Not about threatening russia. They argue the shield is no longer necessary. Theyve also according to u. S. Officials been helpful in the talks. Does russia have a point in bringing this up in light of emerging deal . So i think everybody heard the question. First of all, if you look at the capacity of the system that were installing in europe and this is the analog of the fact that our National Ballistic Missile Defense system is not alined to russia. We just dont have the capacity. They are with a large reasonably powerful country like russia could overwhelm that Defense System quickly. Its not about that. So they should not worry about that. They should be encourage that we are helping our allies there, potentially defending iranian or other threats in the region and as regards to the discussions, the agreement is not cop collusive yet, and once concluded, it you know, we still have to make sure that iran sticks to it and a Ballistic Missile Defense System is not something that you turn on overnight in fact, it take longer to establish a Missile Defense system if iran decides to break out and build a nuclear weapon. The discussion does not address Ballistic Missile threat at all so i think theres every reason for us to continue what were doing in western europe with the nato allies. It does not threaten russia. It maintains a hedge against an iranian or other threat in the nation in that region or outside the region that could threaten our partners, and its really, to me, a no brainer to keep this going. Real quick question before you go. Right here. Yes. Real quick. Two short questions. What is the effective defense mechanism if the threat is arising in a couple years burks if former cop sulation between two countries begins, what would be the goal of the negotiation . The career or do you just have one career that u. S. Deployed that to the usfk . Thank you. Not sure i understood the first question. What would the responses be . All right. The sobm threat the north threat. Theres a ways, including taking out the submarine that is carrying, and it goes without saying, i mean, put together a hypothetical scenario if tensions are high with north korea, submarine gets underway, and appears it might have a hostile event, everyones interest that not be allowed to happen. If the missile successfully launches, one of the things north korea does is they do not test missiles. They do not have confidence in Something Like this. If they launch and did does not work, they are in trouble because we will have seen the intent, but if it was launched theoretically, we would have our regional defenses aligned to be able to defend against that threat. In terms of the future, i dont want to speculate on what the configuration would be against a Missile Defense system, but, obviously, its in our interest that our partner nations contribute to defending their own soil in this kind of attack but were also interested in that particularly since we have so many troops on the ground. Ill leave it to the negotiators, but i have to say, we have not open up any kind of discussion formally with south korea on this particular topic. When its ripe im sure that well get into that, but were approaching this cautiously because we have such Great Respect for our partners. Well thank you, admiral. This has been a water front, offense, defense regional cruise missile. Thank you for the time. I know you have to run, but i want to say its an ongoing project. National Security Program here youll see more of this stuff, and i want to thank the Program Sponsors for putting this event on today, so, thank you, please join me in thanks him. Thank you for hosting it. [ applause ] coming up live tomorrow on cspan3, a hearing on the future of the u. S. Cuba relations before the Foreign Relations committee at 10 00 eastern. At 2 00 tomorrow afternoon, u. S. Capital police chief kim dine testifies about issues facing the police force. Some 1775 sworn officers protect the capital. Live coverage on cspan3. Plus, cspan. Org covers a hearing looking to the response of the nepal earthquakes, again, cspan. Org has that at 2 15 eastern tomorrow. Heres a few of the book festivals covered this spring. Well close out may at book expo america in new york city where the industry showcases upcoming books. On the first week of june live for the Chicago Tribune printers row lit fest. We have our live indepth program, and your phone calls this spring on cspan2s booktv. At the brookings institution, senator joe mansion talked about bipartisanship in efforts as a democrat to work with republican colleagues in the senate. He also discusses some of the proposals to make government more efficient. This is just under an hour. Good afternoon, everyone. Im the fellow in the center for effective Public Management and management editor of the block. I want to welcome you all to the brook igs institution today and to todays event, governing from the middle, a common sense approach to making government work for the American People. Id like to thank cspap for being here and id like to invite everyone watching on the webcast to follow along and use the senmansion. Its no secret that the American Government is in a period of dysfunction. Our trust in government plummeted, and the publicments mentwants solutions, but it just get s more and more problems. Too often, our elected officials adapt to a dysfunctional system rather than trying to work in a way to reform it. Thats a serious problem. The result is the system that perpetuates ills rather than trying to find cures. Here at brookings through the political realism project, we are engaging a lot of scholars, in house and out of house to look at the types of reforms that help rejuvenate the system get it back to work get Public Policy moving in the right direction. Its a robust debate here at brookings, a devicive debate in house, but its one we feel is vital to american democracy and to what the public expects from their government. Today, were joined by a member of the United States senate who is often engaged in similar types of debates with his own colleagues in his own institution. Were pleased to welcome an additional voice in the discussion. Joe mansions in the United States senate and comes to congress with a unique perspective. Hes one of ten sitting United States senators who formally served as governor. They bring a critical perspective. They are problem solvers charged by their state to govern. Their residents expected action. They oversaw state agencies. They oversaw crisis. They oversaw a public that demanded a lot out of them. M the expectation was for them to deliver. Together the ten members formed the former governors caucus a group committed to bringing their governing experience to bear in ways that not only form Public Policy, but the new institution that they serve in, the United States congress. Before i turn the podium over to the senator id like to offer a bit of a brief introduction. Joe mansion is now the senior senator from wefsz, having been a senator since 2010 previously, as i said, he served as governor from 2005 to 2010. Over the course of a more than 30 year career in Public Service, senator mansion served in the West Virginia house of delegates, the state senate, and West Virginia secretary of state. Its my pleasure to welcome senator mansion to brookings. [ applause ] first of all, i thank brookings for the event today and helping tackle this important issue of how to make government work better. I want to thank you, john, for the hard work on this, and all the people at brookings, i know its not sexy, and i know its not grabbing headlines like devicive issues do and operate from the fringes of the right and left gets people fired up. Working for the American People is critical to getting the country back on track. In 2010 when senator byrd passed away in june of that summer, hi to make one of the most difficult decisions of my political career. I had to decide should i try to go to washington and lead the office that i love being governor of the great state. I was two years in my second term. In West Virginia, youre termed out. You have to set out and come back maybe if people want you, but two consecutive terms, so i made the decision, and it was the toughest decision i made, but i made it on this premise. I felt we contributed so much brought people together. We had a super majority of democrats in the state senate and legislature and i never would have let the democrats beat up the republicans. I said guys, by the grace of god, it could be us. We need everybody working together. Wed work together. We identified problems that we have for the state of West Virginia. We did not make them political. It was not a political victory if we did something, we did our job, and we took that premise, and we did everything in state that needed to be done, very critical, and when i made the decision that i said if i can take the experience that i had and the skeess we have been able to enjoy in West Virginia and bring that experience level to washington, maybe i could be of help. I could contribute something. So i made the decision. I felt good about what i left in the state and in the job we had done. I kept remembering senator byrd all the time about the way the senate work, and, of course, he was the master of the senate and wrote the book. He truly loved this place, and he had the utmost respect for the u. S. Institution and tradition and procedure of the senate, and we still abide by a lot of that. We broke a few of his rules, which im sure would not favor well with him. He served in a time when it worked. When relationships were built to forge bonds of trust, not political payback. When members sit down for a meal together and knew each others families and childrens and what they liked and dislike and fortunately today in washington, we live by the concept youre no longer guilty by negotiation. Youre guilty by conversation today. If someone sees you talking to the opposite side or somebody that might not have your same thought process or philosophical belief, its like youve gone to the dark side, and i said my goodness how can we learn our differences if we cannot talk to someone or communicate to find commontialalityies commonalities. Gone are the days of breaking bread in the dining room. I heard about that. We had 4 a dining room on the left. Senators would have meetings in there. When i first came here i said, my goodness i dont know why they are not doing that anymore. Its something we should do. Tomorrow, tuesday, every tuesday we have a caucus lunch. Tomorrow, both the democrats and the republicans will go their separate ways for lunches in two different parts of the capital. Very seldom do we get together for a bipartisan meal. So when you see on cspan on the floor, thats about the most time we spend with each other is when you see us during a vote on the floor working back and fort and talking or going back and forth to committees. Sometimes you only serve with one member on one committee or another, and you do not have all of them at one time. Ive tried to break that. We started the Bipartisan Center when we got here started the bipartisan lunch, and its worked being fairly successful at it. You can understand that most of the former governors are the ones that show up quite a bit because they understand that, basically, we have the same problems, no matter the state education problem, medicaid problem, we want to find out who did something that worked and how can we do the same . It was something we exchanged back and forth. I would call. I had no problem calling mitt romeny in massachusetts, calling rick perry in texas. No problem whatsoever. We had great relationships. We are fortunate to have ten former governors. We have five democrats, one independent, and four republicans. We have senator warner, senator caine, senator carper, senator alexander, senator shaheen, and we bring a common sense approach to government, and while we do not meet as a group as much as wed like, we naturally gravitate to make deals and work on common sense legislation. When we ran our states basically, most of us had 46 states, i believe had a budget balance amounts, balance budget amendments. First thing you want to know as governor, youre elected, sworn in that day, they take you immediately and show you and what you have to work with. You have cowork with on the budget, and you work on the coming yeerks and you basically i said whats the revenue . Every tuesday afternoon, i would have the budget analysis and they meet with me and tell me what our forecasts were and how collections were going and how much we had to work with or areas we had to change and make adjustments. That was cognizant on our mind. Can we pay for what we promised or would like to do. You pick priorities based on values. Whats the value of the people, my constituents in West Virginia . I knew where we were. It was about our children getting a good start in life. It was about education, obtaining an educational degree that give you the skill sets to compete, caring for the veterans and seniors. So many other things to do, i said no more than i said yes. I 4 to pick things. Everybody wanted all these things to be done. I said, fine, heres what i got to work with. Tell me which group of people you want to tell that we cant do that anymore. If i picked one thats wasteful show it to me. Well pick one thats more resourceful. We had to make decisions on revenue and balancing budgets, and were trying to bring that same approach to the senate and find common sense ways to accomplish the goal of making government work. Its a challenge here. I will share this with you, the first day i was in the senate i said, whats the revenue . I was told immediately we spend 3. 5 trillion. I said, okay. How much money will we have . Well, we looked at it every way possible. We cant cut much. You want to spend 3. 7 trillion . I got that. How much do you think we have to pay . Well, we have. 2. I said you know, were not high in mathematicians back home but we add and sub stragt. Youre 1. 5 trillion short. I have not figured out the math in washington. Im trying. I know everyones confused about the new math. Im not im having a hard time myself. You know, and wlse had taxpayer dollar, and another example of what we did, done through property funding. The Revenue Office is one we had that basically would do budget reviews, general accounting offices, things of this set you did this this, and this, and you saved 100 billion. You save this and this, redundancy in government that these things happened. Every present like every governor comes in with a platform, and every legislature wants the first honeymoon session wants to give the new president or that new governor basically a honeymoon if you will, and what we had was a layer on top of layer adding up over the year and every now and again, you have to have a correction, and you have to change and you have to consolidate and rid of those not working. No ones looking at that making governing hard rer and hurting our country when we dont do this. They identify waste, fraud, and abuse inside and outside agencies. Perfect example. When we cut back, and they said revenues short in the state of West Virginia, i said fine, show me where i make money. I said, what . Show me where i have an agency thats returning more than we invest in the agency. Perfect example, department of revenue. For all my outside auditors, i had inside outside inside the state, outside the state. For every dollar spent, i got 100 return. If i wuld just go go and audit this is a gray line, stopping it right there. If they say something, its an honest mistake because we interpreted it differently. You have to have them, and when we had to flat line them, there was a budget its common sense. No different how you run the household or business. Spending in these offices are positive investments and when we cut funding its a net loss which we do every day here. When the cuts, the federal government loses money, and because we lose out on the ability to save money from other programs. Thats why ill introduce legislation to require the generaling thing office to designate federal offices that have saved more money than they have spent. I think that would be an eye opener if we knew that. Thats common sense. Governors we also looked at the bottom line. We needed to know if the taxes we impose actually helped our hurt. We needed to know if we reduced taxes, and accelerated reduction if the revenue would catch up to it. We would watch it. We put triggers in. We would put triggers to stop and take a pause and see where we were. I always said theres certain things that people would do. First of all, if youre running out of money, the first thing that will happen, they rob the piggy bank, sweep all the accounts and agencies and basically so its not noticeable to the average public. When it runs out, they make cuts within government. Theyll cut back and lay people off. And the last thing they want to do, oh mied go, they dont want to do this, raise taxes. Because then somebodys messed up. Thats what they believe. So what you do is look at the holistic approach to how you run the place and then you said well, this, we can afford this we cannot afford that, eliminate this, and this we will not. This we increase or everybodys afraid to talk about taxes. You wouldnt we cant even agree on the definition of revenue. Thats hard to believe. If your revenue, reducing to 33 we cut the taxes rate . Get rid of the junk in the box, the give aways the programs, basically every lobbyist in the town has been able to get a tax provision put in offset, any one of them for the special interest groups. With all that said thats a tremendous draw on the revenue. No one basically ever says, okay, how much did that cost . You introduce something, how much does that cost . Thats what we need to know. Thats what we will be working on. I focus on tax reform. Theres no question ive been a big bowlesimpson supporter. There was a threepronged approach to fixing it. Fix revenue, take care of anything, in your household your daily life, in your businesses, if you get your revenue under control, youre in great shape. When you dont, you are behind the 8 ball, and my grandfather used to say, indebtedness that is unmanageable affects the decisions you make. They sure do. We can immediately focus on adding transparency to the tax code. Expenditures have the same budget tear effect as spending increases. While we all know about the mortgage Tax Deductions, the charitable Tax Deductions we do not appreciate the cost of the tax expenditures. With full knowledge of the costs, we start the process of overhauling the tax system but in a calculated way so we are not harming businesses. We have the manage the budget cdo, include tax expenditures and in the same way spending are line items in the reviews today. They are going to have to take them the same as we do in our appropriations. As a former governor wanted to know whether actions we took were working and whether we needed to amend or improve them. In washington, it feels like everything that we do something, we think it needed to be done. Never acknowledge it, made a mistake, did not work. If thats the case, why do we come back every year. If were that good at doing our job, heck, we fixed everything. If we did not, then the reason i think our Founding Fathers had us coming back is to make adjustments. To make adjustment you have to make admissions. I made a mistake. It did not work out. The information i got was wrong. Were going to fix this. Thats what were trying to say. In washington its not different than West Virginia. I told people if i got something wrong, i made a mistake, i can fix it. I didnt do it intentionally. I was doing it to try to make things better. It did not work out that way. Lets go back, correct it. One way to address this is to reform the system. I will introduce legislation also to reestablish the office of Technology Assessment. Up until 1995 this office provided nonpartisan information to congress on cost benefit analysis of regulations and regulatory changes. Currently, the only source for the information is the white houses office of information and regulatory affairs. This is not whether youre democrat or republican, but it shouldnt come from the white houses offices when it comes time for us to make decisions in congress. Thats why we have three branchs of government. We have office of review existing rules and ways to identify available targets. There are already common sense bills out there that help us identify ways of the government to work more efficiently. Last congress, i introduced a Bipartisan Legislation called duplication elimination, to save billions of taxpayer dollars by making it easier for congress to eliminate duplication and overlap across the federal government. The bill would require the president to submit a joint resolution to congress each year on how to carry out recommendations outlined in the governments accountability office. Or the gao. For example, some years it could be as much as 300 to 400 billion they recommend in savings, and thats no duplication. We do nothing with this. Within 90 days of the gaos report release, president must provide congress with a draft proposal and report that explains which recommendations are excluded and why they are not included. More importantly, mr. President why did you pick some didnt take the recommendation to consolidate or eliminate and give us your reasoning for doing that, make it transparent so we understand. We think that would work very well. Both chambers of Congress Vote on proposals within ten days and any savings achieved, any dollars achieved in the duplication act must be used for deficit reduction. Were making no attempt at all, and no one is worried about the 18 trillion deficit. We got to start earmarking dollars for that. This is a winwin bill ridding government waste, but holdings the government accountable for unnecessarily and unacceptable redun sandies. Now, i know the fixes do not fix dysfunction, but its a start. We are starting to see a glimmer of hope, thats why i decided to stay in the senate and not return home to West Virginia. If it was personal politics, id be out of here, first to tell you that. No place like home. With that said, Public Office and Public Service is truly what it refers to. Its public. I looked at it from thedont if im governor again, i dont have the same feeling leaving. I feel like i accomplished Something Back home. I left the state in better shape than i received it. I dont feel like i accomplished enough here. I see changes, but i do not feel like ive done something. Theres more to be done. I feel like we can make a difference, and we are making more of a difference. Were having more bipartisan talks, debating legislation, and working on amendments and i feel like theres more work to do. The Campaign Season a ramping up, negative ads from all over and political knives sharper than ever. Im hopeful that some of my colleagues join me in the pledge i took. Me personally. I love to see a pledge everyone takes, but i took a pledge, joe why does the place not work . Ill give you a scenario here. Human nature is this. Its hard to say no to your friends. Its truly hard. With that you dont have many friendships. From my stand point, ill work with you. On top of that, every day i come to work, they expect me to make calls and raise money so that money is spent against my colleague. Im a democrat. They expect every penny i raised to be used against the republican. They expect me to go on the trail and campaign against the republican. They expect all my republican colleagues and friends to do the same against me. How in the world on monday can you say, joe i have aed good idea here when i know last week you raised money spent money on ads against me, went to the home state and told people not to vote for me. What makes you think i want to sit down with you on monday and work Something Else . That does not make sense. I will not raise a dollar or campaign against any colleague. I will not. No matter whether we agree or disagree. That makes a horrible atmosphere and horrible situation we live with up there, and if you want to know why its dysfunctional is because everybodys afraid to talk, guilt by conversation. They are afraid to talk and tell them exactly what they are working on because it could be used against them in an ad. They see whatever they talk about coming up in an ad against them. Thats a pledge i want the whole town engaged in. It used to be unwritten pledge. I heard that nobody campaigned against each other before. Boy, thats not the case anymore. Thats what im trying to do. There is not one colleague of mine who i disagree with, theres not one i cant work with. Not one can say joe mansions trying to beat me to take my job. Not one. That makes it easy for me to cross the aisle. Im the bell weather person there. Bring it to me. I tell them, well, let me talk to the colleagues to see if we can agree, and we start moving from there. We try to find commonality, and the governors cause kus is one we work closely with. So this place is not working like senators told me it did. Im not going to stop fighting. I think its well worth the fight. We have challenges greater than this in our country, and weve overcome them all and i think we can overcome this too. I want to thank you, all, i appreciate it and well have questions now. Thank you. [ applause ] listen to me, senator mansion, and senator byrd was on my mind because you are so much we have been talking to senator mansions staff for some months now about the interesting and valuable perspective that former governors bring to the work of the United States senate. One of our brookings advisers here is former governor from ohio, on the phone with him the other day. He was thrilled to hear that youre doing this. He was a former governor a former mayor and a senator and when he left the senate we lost a champion for sensible government reform in the senate. Im proud to see senator mansion stepping in the role today with his other former governors, both democrats and republican, and i must say im very impressed with the reform agenda hes outlined here. From processed agendas like returning to bipart san lunches and the government caucus itself to substantive reforms like including tax expenditures in the process. Its something we talked about for a long time and it needs to be something people are grappling with politically. To the return of the office of Technology Assessment one of the few truly valuable small, i think the whole thing had 90 people in it or something, small pieces of government well worth its weight and somehow got chopped. Id like to open senator, by asking you a general question. Why is it so hard to get the United States Congress Interested in these common sense nonpartisan reform issues . Well, as i said, they are not sexy. Its not something that makes you want to go out and vote or makes you want to write a check to help somebody, and right now, they are chasing the almighty dollar in the vote wherever it may be. Theres a never ending cycle. Everyones in cycle all the time, wheres it is a six year cycle were in in the senate or two year for congress, four year sickle for president everyones in election cycle. If you notice, when people say outrageous things and people of responsibility, you think that makes no sense, why say that . The countrys so divided with the 24 7 news cycle, were on overload. People dont know what to believe. Paranoia runs rampant. People talking about stuff you know, last thing i heard about was special forces are going to take over texas. [ laughter ] remember that one . Yes. I couldnt believe when i heard that. I says, what . Well, we need the National Guard in texas watching special forces come in for training. They have been over for quite some time. I just kind of said, well, you know what . If youre that worried in texas about federal government and special forces, well take them all in West Virginia because we still trust them. Haha this is what its gotten to. How do you get out of that . I dont know. I mean, i can honestly tell you i dont think Citizens United did us any favor for our country. Were individuals now, and they talk about a very wealthy individual having their own primary. Thats where the super pac moneys going to go. Thats not how we do it. Its not how we do it back home in West Virginia, but we dont have anybody that wealthy to go after. And if we did, it wouldnt be the right thing. We have limits of a thousand dollars, no corporations 1,000 is the maximum for any candidate. I think that works well. Ed goo edgood. Lets go to tax reform for a moment. This notion of tax expenditures for many of you in the room, im sure know, that over the last several decades, the discretionary part of the budget slunk as a portion of the whole. Weve legislated via tax expenditures, and those have gone way up. Obviously, because then you somebody can go home and they can say, well, we gave you this but its we did not increase government spending. Tax expenditures are obviously very seductive to politicians. Do you think we can break that habit . It was such they snuck up with no one knowing what was happening. Oh they knew what was happening. Just not the general public. I have to tell you when i said we cant agree on the definition of revenue ill tell you what i meant by that. I talk to friends all the time. As a governor as an individual, you know a bumgdget. You know what fixed costs are and variables are and what you have to play with, and you try to stay within the balance. We do the same here. We got to the point in 1997 basically, the author of working with the Republican Congress at that time under senator, under president clinton, and put a budget together in a tax reform that basically put us on a path i think, of solvency. If we stayed under the clinton tax rates, wed been totally tax debt free as a nation by 2012. 2012. We had debts two wars unfunded and it crumbled from there. I tell democrats, if you want to blame republicans, go ahead. They are at fault. I tell republicans you want to blame the democrats . Go ahead, were at fault. We all added to it. How do we fix it . We can. When you cannot agree on revenue, if you get a tax code, and this is where there was the threepronged approach revenue expenditure, reform. You have to look at everything. Everybody has to take a little bit of a haircut to get this thing back in place, but no one is willing to sacrifice a vote for that or a bad ad on tv against you, and i think what we ought to do is get a bunch of senators thinking about retiring, who could care less about getting reelected and say listen, well sacrifice ourselves. Well be the ones that will fix this thing for the next generation. We have done tax reform about every 17 years, we have not done major tax reform since 19 8 6. I tell the republican friends who took a no new tax pledge i said, i understand its going to be hard for you, anything we do. How do we pay down 18 trillion . If i reduce the tax from 39 to 33, corporate from 35 to 25, 26 27 but get rid of the junk at the box, the credits offsets, the goodies you had written in over the years, those go away. At the end of the day, we spin off a trillion dollars, you are going to have Dynamic Growth, Dynamic Growth is going to happen, and when it happens, when you have confidence in a fair system. When you know the systems fair and you are treated fair the skys the limit because then you have confidence. Youll do things. With that said how do you spend a trillion . I talked to the republican friends. I said why dont you take this position . We have what we have a Global Competitive rate and personal and corporations, okay. They cant hide money, cant go offshore, pay here. We do that. We have money coming in. Even though we just reduced the rate, friends say, hey, my rate was 39 but i had a lot of justify sets, and i pay more now at 33 than 39. That could be true for some. With that said, let me tell you how i made democrats spend it if youre a republican. 60 cents of every new dollar came in went to debt reduction. Thats manageable. Thats whats manageable. The other 40 cents of every dollar goes to infrastructure bank, only used for infrastructure in the United States of america. Nowhere else. Thats it. You rebuild america. You got a cash flow into a bank. Thats an 80 20 match coming off of that, and the 60 cents of every new dollar goes in debt reduction. The republicans have held the democrats feet to the fire. You cant expand, basically entitlement programs. We were able to, as democrats put a fair system in, and we were ail to dedicate getting rid of our debt and you can have a balanced budget in 10 to 15 years, that why. I talked to them i said, can you go home and defend yourself . I i think i can. I said lets try it then. Lets do something. Thats great. Its a step. When you talk about retiring senators, that reminds me of the famous movie of abe lincoln that was just out a couple years ago where when he was counting up votes to pass the 13th amendment, what was the first thing he did . He found everybody getting ready to retire, and then a lot more courage then. Thats right. We have a great audience here. A couple questions . We have time before the senator leaves. Yessings yes, right there. Say who you are, please. Im grahm vise, with policy news website inside sources. Senator, last week, the mayor came to washington outlining a different policy agenda than the one you just outlined. He talled for a 15 minimum wage sick leave, carrying the loophole. Why are he and other senators wrong to advocate a liberal agenda, and what do you think is the future of the Democratic Party if it goes down that path . They are not wrong. First of all, the loophole is the biggest hoop hole we have. Theres not a hemgdge fund today that even defends it. It should be done away with. We agree on that. The 15 minimum wage, i, you know minimum im for raising the minimum wage. It should be indexed, a lot of things should be once they are back to where they should be, minimum wage is not going to raise the middle class. You know, were not going to be able to. We are ready to pass one of the largest trade deals in history of this country. If we do that without looking at what were doing and understanding whats happened to us, and hindsights 20 20, 1992, my state of West Virginia lost 31,000 from nafta. Hard to say this is going to be different, so much better for you. Look at where a lot of our jobs were lost, that was in the inner city, where a lot of the textile we had a lot of things going on. We lost it. Its now rampant with crime and high unemployment. How are we better off . Look at that. Minimum wage is what they think is the only way we can raise, you know, any type of quality life. Were in trouble. The other thing is is that no one you have not hear anyone on the trail talk about drug abuse, have you . Its not sexy. You know why . Theres not one of us in the room who does not know someone in the immediate family or extended family who had a Prescription Drug problem. Its rampant. We cant find people clean enough to work. Our education is not pushing them to get skill sets to compete. Theres a lot going on there. I know these im fine. I can look at progressive. I can look at conservatives, but somewhere in between, you got to, you know, i said this im not im not right on every issue, but im not wrong on every issue. I got something to contribute. When the mayor came god bless him. We want to hear all the ideas. You know . And elizabeth warren, a good friend of mine, and kewe teamed up together. Trying to put balance on this thing, but on the other hand, you cant chastise out there trying to get a return on investment, willing to take a risk, and we just got to make sure we can continue for this system of ours. Its unbelievable. The economy we have is 18 trillion. Closest one to us is china, 10 trillion. Everything falls off from there. Everybody falls off, nobody above 5 trillion after that. That tells you we are the big people, the super power we have a super economy. People want in the marketplace. We have to protect jobs we have here and grossing jobs. Thats the problem. I dont you know, a lot of things agree and disagree, but i find a balance because i talk to the people from the far left and the far right and tell them, i said, sounds good, but does not make sense. I cant sell that back home. Lets see. Right here. Yes. Right there oh. Thats okay. Hey, im john, just here by myself, so i was wondering, kind of how you see the trend of your state over the long term. I noticed in previous election cycles, its gone hard to the right, and i know lots of those probably in reaction to obama, and i was wondering, do you see things improving maybe after obama and then, also, i would like to hear your thoughts on mr. Justice, who is going to run for that. Yeah. First of all my state has, and since bill clinton was the last president ial candidate to win as a democrat in West Virginia, weve gone, states went progressively republican since then even though we have 6 62 of all citizens registered democrats. Youd think with that many registered democrats, but i tell them, you know were different democrats in West Virginia. You know, its a i try to describe myself. I tell people, i says, im fiscally responsible and socially compassionate. I think thats most people. Whether youre democrat or republican that kind of gravitates gathers a lot of people in that arena. With that said, social our social agenda basically is much more conservative than the National Democrat agenda. With that, we have to be able to articulate that a little bit clearer. Justice is a republican just turned democrat to run for governor. Jims one of the guys that crosses over. Hes a great person created a lot of jobs, and hell be a job creator. He thinks outside the box. That would be good. The democratic voters need to be looking more. President obama brought in a climate agenda that we differ with. Its not because we dont want it clean. We want a clean climate. We want clean air, water all of that. Theres a balance between environment and the economy. Only thing i said, not attainable attainable, its not reasonable. Theres things in play that we dont have the technology in place. The federal government wants to invest and find technology that does a certain things and you decide you dont do it because it costs too much . Im sorry. Youre out of business. If the technology is not developed and youre doing everything you can to the best of whats available then we shouldnt push you out because you just dont like what youre doing. Thats whats happening. When a coal miner and a family lose an 80,000 job, and all they got looking them in the face is a service job for 25,000, this is personal. Its got deep seeds. Its got theres just deep animosity towards the president and his policies and all the democrats are suffering from it. Let me ask the senator something ive been thinking about since you brought up this revenue positive jobs. Or officers. Its interesting. I wonder how your republican colleagues feel about this. If you do, in fact go identify these, the argument then is made that for every, say, medicaid or Medicare Fraud invers itstigateinvestigator, we have to hire more. Thats an argument for increasing the federal work force, which, of course, the republicans seem to be completely allergic to. Do you think that if, in fact you could prove that there were in fact, revenue positive offices, you get momentum for helping them bring in more money . Id like to think they would look at it that way. I would sure try. I sure think they would accept it, but, you know it makes sense if we can show you that rather than changing the whole makeup of Social Security and medicare and medicaid, reform it. President clinton reformed medicaid reform. Which helped send a positive message. You know five years and youre out, you have to find a job. Were not rehabilitating anybody. The thing that the culture of america is we dont seem to want to hold you responsible or accountable. You know we give you something. If it does not work, we give you twice as much. Its not like why dont you go to the doctors visits. When i was governor i asked for a medicaid waiver because i couldnt keep up the cost. I had a lot of people who needed help. I told the federal government, do not make me take care of the healthy poor person the way i think i have a moral responsibility to take care of a sick poor person. That sick poor person has very little options. The healthy person, if i get them back in the work stream, they can get off their get on their feet and do something. I called it mountain choices rewards. I rewarded you. You know, pain and suffering for dental and for eye care, and i said, if you went to the doctors visit and not the emergency room, if you joined the healthy choice, Healthy Lifestyle lifestyle, ate properly, and you exercised, and you did things you id have you ready to go back in the work force. Federal government fought me tooth and nail against that type of a responsible, reasonable approach. Just makes sense. If we cannot hold people accountable or responsible i tell my republican friends let us try. I said, before you want to privatize this or that you cant privatize, you know Social Security or medicare. Im 65 70 years old and now i have the best deal . My negotiating days are over by then. Im not a good negotiator as i was a little while ago. Dont put me in that position because ill get hurt. Thats just the humanistic approach to some of these things. Doesnt even ring true. We keep looking for fraud Social Security, we got more people signing up for just total disability than ever before. Theres people that know, i can go anywhere in the country you know somebodys receiving a government check that you dont think should be . Everybody raises their hand yeah, i know somebody i know somebody. How come why dont we check . Come back, reevaluate if they are totally disabled. You know, you give lifetime award, lifetime check, thats the jackpot. You dope hit the lottery. Those types of things, you know, we have to look at that. You know, and what tell me why, on Social Security that weve capped is it 112 now . All we have to do is get that up to where, you know the average of 250,000, and index it from there, and that we have cash flow that keeps us going for quite some time. Thats not offensive. You know as a senator and congressman, we make 174. At 174,000, our pay changes seven months into it. Seven or eight months i learned how to live off six or seven months. That does not hurt me taking that out. That just makes sense. We talk about these things, and people have a hard time understanding it. Ive talked about i threw this out Social Security they talked about cost of living increases. Let me tell you, theres certain people that have to have a cost of living increase because thats all they got. Theres other people that might not. My parents did not need the cost of living increase. My parents would have been find. My aunt wouldnt have been fine. You think, okay in real world how do you make it work . Say anybody that has income of greater than 250 or even 300 of the poverty guidelines, 60,000 are they exempt . In one is exempt from getting their Social Security. Youll get a Social Security check. If youre below a certain level you get the cola. If youre above, you might. We got in all this other stuff you know all the fight and arguments going on. With the colas and no ones having the real hard discussions on this stuff. Yes. I think we go to her right there. Yes, right there. Yes, maam . Hi, im sharon, a moderate, and last wednesday, ross roland had a meeting with me, the trained legend that did the American Freedom train and bicentennial reagans appointment, and he basically staid our meeting was gods way of acting anonymously because there are republicans that want to fund and track infrastructure. They are scared. They are nervous. Theres experts in both parties that want to help provide information to senate and congress. Is there a list of politicians open to hearing from a Bipartisan Coalition that would like well, what we do on that, any time you have somebody that wants to get a point across and really has something look at the committee that it would adhere to. If its commerce thats probably commerce committee. Get a senator, myself, im on commerce. Ask them to present at a public hearing. Come to a public hearing or come to a subcommittee hearing. They can get their point across much better that way and see if its worthwhile than trying to run the halls and find a couple people sympathetic towards them. I recommend them coming to any Committee Member and asked to be on a subcommittee panel to present their views. That would be the best way. Great. Senator, thank you so much. You have laid out a Pretty Amazing reform agenda here today. Im hoping that the former governors caucus is going to become a real force in the United States senate, and remember it is a bipartisan caucus because theres some Republican Former governors as well as democrats, and therefore, brookings is at your disposal to help you make government as good as it possibly can be. I have to say at brookings we have used you quite extensively. All of us, democrats and republicans, looking to find common sense in the middle of the road, if you will. It is going to have to be people speaking out i mean, before we hit the proverbial wall and the financial wall is the one im concerned about. You know, wall street cant be doing this tremendous when everyone else is not getting the bump they should be getting out of it, and before long, people will lose confidence and when we lose confidence, theres a big switch. When theres a switch people are reluctant and scared. When that happens theres Serious Problems on your hands as we can in 2007. Were watching closely. Well be involved. I enconcernurage you, be followed in the office, web pages, commerce, web pages are a great way to get to us. Our staff monitors that and gets it right to the concerns that you might have, and some great ideas that we get from you all government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Its not just congress, but you all. Stay involved. Thank you. Thank you senator. [ applause ] [ applause ] [ inaudible ] for he today that sheds blood with me shall be my brother. Be he their so vile, this day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in england now abid shall think themselves a curse that they were not here. One drop of blood drawn from thy countrys bossom should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore. Director of the shakespeare library, michael whitmore, talking about politicians and how they use quotes in speeches. Sometimes you go with the music of the words, the poetic images the sound of the rhymes, and also in the way as senators do, you are able to pause, linger over a long phrase, and then stop and keep going. I think hes really using the rhythms of the language, which is something that shakespeare did so brilliantly so he can take english and he can put it into high gear at one moment, and then he can slow down and thats something that shakespeare lets you do if youre a politician. Sunday night, 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Good night, good night, parting is sweet sorerowsorrow, and it really is. At a recent summit on youth violence, the mayors of camden, new jersey, oakland, california, and minneapolis as well as other local officials discuss efforts to keep young people and their cities safe from violent crime. This was part of an event hosted by the National Forum on use violence prevention, a network of mu mispalnicipal agencies and governments. This is an hour and 20 minutes. Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac
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