Different tone from the president on taxes and trade to immigration and obamacare, his message to the markets. Plus, the market rally returns as investors digest white house Economic Policy and that possibility of a march rate hike for the fed. And prepping for the biggest u. S. Tech ipo since facebook, snap is set to price tonight but will the ipo prove a boost to the tech market . First up in his first speech before a joint session of congress the president highlighted his plans for boosting jobs and the economy including tax cuts, trade deals and a major infrastructure program. I will be asking congress to approve legislation that produces a 1 trillion investment in infrastructure of the United States financed through both public and private capital creating millions of new jobs. This effort will be guided by two core principles. Buy american and hire american. I guess we can start on infrastructure right there, jim. People paying attention to the language, legislation that produces
We are glad to have become today. We will change the methodology little bit. We have two votes. When i 2 45 and one following that vote. We are going to run the hearing continuously. We going to waive Opening Statements. We will go straight to secretary mcdonell to make his full statement. Then we will go into q and a. With your cooperation, will work with those two votes. If we do shutdown, it will only be for a couple minutes. Let me welcome everybody to this meeting of the Center Veterans affairs meeting. I think todays hearing will be equally as good as last week. The commission on care is a great project that examined the veteran administrations Delivery System for our veterans and had a lot of recommendations. A lot of provoking recommendations. I appreciate the embrace that secretary mcdonell has given to ideas from others that have come in. We have talked a little bit about them. He will have a great testimony. ,et me welcome the secretary Robert Mcdonald to make his testimony.
Dedicated to serving them. Thats what va is to veterans and thats why you dont find veterans demanding Community Care as the only choice. The demand for that only choice comes from elsewhere. It doesnt come from veterans. Veterans know better. I have tested this during my time as secretary, when somebody tells me that veterans should only have the choice of the Choice Program, i ask them are you a veteran . And by and large the answer is no. And then i ask to be here in between votes and, mr. Secretary, pleasure that you are here with us as well. I have a specific set of circumstances that ive addressed to you in a letter and want to follow up in this setting today. And i have no doubt but what you and other officials at the va are sympathetic and concerned and want to resolve the circumstances we find ourselves in with a particular employee at a particular va hospital in our state. We have the circumstance just to set the background for my questions, we face one of the worst examples
marcus too soon? if you are not familiar with him, he plays cameron on modern family. stand up. here he is. [applause] i do have one question for you, what is the marijuana crackdown? seriously, what is the concern? we will deeply the nation s funyun supply? sometimes pot smokers vote, sometimes one week after the election. but they vote. [laughter] i would like everyone to raise your hand if you have never smoked pot. [laughter] look at britt hume. he is high right now. [laughter] he is on his fourth macaroon. i hope you do not think i am out of line but marijuana is something real people care about. the fact you believe speaker boehner when he says he has control of his own party leads me to believe you must be smoking weed yourself. [laughter] woody harrelson just woke up. as you know, last year president obama had his team on the way to kill osama bin laden. who will it be this year? [laughter] if you are looking for the biggest threat to america, she is right there.
senator, was it worth your while to come out here today? absolutely. again, i wrote the bill. i felt obligated to defend it. and even though you always worry about decorum and being able to say what needs to be said, i think it s important that i come out here and represent the state of arizona. even though there were only two senators up there, do you think it was productive? well, see, it doesn t matter whether there was 2 or 15 up there. the story that s going to be told is in the media. so i hope they cover it well and make that there were a lot of youth that were mentioned during this hearing. what is your message to them in their specific cases? will you want to see them leave the country? blame those who put them in that position because my heart goes out to them. but again, we ve already covered this. those exceptions have to be carved out properly. no blanket policy just for giving those who have broken our laws. i know some of those are good kids. my h