Am delighted to welcome all of you to the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. Especially delighted to n, asme director rasmusse he completes nearly 30 years of Government Service. We are fortunate and honored he chose to offer a parting thoughts that the place for his atfessional journey began, carnegie where he served as an intern in the Junior Fellows Program after graduating from wesleyan. I have known nick for many years since the 1990s, we served together in the state department, when he worked for did this ross in the middle east coordinators office. Next went on to serve as one of the very few senior u. S. Government officials to serve virtually continuously since 9 11 and fighting terrorism around the world. Over the last three years, he has led and molded hundreds of colleagues across different federal agencies into a remarkably strong and cohesive chain. Ana moment when there is increasing tendency, i think, to disparage sometimes and to politicize the work of career
But earlier this year, columbias law professor matthew waxman, the chair of the Cyber Security center and the program on National Security and law road an article that is truly intriguing and you will all agree. It is worthy of serious discussion. It is called the power to wage war successfully. It touched on many things that we are all interested in. First and foremost, it centered on a truly historic figure that few of us know much about anymore and has basically been lost to time. It is the extraordinary Charles Evans hughs. He had an Extraordinary Public Service career. It was unparalleled by most measures. He served as the governor of new york state from 19071910 and was named to the Supreme Court by William Howard taft. Into that term, he took the nomination for president and narrowly lost the Electoral College to wilson. It was 4000 votes in california. In 1921, Warren Harding named hughs the secretary of state and he served until 1925. In 1930, he entered Government Service aga
National security and law road wrote an article that is truly intriguing and you will all agree. It is worthy of serious discussion. It is called the power to wage war successfully. It touched on many things that we at the society are interested in. First and foremost, it centered on a truly historic figure that sadly, few of us know much about anymore and has basically been lost to time. I dont like that phrase but it has been lost to time. It is the extraordinary Charles Evans hughs. Mr. Hughes had what anyone would say is an Extraordinary Public Service career. It was unparalleled by most measures. He served as the governor of new york state from 19071910 and was named to the Supreme Court by William Howard taft. Four years into that term, he republicane nomination for president and narrowly lost the Electoral College to what was then president wilson. It was 4000 votes in california. In 1921, president Lauren Harding president Warren Harding named hughs the secretary of state and a
The committee will come to order. Todays hearing is on president obamas budget for fiscal year 2017. I particularly want to thank secretary lew for providing for appearing before us this morning and providing his time for us. While there are some hints about some of the details in advance, Congress Officially received the president s Budget Proposal yesterday. And as has been the case particularly under this administration, what we received was not a practical vision for the future. Weve going to have to have order here. As has too often been the case, what we received was a not a practical vision for the future but designed to sewuency constituencies. He looks to raise taxes on hard working americans, including some special new regressive taxes that are being packaged as, quote, fees unquote. With all the revenue going to fuel expanded government and spending that is being sold to the public as, quote, investment, unquote. No matter what terms people want to use, this budget once agai
Managed to be in default on small bond issues by doing things almost unthinkable in terms of financial management. When you talk about prematurely emptying out Pension Funds to pay bondholders, that is not something you do if youre not already bankrupt. When you talk about taking money dedicated to one bondholder and shift it to pay another bondholder, that cant go on for very long. I cant tell you at what point they run out of those extraordinary and very unhealthy kinds of tools but it cant go on forever and restructuring authority has to be in place enough in advance to restructure to meet may and july as they come. So i think the First Quarter is a meaningful period if the deadline, the speak et set for the house to act is very important. We are willing to work with everyone and anyone that approaches us with the intention of solving the problem. We know that there is going to have to be oversight with restructuring. I do believe doing something on the medicate reimbursement is imp