Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and we are honored to have you at aei. Im delighted to welcome you to this event in partnership with the yg network and National Affairs. We want to talk to you today about policy solutions in bringing back the middle class and solving problems of poverty we have seen now for 50 years. Today is the 50th anniversary of president Lyndon Johnsons Great Society speech that was the beginning of an experiment that basically remade the way our government interacts with its citizens, particularly citizens who are economically vulnerable. President johnson painted a picture of the Great Society with the following words the Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to its a his talents. Place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect and not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. Its a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beau
And this increase is a line with inflation to ensure that the level of funding will keep pace overtime. The reason i say these things is we stressed this morning the absolute criticality of a strong federal partnership, predictability of funding and significantly increased federal funding to help, to earn the tide to turn the tide on this. I want to make a clear we appreciate and respect at the local level we need to step up and do our part as well. So thats what you see on the part of our commonwealth. So what ill say is that things have certainly gotten much better but we, and were continuing but we are definitely in a great need of continued support by the federal government. On the side of, i want to take a little bit now, state of good repair, fix it first, commonsense must happen. But at the same time we cannot wind up only looking at the whole as i said, and that the donut. That means we also have to make new targeted investment for growth. For us the most notable of those proje
In the implant mentation implementation of that to this day. First, at of the gift as evolutionary as you think. We still try to believe we are protecting the National Security. We still know the events that occurred on september 11, 2001, could happen again. And of course, that was written in the close aftermath of that. But it was also carefully crafted and vetted. It has been reauthorized with some changes over that time will stop over that time. But nonetheless, the majority of the provisions in that are valid and important. And theres still some is agreement about some of the provisions, but not most of the provisions in that legislation. Our trouble here, and i will let Jim Sensenbrenner address this because he can do so better than i can, but our trouble here is be carefully considered what section 215 should be used for. They used it for purposes different than what i believe congress intended, and certainly the vote here today reflects that. If that same question were asked ba
, pleasure and satisfaction of the graduates families and friends, who take this occasion to observe and celebrate a significant accomplishment on the part of those whom they love. In that respect a commencement is sort of like weddin a baptism. The primary participants in those events would rather be elsewhere as well. Since its for the benefit of the families, one of the wonderful things about graduation addresses is that you can talk about whatever you want. It really does not matter. What i decided to talk to you about this afternoon, briefly, and i promise to be brief, is whether to be blunt about it you graduates have essentially wasted one of your three years here, and could have jumped on the job in two years. It is a current proposal for reform that law student should be permitted to sit for the bar exam and otherwise be eligible to practice law after only two years of study. To be sure, this is not a new ideas. In new york state, for example, between 18821911, College Graduat
Get ready for the testimony of janet yellen, her first testimony to Congress Tomorrow before the House Financial Services committee. So were in sort of a wait and see mode today. Certainly are. Meanwhile, what a mess over at aol. The ceo now apologizing for citing the cost of providing insurance for, quote, distressed babies and plan to match 401 k payments only at the end of the year. Who should the ceo be looking out for first, his workers or shareholders . Well make the payments at the end of the year or no. That was easy. Also, that report that obamacare is going to cost the equivalent of over 2 million fulltime jobs. That just continues to rattle washington right now. It was a big focus of the sunday morning talk showinp morning talk showins morning talk showinhows, and no Tommy Thompson will be here exclusively. Hes ringing the closing bell for his organization tooteday. Hes got some views coming up. We know were going to hear a little bit more about it perhaps from the gop in ju