To the forum at the New York Public Library for the first session in shades of red and blue, uniting a divided nation. My name is simon longstaff. Im the executive director of the ethics center. On behalf of our partners in presenting this session, i would on behalf ofme you the Carnegie Council for ethics and International Affairs, as well as the bard globalization and International Affairs program, and a network of other australians like myself from around the world. Think, thaticant, i we are meeting just after midday on the first of april. Some people saw the choice of this date, and i thought it was a delicious irony. In fact, is a somewhat deliberate irony because in most countries around the world, people are aware of the fact that today is april fools day. The significant of the fool is often underestimated in literature underestimated. In the future in literature, the role of the fool was to just truth to power, not to speak truth to the powerful, but to speak truth to power.
Here had thele experience of you are driving along and suddenly your car is wrecked . And you pay for that outofpocket. When you are traffic and congestion because of that infrastructure when you could be at home reading to your kids or catching the ballgame, that is a cost to you. Everybody cares about that. Youres not matter what political persuasion is. Economic crisis since the worst depression, our businesses have created early 10 million new jobs over the past 52 months. The Unemployment Rate is at its lowest point since september of 2008. We have made huge strides in Energy Independence for the first time in more than a decade. Business leaders are saying the best place to invest is not china, the best place to invest in the United States of america. But we still have a lot of middleclass families all across the country who are working harder than ever just to get ahead. They need a break. They need some help and having better roads and less delays, that helps. Meanwhile, republ
He is our guest this week on the communicators. Commissioner welcome. The debate on Net Neutrality is a moving target right now on the hill and the fcc getting ready to do something. Whats the debate morph into at this point in your view . Guest first, peter thanks for having me on yet again and you picked a good time. The agency is em broiled in a number of high profile issues, Net Neutrality first and foremost among them. To me, the debate has morphed into a political football which i think is unfortunate because it obscures some Common Ground namely that everyone believes in a free and open internet. And i, for one, embrace as a part of that thenchairman powells four internet freedoms lawful content, applications of ones choice the freedom to attach devices to ones network and transparency in terms of service plan information. The question is how do we embrace those four freedoms in the context of regular ration . Regulation . I, for one, believe the bipartisan consensus that has be
Screeria nigeria. A look at the financial influence that outside groups have in todays elections. Next, a look at irs operations and how budget cuts have impacted the agencys ability to provided equate Customer Service. From washington journal this is an hour. At the time table nina olson the National Taxpayer advocate here to join us to talk about budget cuts and Customer Service. Related issues. Remind us what your job is. What does a National Taxpayer advocate do . The National Taxpayer advocate leads an organization within the irs that is charged with helping taxpayers solve problems with the irs and make administrative and legislative recommendations to congress about how to improve how the irs treats taxpayers and protect taxpayer rights. How long have you been doing this job . Since march, 2001. Your office put out this annual report to congress so we can take a look at it here. One of the headlines that came from it is from the new york times. Need help from the irs . It may ta
Its just over two hours. For those of us who have been in washington for a while feels a little bit like this person will say this and then this person will say the predictable thing and then marty sul van will say this and bob mcintyre will say that. So well probably have a little of that today. But our goal today was to move a little bit beyond the conversation about whether dynamic scoring is either the best thing to ever happen to washington or the worst thing to ever happen to washington. And, instead, to focus a little more on what is it actually mean and how do you do it. What were going to focus on today is skpaktly how it would be done. What assumptions youd have to make. What are the challenges that the jct and the cbo staff face in doing it. How can it be best presented so that members of congress and the rest of us have a clue as to what the analysis does. So this is a bit of an experiment. And, moving beyond the basic pissing context in washington to look at a little bit o