Let me try to call this full house to order, if i may. Welcome to brookings. My name is bill gallston. Im a senior fellow in governance studies. Thank you so much for coming and welcome also to the people who are watching this event live on cspan. Todays topic is the past, the present and possible future of the u. S. Senate. The occasion of this discussion is the publication of ira shapiros second book on the senate, this one entitled, broken can the senate save itself and the country . Those of oh you who read his first book on the senate will know how passionately he reveres the senate as an institution and will not be surprised to learn how distressed he is by what he describes as its precipitous decline. This topic could not be more timely. We are just days from the expiration of yet another shortterm continuing budget resolution and perhaps even more pertinently, from a promised open Senate Debate on u. S. Immigration policy. Will the promise be kept . And if it is, will todays se
The easy answer of course is that the jury is still out on how its going to go. What i tried to convey in the bookwas first , the senate has declined over a long period of time, not a couple of years, more like a couple of decades. Precise of the time that we need a strong one. All of a sudden we are facing the possibility of lets say we were facing the possibility of an inexperienced reckless, perhaps irresponsible, maybe authoritarian president. You would want a strong senate. We do not have one. The senate saved itself, changed from the downward spiral it has been on. And then step up to his responsibilities. And that is kind of the question. The book is optimistic in certain ways. I have already been criticized by someone who said you are too optimistic. It is optimistic because i believe, and we have seen recent evidence of it, that so many of the senators are disgusted with the institution the way it has been. You have written about this and you know. It is one of the least wellk
We have a cspan audience, Live Streaming soap wonderful to have everybody joining us for what they think wilwethink will be at conversation. Im excited about the people weve gathered and the ideas we are going to be discussing. Welcome to the committee for responsible budget for thostherf you who do not know if they Nonpartisan Organization the board of directors or people many of whom are with us today who have run all the bigbudget institutions in washington so the federal reserve, the treasury department, omb, the Budget Committees comes of a. To try to have a realistic understanding of the budget improvements are going to be needed to improve the fiscal situation in the country and to trick yo to have in a bipartisan way it kind of understanding of how hard it is to make these traces but there are so many reasons they are necessary to keep moving the ball forward. With that said i will say it is a rough time for the budget policy this country. Nobody should be under the impression
[inaudible conversations] let me try to call this full house to order, if i may. Welcome to brookings. My name is bill galston, senior fellow here in governance stud ies. Thanks so much for coming and welcome also to the people who are watching this event live on cspan. Todays topic is the past and the publication of ira shapiros second book on the senate, this one entitled broken, can the senate save itself and the country. Those of you who read his first book on the senate will know how passionately he reveres the senate as an an answers institution and will not know howdy how distress as decline this topic could not be more timely. We are just days from the expiration of yet another shortterm continuing budget re solution and perhaps even more pertinently from a promised open Senate Debate on u. S. Immigration policy. Will the promise be kept and if it is will todays senate be up to the job of an open deliberation on the most burning domestic question which is more than come itself
Weve gathered and the ideas we are going to be discussing. Welcome to the committee for responsible budget for thostherf you who do not know if they Nonpartisan Organization the board of directors or people many of whom are with us today who have run all the bigbudget institutions in washington so the federal reserve, the treasury department, omb, the Budget Committees comes of a. To try to have a realistic understanding of the budget improvements are going to be needed to improve the fiscal situation in the country and to trick yo to have in a bipartisan way it kind of understanding of how hard it is to make these traces but there are so many reasons they are necessary to keep moving the ball forward. With that said i will say it is a rough time for the budget policy this country. Nobody should be under the impression that the Fiscal Health of the country is good. It is not. Our debt relative to the economy is twice what its been on average. We are on track to bother us to be 10 trill