossed over. Because we have a half a trillion dollar deficit we think we are in high times. Just so you know with 10,000 people retiring every day, this day and for the next 10 years in a couple of your sleep about 2 trilliondollar deficits for as far as the eye can see and they never come back down. Because of the retirement of america. When you have a 90 retirement rate of americans but only 19 rate of young people going into the workforce to pay for those programs, therein lies your problem. Weve got to get ahead of this. We are offering solutions. We passed a plan that fixes this out of the house. Its part of our agenda. We are going to take this agenda to the country and ask the country for permission. Thats what our agenda is about. It is our solution to these problems. Heres why we are proposing it this way. Heres the principle we are using, and if he chooses by supporting us, then we are asking for the mandate to do in 2017. Thats what i think its is necy to have a clarifying mandate based election together for the political wherewithal in order to fix these problems in 2017 so we can get on this problem and fix it while its still within our own control. Thats why were doing what we are doing and i appreciate the question. [applause] we could keep doing this all day. Thethere so many more people who have questions. Unfortunately, our time is up. Mr. Speaker, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for being a part of this dialogue. Thank you. I also want to thank my comoderator who has been such a big booster of the institute and were glad to have your and thanks for helping bring this guy on campus. Both morality thank all of you get bigger and i dont agree on a lot of policy prescriptions but we do a great its going to be up to you guys and we need you engaged. So thank you all for being here. Thank you. Hey, all fine. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]. Well bring this conversation to you live from the center for strategic and International Studies at 1 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 3 00. After that a panel on tax reform and why the u. S. Corporate tax rate hasnt changed since 1993. That will be live at 3 00 p. M. Eastern also on cspan3. Madam secretary, we proudly give2 of our delegate votes to the next president of the United States [cheering] white House Counsel of economic advisors chair jason furman defended the administrations decisions to weigh in on the fcc plan on creating a competitive market for settop boxes. He made the comments at a Christian Science monitor Breakfast Series event. This is about an hour. [inaudible conversations]. Okay. Were going to start and a people join us in progress. Thanks for coming. Im david cook from the monitor. Our guest is jason furman from the council of economic advisors. His last visit was february of 2015. We appreciate his coming back. His First Association with the counsel was in 1996 during the Clinton Administration while he was a graduate student at harvard and hired as a staff counsel to the council. He has been a special assistant to president clinton at National Economic policy and senior fellow and economic studies at director of the hamilton project at brookings. Along the way earning three degrees, including a doctorate from harvard and one from London School at economics. He has been a visiting lecturer at yale and columbia. In 2008 he was the Economic Policy director for obama for america. Earlier in the Obama Administration our guest was Principle Deputy director of the National Economic council before being named to his current post in june of 2013. And with that well leave behind the biography and move to this mornings mechanics. As always were on the record here. Please no live blogging or tweeting. In short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what our guest says. There is no embarring foe when the session ends promptly at 10 00 or 9 59. To help you resist the shelfty urge well email pictures as soon as breakfast ends. As attendees know if you like to ask the question, do a traditional thing, send me a subtle nonthreatening signal and i call on one and all. I will start with our guest to make opening comments if he wishes and then well move to questions aroundtable. Thanks for organizing. Thanks to everyone here. We will start out briefly by saying weve now seen 73 straight months of private sector job growth which is the longest streak of job growth we ever had in this country. More than 12 million jobs added by american businesses. But we still need to do more to make sure that more americans are seeing the benefit of the economy, building on the wage gains weve already seen and see larger wage gains. In the state of the union the president began by talking about his Economic Strategy and he talked about the three parts of his Economic Strategy. The first focused on expanding education and training. The second talked about improving Public Programs to help people find jobs, to help people move from job to job with wage insurance and reformed Unemployment Insurance and the third part of the strategy he outlined in the state of the union was to make sure that the economy was operating on a set of rules of the road, rules of the road that worked for consumers, worked for Small Businesses, and worked for workers rather than being set up for the large companies. This last week we took an important step to flesh out that third part of the economic agenda as outlinedded in the state of the union. When the president issued an executive order instructing all agencies to to look what they to inject more competition into the economy. Together with that order, the president weighed in on a proceeding at the fcc and asked the fcc to open upset top boxes, something we all have sitting in our living room. 99 of us use the cable box we rent from our Cable Company. People pay average of 230 a year. After four years you have paid 1,000 and you still rented it. You dont own it. The price of cable boxes have gone up even while the components have gotten cheaper. Thats why we asked the fcc to open up cable top boxes, to buy your own and have greater diversity and choice which we think would lead to inknow vision. That is an example. Weve done many things like this before, whether cell phone unlocking, requiring airlines to free up slots at airports for competitors, or improving competition in defense procurement. Agencies will have 60 days to report back with additional ideas along these lines. The reason we think this is important because of a range of evidence that the council of economic advisors collected in an issue brief last week but by a number of different measures there is less competition in the Economy Today than there was several decades ago. Theres fewer new firms. The average firm size is larger. The average market share of firms is larger. The rate of return on capital relative to the safe rate of return is rising. For some firms rates of return are persistently very high and all of those can both get in the way of efficiency and innovation. For example, settop boxes, a type of competition you would like to see to make the boxes better and can also produce greater inequality by raising prices for consumers or disadvantaging workers. So happy to talk about you know this genset of policies and ideas around competition, what the status is, what we can do about it, but obviously anything on the economy more broadly. Let me start by giving you a chance to respond to critics of the cable decision. The cable industry, National Cable and telecommunications association, not shilling for cspan says the white hoist injected, quote, politics and inflammatory rhetoric into a regulatory proceeding by what is supposed to be an independent agency and the executive producer of the walking dead, reading variety, something the guy from monitor does every morning if the fcc goes along with the white house, it will make piracy as easily, as easy and as dangerous in the living room as it is on laptops and mobile device. The law makes it very clear that the administration can comment on fcc proceedings. There is a procedure for that which is a filing comment through ntia. That is the procedure that previous administrations have used on numerous occasions and this administration has used on numerous occasions. We had a very serious policy covering about this issue. Thought that it was an issue that mattered a lot to consumers, and also to innovation and to Economic Growth more broadly. And wanted to share those views and did it in, fully transparent way. We think this is important both because of this particular case. Again, i dont, you know, it is a fact that the typical household over four years is going to spend about a thousand dollars, not get the improvements in their cable settop box we see in lots of other areas of technological economy and wont even own the box at the end of that process. And its a fact that, you know, incumbent Industries Want to defend the tying of that product to the tying of the delivery of the Cable Service when in reality those are two very different products. So we wanted to weigh in on that. Also wanted to use it as example of stems wed love to see other agencies coming up that would have similar tangible, easy to understand benefits in the broader economy. Do you have a list or example or two of you that you would give us, you say you see this as example in a blog post you and st. Said as cable box masking for other initiatives. Do you expect to see where you expect other procompetitive decisions before the end of Obama Administration . I dont have forwardlooking examples because the agencies are working actively on this right now and something we would talk to them about even before the president signed his executive order, some example of past ones is the cell phone unlocking. Instead after cell phone tied to given carrier, letting you unlock it to use it with different carriers. There was a we the people petition where tens of thousands of americans asked is to do something about it. We studied issue. Came out in favor of it. Ultimately that required legislation which we championed as well as actions by the fcc and others. Now it is easier for you to move your cell phone to different carrier. That helps, you know, if you change, helps you get a better deal. If you dont change the threat you might do it helps restrain prices. Airline slots is another one. Airlines were sitting on slots at airports they werent using and using it just to foreclose on other airlines to be able to compete effect of itly. D. O. T. Required them to give up the slots to let other airlines use it. That created more competition, lower prices, Better Options in air travel. Those are two of types of examples, one at the commerce department, one at d. O. T. , that wed like to see more of going forward. Im going to do one more and well go to Howard Snyder of reuters and then around table. Do you think ttp is dead, sir . The most likely democratic candidate says i dont think it will be the beat the high bar that was set. The likely republican candidate that the deal was set up for china to come through and take advantage of everyone . I do not believe that at all. I think ttp is very important to our economy. In fact every year that we delay it. Pp costs us nearly 100 billion in foregone benefits we would get from the agreement. The support for it is growing. Trade groups and businesses come out consistently every week. New groups come out for it. The authority to negotiate that agreement was passed on a bipartisan basis in Congress Last year and we hear from a number of in congress that understand the importance of getting it done this year. So were going to continue to doing that. It continues to be economically important and it continues to be something that we know a majority of members of congress, you know are in principle open to doing. Well go to Howard Snyder from reuters and greg cort from usa today. Today. How are you. One marketoriented and one real economy. Recent uptick in Labor Force Participation giving confidence that Janet Yellens vision of the labor market is fun funnily accurate. Im wondering in your opinion how much farther you think that might go given the demographic drag on participation generally thaw documented . And secondly, interested in your thoughts about slow, tepid growth of recovery and whether or not that is potential up side there to the extent it is caused by stronger Financial Regulation put in place and prudential savings going on in households and Mortgage Rates . People are paying off mortgages and companies are saving and seems that has got the potential to lessen reliance on external finance in the next recession, perhaps make it shallower and those are two great questions. In answer to your first one, it has been really encouraging to see the increase in the Labor Force Participation rate. In fact it is increasing at the fastest rate that it has in over 30 years. The larger demographics in your question that a larger and larger of population will be over 65. A. 3 decline per year in the Participation Rate just from aging of the population. Above and beyond that, there had been a longstanding, manydecade downward trend in the Participation Rate, even conditional on age which would take it down a little bit more. I think there is a little bit more space for cyclical recovery in the Labor Force Participation rate. I think it has been especially encouraging to see broader healing in the economy and longterm unemployed and disgorged workers. Ultimately were almost there in terms of the cyclical healing. Then well be left with the demographic trend in that regard. You know, in answer to your second question, i dont think that financial reform has played a big role in reducing growth rates. I think it helped put our economy in stronger and more sustainable position with 700 billion more in bank capital than we had in 2008. When people go through all of the different concerns about the Global Economy, you know, i think its encouraging that the United States Banking System is not on anyones list and for good reason because weve undertaken reforms that put it in much better shape than it has been in for a long time but the productivity growth slowdown is something youve seen across a range of economies, some of which did reform their Financial Systems and some of which didnt. So i think Something Else is going on than financial reform. I think the deleveraging you referred to of the high savings rate at the corporate level and individual level was a particularly good and important thing in the first couple of years of the recovery but were now in a position where if you look at households, their interests payments as a share of disposable income is the lowest its been on record. You look at corporations. They have extremely healthy balance sheets. I think that is all encouraging but it would also be encouraging to continue to see more Consumer Spending which weve seen over last year or two, but also more Business Investment which we havent seen as much of in the last year or two. [inaudible] gone too far . I think there is room for expanded Business Investment. Greg, do you have a question today. First topics on criminal justice. Youre participating in an event i guess next week on this. You had an op ed yesterday i think with douglas holtzeakin. Yep. You made the case there are economic consequences to criminal Justice Reform. You certainly laid out the fiscal sort of, that the cost to the taxpayer of this but can you make the case for how criminal Justice Reform would actually affected broader economy . Yeah. Weve gotten involved in criminal justice because it is a very important economic angle on it. There are many others that are important too, in terms of values and what type of society we want to be but we focus narrowly on the economics and the economics is something that i think there is broad bipartisan agreement on. So doug holtzeakin and i spent 2008 debating when he was doing Economic Policy for the Mccain Campaign and i was doing it for the obama campaign. I dont think there was a single line in the op ed together that the two of us had to argue about, and the event next week, it is at the white house and it is cohosted by the American Enterprise institute, which is a right of center think tank and the Brennan Center at nyu, which is a more progressive organization. The speakers will include people like doug holtzeakin and Arthur Brooks and dan loeb from one side of the perspective and you will hear the business and economic tank. The issue that a range of research has found is that first of all, making sentences increasing longer has rapidly diminishing returns in terms of deterring crime. Also in terms of keeping someone off the street from committing crimes because older people are much less likely to commit crimes. At same time it can have substantial collateral damage. Reducing skill someone has and getting a job when they come out, which could lead to more recidivism and more crime. Having devastating impact on family of the person on their children, on their children and their economic mobility and economic future. And if you just do, without even counting those collateral benefits, council of economic advisors is shortly going to be coming out with a report on this topic and the report finds that if you increase spend, among other things, if you increase spending on incarceration by 10 billion a year that would result in net benefits to the society that range from negative 8 billion, to positive one approximately. In contrast increased spending on police, increased wages, including through higher minimum wage, increased education, all have, positive net benefit in terms of just their impact on crime reduction. But can you give me a percent of gdp that criminal justice can you measure what the benefits of this would be . I cant give you, i dont have a bottom line percent of gdp but i have, you can to very rigorously, and we do cost benefit all the time when we do regulatory and budgetnal tis sis. We worked out if you spend 10 billion in this area, you end up worse off not better off. Other thing i would note, look at men between age of 25 to 54 in the country, not in the labor force, not in a job and not looking for a job. In the 1950s it was 3 of men 25 to 54 were not in the labor force. Now it is 12 of men. It increased fourfold. Increased much more in the United States than almost any other advanced economy. You asked what make us different from the other economies, mass incarceration of in the United States you dont see in any other oecd countries that appears to have played a role in the fact that a large fraction of the people who could be contributing productively to our economy are not doing so today. Then on competition, there is also proposal for the fcc by broadcasters to open up some spectrum for them to do 4dtv and interactive those kind of things. Sounds like what youre trying to accomplish for the settop box proposal. Would the administration weigh in on . I guess the broader question would, in adopting these procompetitive policies do you risk picking winners and losers in picking one industry or technology over another . So, that is not something weve weighed in on although we have played a role in spectrum policy, including championing legislation that created twosided spectrum auctions that is going to happen this year, which is going to buy up spectrum from broadcasters who willingly relinquish it and sell it to people that place a higher value on it, mostly in mobile broadband. We did weigh in on the rules for those spectrum auctions to make sure they were consistent with promoting competition. And competition policy is precisely the opposite of picking winners and losers. It is about creating a set of rules such that there is competition. And then the winners in set top boxes will be picked by consumers. They will be what the set top boxes that Consumers Want to use that have made themselves cheaper or better in some way. As opposeed to the Current System where the rules are essentially foreorder dayed who the winners are. Well go to bloomberg. The competition, executive order, when that came out i had trouble with some of the business groups getting a read on that, whether that was going to be good for them or not. The order seemed to indicate some regulations might be eliminated but also sounded like a lot of agencies were going to be doing some rule rule makings. In terms of regulatory out look for businesses how should they read this executive order . This executive order will be good for the economy and a lot of things that are good for the economy are good for existing businesses. In some cases youre trying to do something that might take away from market power of incumbent business and create opportunities for new competitors and for Small Businesses some that will be good for Small Businesses. It will be good for the new competitor. I think ultimately that competition leads to more innovation by, you know all businesses as well. So do you anticipate a lot of new regulations this year . In some cases, we anticipate, yeah, we anticipate a number of actions to come out of this and, as i said, we have, nec led a process talking to number of agencies before this executive order was issued. So we have some ideas as to what might be coming. Some of that work had already begun and certainly intensified since the order. But i wouldnt describe it as regulations. I dont, in some cases, cell phone unlocking that was in a way getting rid of a barrier that you faced in moving your phone, airline slots. I wouldnt put these under heading of more regulation. I would put these under heading whatever steps you create to make more competition. Sometimes if you look at, this is state issue, one that we have encouraged hard look at, but not something we have federal legislative nexus, occupational licensing, where it used to be 5 of occupation, you needed a license, doctor, or lawyer, now it is up to 25 . That makes it harder to move across states and move jobs. Can disadvantage of consumers. That is example where we think you should get rid of regulations to create more competition. Sometimes incumbents can use power to create barrier to entry. Some example would be local land use restrictions regulation we like to think less of. If you had less of it we think you would have more competition and mobility. This is not more regulation or less this, is real competition. Next is real clear politics. Jason, as you know the speaker and his conference will put forward an issues agenda which they hope to do before the fall. And part of it is going to be tax reform. There is a pent up interest on both sides of the aisle. I want to ask you, do you think that the effort that the speaker is making is going to be helpful to the debate about tax reform which will be engaged next year and beyond . Or do you see it as mostly political, you know, try to provide some specifics to the candidates . How do you look at the effort that they have made . I think its always good when people put out policy ideas and are specific about those policy ideas. In some cases those policy ideas help advance an issue. In some cases they clarify a choice and help sharpen a debate. So, so that you can have the debate in the legislative process and decide. Im obviously not privy to any details what he is going to release but i think anything that continues a conversation on the substantive policy level is important. On Business Tax Reform chairman camp put out his proposal i guess about a yearandahalf ago and i thought that was very helpful and constructive for the debate. It had a number of good elements. It had a number of problematic elements. Just even at a technical level it helped address a number of issues. On tax reform in general i think the big question is, are we addressing a genuine economic problem we have in this country, which is a tax rate for businesses that is too high, combined with businesses able to take advantage of too many loopholes . Or, are we trying to cut taxes for high income individuals and raise their after thetax incomes and potentially do that at the expense of the deficit . If it is former about our competitive and creating a level Playing Field that businesses can succeed on i think thats something thats promising for the future. It is yet another way to cut taxes for high income individuals and raise the deficit, i dont think thats going anywhere this year or beyond. [inaudible]. Im curious. You know everyone in the Clinton Campaign on the economic side, policy people. How often do you talk to them . How often do they consult with you or speak the information that the caa has put together . In my job i have nothing to do with the campaign but you know, certainly enjoyed going to a he had withing this past weekend of my former chief of staff married to someone that does policy. But i dont remember at that wedding talking about a whole lot of Economic Policy issues. You dont talk about it. You dont really, theyre not consulting you . I have friends. I have ongoing conversations with friends. You try to be helpful . I havent really spent a lot of time on campaigns in the past and im completely thrilled not to be on one now. Well go to angela keane from bloomberg. The bigger economic picture. There is obviously a lot of good news. Labor market, you talked about downside wages but unemployment and overall good numbers. But at same time we see very concerning trends in manufacturing and housing. What would you say, if you were to write the story, turn the tables, youre the one writing the lead, how do you see things right now . The u. S. Has been biggest Success Story of any of the economies in the world in rebounding from the financial crisis. And our Growth Continues to be considered by people around the world as one of the bright spots in the Global Economy. The Unemployment Rate has consistently come in below expectations. It has been accompanied by a broader healing in labor markets. Wages are up at fastest they have been since the financial crisis. I think that the biggest concern that i face for our economy is the impact to the rest of the world will have on the u. S. Economy. Trade is subtracting slowdown in our exports to the rest of the world, which is function of Slower Growth in the rest of the world, is taking about 3 4 of a point off of our growth rate right now. This isnt enough to have a massive change on the u. S. Economy but it is a persistent drag on the economy. Sector like house something one of the brighter spots with potential. Youre certainly right in the last month you saw Housing Starts and permits fall but over last year both starts and permits are up. It is volatile series. I wouldnt look from month to month. I would look over a year. Were still building less than number of houses i would expect us we need in the country demographically. Housing i think is a bright spot in the economy. Manufacturing is facing a challenge. That is very much a function of industry disproportionally relies on exports, but when rest of the world is weaker, you have harder time exporting manufacturing again big picture has rebounded to sizable extent in the economy. Sectors like autos have been particularly successful in part because of actions weve taken. But until we see stronger growth around the world it will be hard for american manufacturers. One other topic, Social Security. You see it as relatively strong future. There were no labels some people around this table were at huntsman and lieberman spoke. One of their many targets for whatever the next administration is Social Security. They have a plan to address this big crisis. Theyre looking at same numbers that youre looking at and see it very differently. How do you address that . I didnt see what they did yesterday so i cant comment on that but Social Security has sufficient resources to pay full benefit for decades to come. And thereafter to pay about 3 4 of benefits. It is certainly been this administrations view that it is better to act sooner rather than later to deal with it. We put out a set of bipartisan principles for dealing with Social Security years ago, it is something the president would have been done. It is not most urgent issue facing country. It was economy to recover. Getting productivity up. Getting Labor Force Participation rate up. Getting inequality down. All of these are much more urgent and pressing issues. Also would say when youre dealing with Social Security i dont think you want to frame it solely in terms of the solvency and green eyeshades. I think you want to look at what were trying to accomplish which is, weve been enormously successful reducing poverty among the elderly but you still have higher poverty rates for old, old, people over the age of 65, for single women. You have a lot of aspects of the program that were, based around patterns of work and family that have long since passed. So i think when you think about Social Security, you really want to make sure youre also thinking about how it can better serve its fundamental goals in dealing with issues like poverty, Retirement Security that fit into the modern framework of work and family, not just, you know, manaially focus on solvency. Mr. Lane from the hill. So i know in the city you addressed that the president said he would like to work on some sort of antipoverty measure. That can be area of bipartisan agreement or work between him and speaker ryan. Actively sought out and pointed out that this is something we can work on together. Has there been any work between them on this . Have they been engaged at all . If there is any groundwork to be laid to move on something . President certainly highlighted he and speaker have same proposal to expand the earned income tax credit for workers without qualifying children either because they dont have children or because theyre noncustodial parents. This would help address a perversity in our system that right now you can be in poverty and we actually tax you deeper into poverty. Instead the tax code for people without qualifying children should do what it does for people with children, if youre in poverty, help lift you out the of poverty rather than push you deeper into it. A common sense, sensible idea that the president proposed number of years ago, the speaker adopted that proposal and something we could Work Together on. I, we certainly have conversations with the Speakers Office about a wide range of policy issues. Were always looking for ways to cooperate but i think, you know, at some point, you know, theyre going to need to decide legislation on tax issues gets initiated in the house of representatives. So theyre going to need to decide is this something they want to initiate and is this something to initiate that is not paid for by doing damage elsewhere to people getting to work themselves out of poverty. Sam fleming from the financial times. Thank you very much. You were talking earlier as the u. S. Is the bright spot, this Success Story among advance economies. Clearly the story of this president ial Election Campaign not that American Voters feel this is bright spot recovery. Is there a risk that the administration is out of touch with the public mood about the u. S. Economy at the moment . Or are we overestimating just how negative people feel about the economy . First of all i dont know, you know, i look at evidence from the measures that economists look at about how people feel about the economy are the Consumer Sentiment index and Consumer Confidence index from the Conference Board and university of michigan. When you look at measures like that, you see that confidence has been consistently rising since the recession. And last year reached levels we hadnt seen in over a decade. So i see a number of ways people are positive both about their situation today and the outlook. We also certainly hear, and understand the frustrations people have in terms of areas like wage growth and so the president s message that you saw in the state. Union, youve seen consistently was, told a really optimistic story about the american economy, how its done, its successes and also talked about the big challenges and problems that we face and what it is that he wants to do about them. He is not Walking Around saying, mission accomplished. There is nothing else to be done. Everythings perfect. That is not remotely the message. In fact the message of anything is the opposite. Here is all the things that we still need to do. [inaudible] sure. One measure of that confidence is Consumer Spending. It has picked up a little but this is very, very sluggish consumer recovery. What is your analysis why consumers are still saving so significantly . Why the big fall in the oil price hasnt given boost everyone is waiting for . The caution in terms of spending is still quite palpable still. Consumer spending did add 3 , did grow 3 in 2014 and fifth fifth. It was one of the bright spots raising overall gdp growth. You have seen as consumers deleverage, it has stablized more than they had before. When we look at oil stock and raised Consumer Spending. The net of two of those is still a small positive for the economy. I think when you look at consumers, part of it is having been through a very traumatic economic experience that is only eight years past us. You look at the Great Depression and impact that had on the way people thought about saving or the way people thought about inflation, you know in other places, hyper inflation at the time. Those effects can last for decades and affect the way you think. I think there may be some of that. Wage growth only recently picked up. Consumers want confidence that wage growth will continue and Oil Prices Stay low as opposed to being transitory, that dont want to fully adjust your consumption to. If you see nominal wage growth rising, becomes clear this is more durable, then i think you would continue to see strong wage growth, strong consumption growth. Again it is 3 . Which is not, which is pretty good for Consumer Spending. Evans from time. My question is back to the competition issues. You mentioned settop boxes which is interesting because i think, i forgot exactly what statistic is, about 40 of people dont even have a choice what Cable Company is their provider. So if were, if the idea is to address competition how do you sort of adjust the front end, not only address, can i buy comcasts box a or comcasts box b . And, on that same level there has been a lot of criticism about, from the left, about antitrust, failure to pursue antitrust cases. Then criticism on the right from the business industry that the Obama Administration has not been friendly in that way. So how do you kind of thread that needle and pursue antitrust especially at a time when were seeing these massive mergers with walgreens and rite aid and kraft and heinz, aetna, cigna, humana, Something Else . Were seeing massive mergers and how do you deal with that . On your first, youre precisely right there is an intersection between these two issues. If you had a choice of 100 different Cable Companies probably we wouldnt need a rule about settop boxes because one of those Cable Companies would compete for the business letting you have a settop box or better one. When you dont have competition in terms of cable wire going into your house, that makes it that much more important to make sure you cant leverage the market power you have in the wiring of the house into what is unrelated product, which is, the settop box. So there is intersection between those. Weve tried to take up steps to free up spectrum for mobile broadband which would create more competition in that area. Make sure rules of those actions are consistent with, you just cant have biggest player buy all the spectrum to foreclose on opportunity for others to enter the market. Weve weighed in on municipal broadband another way to create competition. But there is only some tools that we have. You know in terms of your second question, you know, we have nothing whatsoever to do with enforcement in the white house. Thats a matter of enforcement agencies, doj, antitrust and ftc. In this case enforcing the law. We dont get involved in particular cases and dont get involved in the broader policy issues. I would note that antitrust enforcement under this administration is up. The number of criminal prosecutions is up. Criminal penalties, prison time and in noncriminal cases there have been a number of quite important Enforcement Actions they have taken to preserve competition in different areas. It is the case when it comes to the law though it is not illegal to have a monopoly. It is illegal to take your monopoly and build on it by merging or, extend it into another area. Settop boxes that is not illegal but similar economic principle of you have market power in one area make sure you cant extend that into market power in another area. The new york times. Jason, when you get to the end of the administration and youve been from the beginning, can you address what many see as missed opportunity not for lack of some trying but maybe not trying hard enough and getting more Infrastructure Spending . You had all years next to zero Interest Rates. One of the hardest hit labor sectors was construction. What could you have done . You had 2011 american jobs act which didnt go anywhere. Transportation bill that was linked to construction again didnt go anywhere. What more could you have done and, do you see any opening between now and january 20th . To cut a deal to get more done . Now, we certainly got things done on infrastructure. The recovery act we got substantial up front investment in infrastructure. Just this last december we have a fiveyear high way bill that is roughly 5 inflation adjusted increase in Infrastructure Spending as well as more certainty associated with it. It is certainly disappointing we havent done more than that. It is not for lack of effort on president s part. He proposed year after year really substantial ambitious plans for infrastructure. He had one way to pay for it related to International Tax which was something you actually saw chairman camp adopt in his plan. And then this past year we proposed another way in terms of an oil fee which is idea you hear from economists and other experts from both political parties. I think in some sense your he question is better addressed to congress than us because we certainly agree economically both to help demand today, to help expand our productive capacity in the future, given the low rates of interest, economic argument is completely clear. And would like to see congress doing more . Why didnt the republicans meet with you . I dont have any great insight into that but what about negotiations over this . A number of republicans privately tell you how much they wanted to do it and then when it came down to it, at the end of the day they did come through and did a fiveyear bill and did an increase. That was good but it took way too long, seven years to get to that point. And it wasnt big enough. It create ad base to build on. But when you have an idea, like Infrastructure Bank that the chamber of commerce and the aflcio are both behind, i think it is stands to reason that is probably quite a good idea and is disappointing you havent seen Congress Take it up. Do you expect anything before january 20th . Well look whatever openings we can on the issue but i havent seen Congress Move further on this one. Before i weigh in on another is there anybody who hasnt had one want one . Let me ask you briefly about wall street pay regulations much in the news yesterday . I wanted to see, a, if you support them, and how you respond to critics, some who say that it will drive people out of the industry, or, sort of another perverse effect might be, that the banks and other affected institutions will have to pay people more because of their fear that money will be clawed back. What is your take on the wall street regs, wall street pay regs . The goal of doddfrank was to strengthen the financial system. And deal with a range of the different problems that led to the last crisis. One of those problems was the perverse incentive that can be created by pay packages that give you an incentive to undertake a risky action knowing that heads you get your bonus and tails you walk away. So on average you come out ahead. That type of option is an extremely valuable option and i think people on wall street, if they understand anything, it is option value. So legislation rightly asked the regulators to do something about that. Weve been encouraging regulators to come out with the regulation and did it in the most recent meeting president had with regulators in march. Were pleased to see they came out and would encourage them to move quickly as possible to complete the rule making process so this could be put into effect. I have not studied the details what they come out with. There are independent regulators that will design he details independently. They will accept input improving those rules. Im sure there is all sorts of ways one can handle any of the different issues that have been raised. But ultimately the goal that try to be accomplished here is really important one which is reduce overly risky behavior that comes at expense of taxpayers and economy more broadly. We havent asked you about the single biggest economic story of the week which will affect pocketbooks of every american which is Harriet Tubman on 20 bill. If you want to weigh in on that. Im sort of curious about, if you any thoughts on i guess microeconomic Monetary Policy, i guess if that is real thing. The way were changing way we spend money, more moving from Paper Currency to electronic. What consequences of that moving forward in the economy and what, the policy matter, what should we be thinking about in terms of kinds of more issues. I know these are treasury issues but broaden our scope on this. On the first question i was completely thrilled to see what secretary lew decided. He didnt kilt me. He didnt consult my children. If he had one of them strongly supported Harriet Tubman and other was in favor of rosa parks. They had a big debate between them yesterday about it. But i cast the tiebreaking vote in support of our treasury secretarys decision. I think that was really exciting to see. On your second, the shift from cash to credit cards has, you know, had some impact on the Monetary Policy one reason why the velocity of money has become less stable which is one reason why the monetary authorities dont target the money supply but instead target Interest Rates and that shift had happened over the course of many decades and, you know, once you do that i think it doesnt complicate your Monetary Policy at all and doesnt actually have major changes in the way the economy functions. It just, you know, the fed sets Interest Rates. The money supply and velocity sort themselves out and it is Interest Rates that have impact on the economy. I think there is some other questions of, you know, to the degree you have easier access to borrowing. There is some evidence that led to some smoothing of shocks. That you get a shock and borrow your way through it so it doesnt propagate something larger in the economy. There are other examples such as financial crisis it can amplify shocks because it can lead to overborrowing and larger correction. How to get benefits of consumptionsmoothing without getting benefits of creditfueled cycles and what the role of Public Policy is that is important and probably not fully answered the question. Going to the competition policies, should we be thinking about more ways to pay for things . For example, bitcoin . Should we be encouraging that, discouraging that, neutral . I think well leave that to our agencies who have 60 days to report back to us. Teddy, were you signaling me . Teddy davis from cnn. Thank you. If secretary clinton is nominated and elected and outline what you thought were the three most effective economic policies of obama, and the three most disappointing economic policies, what would you tell her . The recovery act but hopefully she is not going to need to do Something Like that. The Affordable Care act, and there is a lot left to do to implement that, both encouraging states to take up medicaid, using extraordinary number of tools it gives secretary for Delivery System reforms and high premium excise tax. And third would be cutting taxes for low income households which was done over a course of number of pieces of legislation and made permanent in december and is reducing poverty for 16 Million People a year, lifting them out of poverty. In terms of the other three, disappointment we didnt get more done on infrastructure. Disappointment that comprehensive Immigration Reform didnt happen, which would be the single largest thing that you can do for the economy. And probably, disappointment that we didnt do Business Tax Reform, which is one of the more obvious steps we can take as country, given i every other country in the world has done it. Two minutes. Jackie[inaudible] headwinds from abroad had regularly frustrated the recovery in your time, what headwinds are you looking at now that worry you most between now and the end of the administration . Growth in europe has picked up a little bit but it is still way too slow. Unemployment rate in the eurozone is above 10 . China has seen its growth slow. Japan has seen its growth slow. Growth in number of major emerging markets like brazil and russia is negative. So you know, were not in the year 2009. This is not, you know, a Global Financial crisis but most anywhere you look in the world outside of the United States, growth is coming in decent amount below what people were expecting, and by just about any measure is disappointing. It is pretty much just low income economies that has seen their growth rates pick up in recent years, just about everyone else has not. Last question, real quickly, alexis. Transition planning. Can you describe what the Economic Team is doing collectively, how far along you are on thinking about transition planning, coordination, informationgathering . I mean i can tell you for the council of economic advisors that we had a longstanding tradition we hire our staff mostly for one year at a time. And they work from summer to summer. So i am right now hiring staff that will work for me for six months and work for the next president , whoever he or she is for the First Six Months of their term. Certainly in my experience in this administration, president bush as a whole had an extremely effective transition and one that we would like to emulate. I know at Council Economic advisors it is always worked well and wont be an exception at this time. [inaudible]. Is there one person for the Economic Team that coordinated, who is the designated . I dont have anything for you on that process. But you cant say . I can tell you what were doing at cea. Were hiring people both to work in our administration and the next administration. Thanks so much for doing this, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Interested in policy. [inaudible conversations] how old is your baby . He is nine month. [inaudible conversations]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspan2 is live for most of the day today here at George Washington university, hosting an allday discussion on National Security and fighting terrorism. They will be starting with opening remarks and then well hear from the deputy secretary of Homeland Security department, followed by a discussion on government and private sector coordination on cybersecurity. Later in the day discussions on stopping terrorists from being able to travel, how best to organize the department of Homeland Security, and more issues dealing with cybersecurity. This is expected to start any moment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good morning. Fy10 welcome everyone to the campus at George Washington university. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedules. Let me welcome our cspan viewers this morning. My name is frank cilluffo, i direct our center for cyber and Homeland Security. And really excited for what will be a rich and long day, covering a whole host of issues that our center is used in on, ranging from counterterrorism to Homeland Security to cyber, to obviously the integration between federal, state and local, and, obviously, with the integration between the public and the private sector as well as some of the international issues. Couldnt think of a better time to host this than, sunday was the fifth Year Anniversary of our successful raid on Osama Bin Laden in abbottabad in pakistan. And, obviously, serves as a good time to sort of take stock in terms of where we are, how the threat has changed and what sorts of capabilities and capacities we need to be able to get ahead of the curve. Our conference is titled securing our future, and it is meant to be a strategic set of issues that looks across our various portfolio issues. At me ask everyone to please put their phones in quiet mode, and we need to ask questions please identify yourself and allow time for a mic to find you. Im going to very quickly introduce one of our board members, m