Im very proud to welcome to news asia glad you could join us well known hong kong prodemocracy activist jimmy lie has also supporters to be innovative and patient with their fight for greater freedoms in the city he was granted bail on wednesday days after his arrest under the strict new security no 9 other people including activist agnes cho were arrested on monday by police under the new law after her release on bail on tuesday child 2 vowed to carry on the fight for democracy in hong kong the arrests come at a time when beijing has stepped up the pressure following more than a yard of protests by hong kong demanding a greater say in running their city or lease raiding all this is so precious and such why relations all hong kong. People believe all freedom of speech what i want a media mogul jimmy lai answering questions online on his arrest this week under a new security law for hong kong hes a staunch supporter of the citys prodemocracy Movement China considers him a traitor. When
You can find more information in your program guide. Now, heres gordon chang. Good afternoon. If i could have your attention. We are going to get started. Im susanna sheltie president of defense Form Foundation is my great honor to welcome you to our congressional defense and Foreign Policy form. Please enjoy your lunch and help yourself to anything you might need during the program. I know you all are very busy so im especially appreciative of you taking the time to be here for this very timely program. For those of attending the form for the first time, the forms began in 1980s as a way to bring expert speakers to capitol hill to discuss critical topics and bipartisan collegial atmosphere and as we promised, we have an expert speaker to address a critical topic. And very bipartisan collegial atmosphere. One thing to note there are a lot of media here so i would ask during the question answer period if you would reserve that for the Congressional Staff because of their limited time co
Tell us where they are today. The republicans, yeah. The republicans had 179 seats at the beginning of the obama administration. They are up to, if you look at current leads at 251, some of those leads may evaporate as california in particular takes a long time to vote to count its votes. They theyve taken as long as five weeks. A week ago sunday, brazil tabulates the votes in five hours. In california, which believes itself to be a more advanced state takes five weeks. In any case, it appears that republicans have won more than the 234. They won it in 2012, more than the 242, they won in 2010. And almost certainly more than the 246, they won in 1946. You have to go back to the 1928 cycle to find a time when republicans did better in house elections. Norm was covering that for cbs radio. And thats thats there. Its, you know, part of this is baked into the cake by demographics. You know, in 2016, 2012, mitt romney who many of you will remember carried 226 house districts, carried a majo
The reserve seats can be used, at least for this session. Rather than your having to be stuck in the back. So as i started to say, one of the goals of this conference is to engage the Younger Generation in deciding what we should or should not do. What we should desist from doindoing in the area of support for democracy abroaded in the decades ahead. So its appropriate the next generation have a major voice in formulating the new consensus, hopefully well get to a new consensus you have bios, ive introduced only two speakers by name. In your conference packages you have bio information on all of them. Our goal today is to have a really intense focused discussion where people have a chance to engage the panelists have a chance to engage with each other, they have dissending and differing views and leaving plenty of dim for discussions with you. Thomas melia hopes to be here. Hes snuck traffic. Dissent. Here are the three questions ive asked our speakers and you to think about and focus
That we would have 16 trillion dollars. Even if you have that, why is that ok to have 22 trillion dollars of debt at in 10 years . By the is that considered still a good thing to do . Why is that considered still a good thing to do it . The best capacity is the size of the debt relative to the economy. What the president has proposed is to put us on a path where the debt is stabilized and we are coming down relative to gdp. It is still 100 of gdp. I would explain a little bit about the numbers. That is the 16 trillion dollar figure that you mentioned earlier. I do nothing that is inappropriate way of measuring our debt. It is not the measure of that that is economic relevant. Ten or 12 . Closer to 12. Ok. The Unemployment Rate became an issue in the campaign. The Unemployment Rate went down 8 . Ow normal some people said the numbers are played with by some people. Could to assure people that nothing improper happened on the Unemployment Rate . Claims that there was manipulation is absu